Key Points:

• 10% of Americans now identify as LGBTQ+

• Eight in ten Americans favor laws that would protect LGBTQ+ people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing

• 66% of Republicans favor nondiscrimination provisions for LGBTQ+ people

• Seven in ten Americans support marriage equality, including nearly half of Republicans

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) oppose religiously based refusals to serve LGBTQ+ people

• Majorities of almost every major religious group oppose allowing religiously based service refusals

Summary of Key Sections

Full findings: PRRI: Findings From the 2022 American Values Atlas

Eight in Ten Support Nondiscrimination Laws to Protect LGBTQ+ People

Eight in ten Americans (80%) favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing. This includes 48% who strongly support such laws. About one in five Americans (18%) oppose these laws, including 7% who strongly oppose them. Support for these protections has increased over the past few years: around seven in ten Americans favored nondiscrimination provisions in 2015 (71%), 2017 (70%), 2018 (69%), and 2019 (72%), before rising to 76% in 2020 and 79% in 2021.

Overwhelming shares of Democrats (90%) and independents (82%), as well as two-thirds of Republicans (66%), favor nondiscrimination provisions for LGBTQ+ people.

Vast majorities of most major religious groups support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people. This includes nearly all Unitarian Universalists (92%), members of other non-Christian religions (88%), religiously unaffiliated Americans (87%), Hispanic Catholics (86%), Jewish Americans (86%), white mainline Protestants (83%), and white Catholics (82%). At least three in four Black Protestants (79%), other Catholics of color (79%), Latter-day Saints (78%), Buddhists (78%), Hindus (76%), and other Protestants of color (75%) support nondiscrimination laws to protect LGBTQ+ people. In addition, seven in ten Orthodox Christians (70%) and Muslims (70%) support such laws. A smaller majority of Hispanic Protestants (62%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%) also support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people. Jehovah’s Witnesses are the religious group whose members are the least likely to support such protections, with support at 50%. Among almost all these groups, support has either increased or not seen a substantial change since 2015. Only Hispanic Protestants have decreased in support since 2015.

Majorities of almost every major racial and ethnic group support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people. This includes AAPI (82%), white Americans (80%, up from 71% in 2015), Hispanic Americans (79%, up from 74% in 2015), Black Americans (75%, up from 65% in 2015) and multiracial Americans (79%, up from 72% in 2015).

More Than Two-Thirds Support Marriage Equality

Support for legal same-sex marriage has steadily increased in the United States for nearly a decade. Nearly seven in ten Americans (69%) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. The majority of Americans were in support of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally in 2014 and 2015 (54% and 53%, respectively). Support increased to around six in ten Americans in subsequent years (58% in 2016, 61% in 2017, and 62% in 2018 and 2019), and then to around seven in ten in 2020, 2021, and 2022 (67%, 68%, and 69%, respectively). PRRI finds that support for same-sex marriage has consistently grown across virtually all demographics and affiliations, even within groups in which supporters are not the majority.

About half of Republicans (49%) support same-sex marriage, compared to about one-third in 2014 (35%). The level of support among independents has aligned with the level among all Americans, with 73% expressing support in 2022 (up from 58% in 2014). Support has increased among Democrats, going from around two-thirds in 2014 (65%) to more than eight in ten in 2022 (83%).

Two-Thirds Oppose Religiously Based Refusals to Serve LGBTQ+ People

A majority of Americans have consistently opposed permitting businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ+ people on religious grounds, and in 2022 nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) oppose allowing such refusals. One-third of Americans (33%) support allowing religiously based service refusals, including 15% who strongly favor allowing them. Opposition to allowing religiously based service refusals has fluctuated since 2015, when 59% of Americans opposed this policy.

Nearly nine in ten Democrats (86%) and about two-thirds of independents (64%) oppose allowing religiously based refusals to serve gay and lesbian people. About four in ten Republicans (41%) oppose allowing such service refusals, while a majority of Republicans (57%) support allowing them.

Majorities of almost every major religious group oppose allowing religiously based service refusals, including 88% of Unitarian Universalists, 78% of Hispanic Catholics, 77% of Hindus, 77% of members of other non-Christian religions, 76% of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 73% of Black Protestants, 73% of other Catholics of color, 73% of Muslims, 73% of Jewish Americans, 73% of Buddhists, 64% of white Catholics, 63% of Hispanic Protestants, 62% of white mainline Protestants, and 54% of other Protestants of color. Half of Orthodox Christians (51%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (50%), less than half of Latter-Day Saints (46%), and only 37% of white evangelical Protestants also oppose allowing religiously based service refusals. The level of opposition has increased among every group except Orthodox Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, and white evangelical Protestants.

The full report is available on PRRI’s website.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ++ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.