(RNS) — While most Americans continue to broadly support LGBTQ rights, that support may be waning, including among religious Americans, according to a new poll from PRRI.
In contrast to the year before, the report found that Americans are somewhat less likely to resist allowing business owners to refuse to serve gay people for religious reasons and are significantly less likely to support same-sex marriage and gay nondiscrimination protections.
According to Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI, “the great tale is that most Americans of beliefs are generally supportive of LGBTQ rights.” “But, we do notice a slight decline in the sentiments of Americans toward LGBTQ rights in three of the issues we examined…We found that to be a little amazing.”
This information is similar to “a canary in the coal mine,” according to Deckman for organizations that support LGBTQ rights.
Proportion falls
Seventy-six percent of American adults reported supporting LGBTQ equality policies in open accommodations, housing, and employment, the study found, down from 80 percent the year before.
The majority of respondents to the majority of religious organizations even support equality laws for gay, though support for many of them decreased significantly from 2022 to 2023. Among Muslims, for instance, PRRI reports a fall from 70 percent aid in 2022 to 56 percent in 2023. White evangelical Protestants saw a decline from 62 percent to 56 percent, and Hispanic Christians from 86 percent to 78 percent.
A majority of Americans (67 percent) also continue to support same-sex marriage, though that number was down 2 percentage points from the previous year.
While majorities of all but a handful of spiritual groups favor constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage (most Jehovah’s Witnesses, white evangelical Protestants, Muslims, Hispanic Protestants, and Latter-day Saints are in opposition), many groups even saw dips in support. The biggest drops in aid were among Hispanic Christians, with a drop of 7 percentage points from 2022, and Muslims, which dropped 13 percentage points.
A majority of Americans have opposed allowing a small business owner to refuse service to LGBTQ individuals for religious reasons since PRRI began tracking the problem in 2015. As in the other categories, that lot still stands, but fell from last year. In 2023, 60 percent of Americans said they were opposed, compared with 65 percent in 2022. Almost every religious sect even observed falls.
Across all three policy categories, Unitarian Universalists, the religiously unaffiliated, Jewish Americans, and non-Hispanic Catholics of color constantly showed the highest support for LGBTQ rights, while Jehovah’s Witnesses, white evangelical Protestants, and Hispanic Protestants showed the least support.
Reasons for decline
Deckman partially attributed the declines in support to political polarization, and more specifically to the divisions surrounding LGBTQ policies, including laws and bathroom policies that impact gender-affirming care.
“Republicans have very strategically, I think, used that as a wedge issue,” said Deckman. “What might be happening is that continuing to discuss LGBTQ identity and focusing on the differences between Americans regarding transgender issues is having a bigger impact on Americans’ attitudes about LGBT rights in general, though it’s hard to tell from this one cross-section.”
These observations are reflected in the findings, which reveal that Republicans’ support for LGBTQ rights has decreased in comparison to last year, despite Democrats’ support for LGBTQ rights remaining steady across all three measures.
Political ideology appears to be a contributing factor. According to PRRI, support for Christian nationalism, which Deckman defines as the idea that all 50 states should support the right to have a Christian nation as their own, is negatively correlated with support for LGBTQ rights. Support for same-sex marriage, support for LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws, and support for opposing religious refusals to LGBTQ customers decline as states scored higher on PRRI’s Christian nationalism scale.
“We often assume in public opinion, when it comes to LGBTQ issues, that Americans are destined to become far more embracing of the rights of LGBTQ Americans,” said Deckman. However, this data demonstrates that the notion of more progressive and accepting attitudes toward LGBT Americans shouldn’t necessarily be taken for granted.
