That is the finding of the Public Religion Research Institute. Not only do Catholics support same-sex marriage in higher numbers than other religious groups, but they even support same-sex marriage in higher numbers than the non-religious (even though the percentage of support for SSM is higher among the non-religious than Catholics–56% vs. 42%–since there are more Catholics than non-religious Americans, the actual number of Catholics who support SSM is higher than the number of non-religious citizens who support SSM).
According to PRRI:
- “A majority of Catholics (56%) believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender is not a sin. Among the general population, less than half (46%) believe it is not a sin.”
- “Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.”
This is just one more example of why the oft-touted claim that religion (Christianity in particular) is the cause for opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage in this country is dead wrong.
HT: Theology in the News
Thinking to Believe 
January 11, 2012 at 9:39 am
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from the article. It compares religious groups to each other, and it compares religious groups to the overall baseline of the American public (which contains religious groups).
Unless your point is just that religion is not the ONLY factor in opposition to same sex marriage.
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January 11, 2012 at 9:53 am
Patrick,
I’m not sure I understand. Let me attempt to make my point clearer, and perhaps you can then respond in kind.
People are under the impression all the opposition to same-sex marriage in this country is coming from Christians. This poll shows that most of the support for same-sex marriage is actually coming from Christians. Catholic Christians are the biggest supporters of same-sex marriage, and support it in greater numbers than even the non-religious. That is why I conclude that it is not true that Christianity is the cause for opposition to same-sex marriage in this country. If all the Christians were removed from this country tomorrow, support for same-sex marriage would actually drop in percentage.
Jason
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January 11, 2012 at 11:50 am
“People are under the impression all the opposition to same-sex marriage in this country is coming from Christians.”
I haven’t actually got the impression that this was a widespread belief, but I’ll take your word for it that this is what you were responding to. If so, then you’re right, and I misinterpreted you. I apologize.
“This poll shows that most of the support for same-sex marriage is actually coming from Christians. Catholic Christians are the biggest supporters of same-sex marriage, and support it in greater numbers than even the non-religious.”
The article you linked does not claim this. What the article does claim is:
“Beyond the issue of same-sex marriage, Catholic support for rights for gays and lesbian people is strong and slightly higher than the general public.”
The “general public” is not “the non-religious.” The general public includes all religious groups, including those who stridently oppose gay rights.
The article you linked includes its own link to a pdf of the original research on which the article was based. In that pdf, on the 10th page of the pdf (page 6 by the article’s internal numbering), there is an info-graphic that summarizes support amongst various religious groups. The closest it contains to information on the “non-religious” is the entry for the religiously “unaffiliated,” which shows higher support for gay rights than found amongst the later entries for Catholics.
The 12th page (page 8 by internal numbering) includes a comparison of two polls, both of which reached similar conclusions regarding the comparative rate of support for same sex marriage between Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated.
Just to be clear- “unaffiliated” is not the same thing as “non religious.” But it is the closest comparison in the research given, and it does not support the conclusion you’ve drawn.
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January 12, 2012 at 2:22 am
Patrick,
I couldn’t point to a poll to prove it (though there may be one), but from a large pool of anecdotal evidence from both media comments and personal encounters with people, I think that this is what most people truly believe: that if it wasn’t for religious people (Christians in particular), SSM would be a legal reality. I contend that the truth is quite the opposite: SSM could never become a legal reality if it were not for Christians. If the only people voting in support of SSM were the non-religious, pro-SSM referendums would have no chance of passing. It is only because of the large number of Christian supporters of SSM that SSM has a chance of being democratically enacted in this country (I am taking for granted the assumption that SSM contradicts the Christian religion, and that Christians who support SSM are being inconsistent with their Christian faith. If they were voting according to the tenets of their religion, they would be voting against SSM). I’ll pick this thought back up in a second.
