A majority of white evangelical Americans support laws providing legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgenders so that they can’t be discriminated against for jobs, public accommodations and housing, newly released polling data shows.
As Democrats in Congress reintroduced the Equality Act on Wednesday, the Public Religion Research Institute released data Tuesday showing that majorities from every state favor nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people.
The data was taken from PRRI’s 2018 American Values Atlas, a research project in which over 54,000 Americans across 50 states were surveyed last year about a number of critical issues facing the country.
While 79 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents said that they favor legislation that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination, a majority of Republicans (56 percent) said they also favor such laws.
“While support among Democrats and independents has remained relatively constant, Republican support for these provisions has fallen five percentage points over the past few years, down from 61 percent in 2015,” a PRRI analysis of the data reads.
When broken down by religious affiliation, white evangelical Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses were the least likely to support LGBT nondiscrimination protections.
But even though white evangelicals are largely seen as theologically opposed to homosexuality and transgender identity, 54 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed said they support LGBT nondiscrimination protections.
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith
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