New Poll: The Majority of Young Evangelicals are Pro gay Marriage

By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune 

It’s not news that young people are more liberal than their elders on matters touching on sexuality and public policy -- issues like same-sex marriage, adoption and so forth. But a non-partisan poll released this week charts how that split carves deeply into even the white evangelical community, the most socially conservative major group on the American religious landscape.

Mike Groll, The Associated PressSupporters for gay marriage carry signs and sing in a hallway at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., in June. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly half of young evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

The poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 44 percent – nearly half – of young evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

Nearly half that generation is outside the evangelical tent on that issue.

By contrast, the white evangelical community as a whole, even counting those relatively liberal young adults, is solidly opposed to same sex marriage, by slightly more than 80 percent.

That’s a generational split in conservative communities that include Southern Baptists and hundreds of independent  evangelical churches that identify themselves as simply Christian.

Remember that one of foundations of evangelical life is trust in Scripture as the sole authoritative guide for living. And evangelicals locate their disapproval of homosexual living in Leviticus 18:22, 1 Cor. 6:9; and Romans 1:24-27.

The researchers don’t offer much in the way of explanatory insights, which are left to others.

But clearly, the power of culture, perhaps the experience of gay and lesbian friends and other factors are in collision with younger evangelicals’ understanding of Scripture.

More broadly, the poll found “at least a 20 point generation gap between Millennials (age 18-29) and seniors (65 and over) on every public policy measure in the survey concerning rights for gay and lesbian people."

That was true for religious young adults and those who do not consider themselves religious.

It even includes young Republicans. Nearly half, 49 percent, favor allowing gay and lesbian people to marry, the research found.

The poll demonstrates again why it’s unwise to assume that a person’s religious affiliation, if any, predicts his or her stance on sexuality issues.

Young evangelicals offer one caution. So does this: The research found that a slight majority of all Catholics, 52 percent, favor same-sex marriage, despite the energetic teaching of their church to the contrary.

Finally, and perhaps least surprisingly the Public Religion Research poll confirmed findings from other polls that since 2006 the American public has come to a tipping point on the issue of same sex marriage – either equally divided or slightly in favor.

The PRRI poll measured the split at 47 percent for and 47 percent against.

"This is the first year that support for allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is not a minority position," said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute.

"Overall trends, and the strongly supportive attitudes of the Millennial generation suggest that we will look back on 2011 as the year marking a sea change in American attitudes on gay and lesbian issues."

The survey, consisting of 3,000 telephone interviews, was done in July. The margin of error for the general population is plus or minus 2 percentage points. The margin for young adult responses is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

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