As for your second point, you are both right and wrong. I think I may have interpreted the summary article’s reference to “general population” to refer to the non-religious. And you are right that this would be inaccurate. The general population would include all Protestants and the non-religious. And the report clearly showed that the % non-religious who approve of SSM is greater than the % of Catholics who do the same (56% vs. 43%). Strangely, then, my statement that “not only do Catholics support same-sex marriage in higher numbers than other religious groups, but they even support same-sex marriage in higher numbers than the non-religious!” is right as it is worded, but wrong according to what I meant. By “numbers” I meant “percentages,” and it is false that the % of Catholic support for SSM is higher than the % of non-religious who support SSM (I will be fixing that error after I post this comment). But it is true that a greater number of Catholics support SSM than do the non-religious because there are more Catholics than non-religious.
Catholics constitute 24% of the U.S. adult population while the non-religious constitute 16% of the population (this number comes from the Pew Research study, not the Catholic study…which did not say what % of the population is constituted by the non-religious). With an adult population of 236 million people, that means there are 56,640,000 Catholics in this country, and of that number 24,355,200 support SSM. But there are only 37,760,000 non-religious citizens, and of that number 211,45,600 support SSM. So there are more Catholics who support SSM than the non-religious. And if we were to include all the Protestants who support SSM, the difference would be even greater, perhaps by as much as 3:1. Clearly when it comes to numbers, the greatest support for SSM is coming from the Christian community. If all Christians stopped supporting SSM tomorrow, the % of Americans who support SSM would drop from its current ~50% to something like ~15-20% of the population. So rather than hindering the legalization of SSM, Christians are making it possible.
BTW, I was being quite specific by defining the “unaffiliated” as “non-religious,” as opposed to “non-believers” or “atheists” because, as you pointed out, the report does not say this group of people do not believe in God. It just says that they are not affiliated with any religion, hence, my identification of “non-religious.” For my purposes it is not important to know how this group is broken down in terms of belief in a deity of some sort. It is simply important that they are not part of any religion, since the impression of people is that it is only the religious who are opposed to SSM.
Jason
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January 12, 2012 at 7:11 am
I’m not sure its useful to work by absolute numbers rather than percentage. It can lead to technically true, but misleading, statements.
“So rather than hindering the legalization of SSM, Christians are making it possible.”
Given the definitions and math you’ve decided to go with, Christians are both hindering the legalization of same sex marriage AND making it possible.
But at least we’ve ironed out the actual content of the article.
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January 12, 2012 at 9:19 am
Patrick,
Yes, I think we’ve made progress here, and I appreciate you making me dig into this a bit deeper.
As for whether it is more useful to look at percentages rather than numbers, that depends on the issue at hand. In this particular issue, it’s all about the numbers because we are talking about votes. People are under the impression that it’s all those Christian voters that are stopping the passage of SSM referendums/laws. Not so. If Christians who supported SSM stopped voting, there is no chance at all that SSM would pass. SSM advocates have to rely on Christian support since Christians make up the largest block of support for SSM. Of course, if Christians who opposed SSM stopped voting, then SSM advocates would win. But that’s not saying much, because it goes without saying that if one side doesn’t show up to the debate, the other wins. That’s the nature of voting.
Jason
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January 12, 2012 at 11:52 am
Right, right, obviously if a group makes up more than 50% of the population, and you need 50% for something to pass, then you either need some amount of support from that group, or else you need that group not to vote.
I just objected to the idea that “rather than” hindering the passage of same sex marriage, Christians were “making it possible.”
Given the framework you’re using, both are the case. Christians are hindering the passage of same sex marriage. They are also making it possible. The two are not mutually exclusive if you are talking about absolute numbers of voters on each side of the issue.
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January 12, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Patrick,
You are right, and I think I made the same point in my last response. There is definitely a sense in which Christians (but not exclusively) are holding back the legalization of SSM. But that much is obvious to everyone. What is not obvious is that if it were not for Christian support of SSM, it would never stand of chance of passing. The non-religious do not have the numbers to do so. So SSM gains (when enacted democratically) can only come about because Christians–the largest supporters of SSM–do so.
Jason
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