According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans (61%) support same-sex marriage and the number remains virtually unchanged from 2017. That’s not too surprising — more people have accepted it as a reality and the issue hasn’t changed much over the past two years — but what’s interesting is how segments of the country are divided on the issue.
Support for marriage equality is higher for Democrats (75%) than Republicans (44%), and for young people (74%) than old (45%).
And when it comes to religion, the divide is especially clear: People without religion support civil rights while the most politically powerful white Christians refuse to accept gay couples as legitimate.
Among religious groups, majorities of Catholics (61%), white mainline Protestants (66%) and the religiously unaffiliated (79%) say they support same-sex marriage. By contrast, just 29% of white evangelical Protestants favor same-sex marriage, while about twice as many (63%) are opposed.
It’s fair to assume atheists would be even higher in our support than the broader “Unaffiliated” category since most of that crowd still believes in some Higher Power. (In case you’re wondering why the numbers went slightly down for all groups since 2017, it may be because the issue hasn’t been front and center in the news as it was a few years ago.)
The numbers are just another reminder that faith isn’t a virtue. The people who claim religion and morality are synonymous continue screwing up the easiest moral question of our time.