Marriage
Explore Â鶹´«Ã½AV's research.
Â鶹´«Ã½AV data show U.S. marriage rates have declined since 1980, especially among Democrats compared with Republicans.
Americans remain largely supportive of the legalization of same-sex marriages, and a majority believe gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable.
Married people are more likely to be thriving in their wellbeing than adults who have never married, are divorced or are living with a domestic partner.
Americans' lessened confidence in society's institutions and norms may affect society's ability to deal with crucial external and internal threats.
Despite declining fertility and marriage rates, Americans want to have children and to be married.
Views on the morality of a variety of practices are largely stable, though fewer say same-sex relations are morally OK and more say the death penalty is.
Seventy-one percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Â鶹´«Ã½AV recorded in 2022.
Birth control and divorce remain the most morally acceptable of 19 issues measured, and extramarital affairs and cloning humans the most morally wrong.
Seventy-one percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriage, a new high in Â鶹´«Ã½AV's trend.
Â鶹´«Ã½AV finds that 10% of LGBT adults in the U.S. are married to a same-sex spouse, and another 6% live with a same-sex partner.
Ninety-four percent of U.S. adults now approve of marriages between Black people and White people. Just 4% approved when Â鶹´«Ã½AV first asked the question in 1958.
Americans are divided in their views of the morality of changing one's gender, with 51% saying it is morally wrong and 46% saying it is morally acceptable.
U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage continues to grow, now at 70% -- a new high in Â鶹´«Ã½AV's trend dating to 1996.
Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults say it is very important for a couple who has a child together to be married, down from 38% in 2013 and 49% in 2006.
Amid the cascade of negative news, there are some positive notes from the American people.
Over the next week, Â鶹´«Ã½AV will release a series of three articles providing insight into LGBT issues.