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Alabama Verdict on Same-Sex Marriage Highlights Pending U.S. Supreme Court Ruling
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Alabama Verdict on Same-Sex Marriage Highlights Pending U.S. Supreme Court Ruling

The Alabama Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered probate judges in that state to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, defying a U.S. District Court ruling that had overturned Alabama's ban on such marriages. Alabama is one of the most religious and most conservative states in the union, and also one with a long history of revering states' rights. It is not surprising that this ruling emanated from that state.

The Alabama Supreme Court decision underscores the importance of the forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court consideration of cases from four states dealing with a state's right to ban same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the case in April, with a ruling expected by this summer -- one that will have important and lasting implications. At this point, 37 states allow same-sex marriage, while it is not legal in 13.

In terms of public opinion, there has been a decided shift in favor of recognizing same-sex marriage over the past four years, from a situation in which a majority of Americans opposed it, to a situation in which 55% are now in favor. As these types of trends go, this is a very significant shift in opinion in such a short period of time.

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But how many Americans will the U.S. Supreme Court decision affect directly? That, of course, is impossible to know. If the Supreme Court decision is favorable to same-sex marriage, making it de facto legal in all states, the number of such marriages would almost certainly go up.

We do have some facts at our fingertips, however. We know that about 3.7% of the U.S. adult population identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in our 2014 Gallup interviewing, and of that group about 23% reported being married. That's about 1% of the overall adult population in the U.S. (By way of comparison, 52% of non-LGBT Americans are married.) But what we haven't been able to determine up to this point is the percentage of LGBT married individuals who are married to opposite-sex spouses and how many have taken advantage of the rapidly-increasing, more permissive laws in many states and are legally married to same-sex partners.

We are starting to remedy that situation. Beginning in late January, Gallup began asking respondents who both identified as LGBT and who also said they were married about the sex of their spouse. We will report a refined estimate after sample sizes build up over the next several months, but the preliminary data collected over the past five weeks show that of the 23% of LGBT individuals who are married, about six in 10 report being married to opposite-sex partners, while a little less than four in 10 are married to same-sex partners (there are a couple of percentage points of don't knows and refusals). That suggests, preliminarily, that about 0.3% of the U.S. adult population identify as LGBT, are married, and are married to same-sex spouses.

As noted, that's just a preliminary estimate, with more conclusive data to come as we get closer to the time when the Supreme Court will announce its decision. Any survey data of this sort, of course, has some limitations in terms of its precision, but given that there is no current data from the U.S. Census Bureau on same-sex marriages, it's as good an estimate as we have at this point in time.

Of great interest as well will be the impact of the Supreme Court decision on overall attitudes toward same-sex marriage among the general U.S. population. We will update those in our May Values and Beliefs survey, before the Supreme Court's ruling, and will most likely measure them again shortly after the ruling is handed down.

Author(s)

Frank Newport, Ph.D., is a Gallup Senior Scientist. He is the author of Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People and God Is Alive and Well. Twitter: @Frank_Newport


Gallup https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/181823/alabama-verdict-sex-marriage-highlights-pending-supreme-court-ruling.aspx
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