Support for same-sex marriage among U.S. adults fell to 65% in 2026, marking a second straight year of decline after the measure peaked at 71% in both 2022 and 2023, according to new Gallup polling.
The survey, conducted May 1-17, 2026 among 1,001 U.S. adults, is the latest reading in Gallup’s tracking of the issue, which began in 1996, when 27% of Americans supported legal same-sex marriage.
Key Points
- 65% of Americans support same-sex marriage in 2026, down from 68% in 2025 and 69% in 2024, per Gallup.
- Support peaked at 71% in both 2022 and 2023 before beginning its current decline.
- The drop is concentrated among Republicans, whose support fell to 37%, down from 55% in 2021-2022, an 18-point change over four years, Gallup found.
- Democratic support currently stands at 87%, essentially unchanged, while independent support slipped from 73% to 67% over the same period, according to the survey.
- 62% of Americans now say gay and lesbian relations are “morally acceptable,” down from a 2022 peak of 71% and the lowest share Gallup has recorded since 2016.
The decline isn’t isolated to marriage attitudes. The same survey found 38% of Americans consider changing one’s gender to be morally acceptable, down from 46% in 2021, part of a broader multi-year pullback across several LGBTQ-related measures Gallup tracks annually.
Fortune’s review of the data likewise noted the four-year, 6-point drop from the 2022-2023 peak of 71% to 65% this year, pointing to shifting Republican attitudes as the primary driver of the overall national change.
Gallup has asked Americans about same-sex marriage annually since 1996 using consistent question wording, which allows for direct year-over-year comparison. Support first crossed the 50% mark in 2012, then climbed steadily for roughly a decade before topping out at 71% in 2022 and 2023. The current survey carries a margin of error of ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Gallup itself describes the pattern as a reversal following two decades of growth, noting in its release that approval of same-sex marriage, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations, and endorsement of gender changes “are all down from peaks reached in the early 2020s” and have “edged downward” since, a shift Gallup attributes mostly to movement among Republicans.
Despite the recent pullback, current support for same-sex marriage remains more than double what Gallup recorded when it began tracking the question three decades ago, when support stood at 27%.
