Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. Adults Think Homosexuality Is “Morally Unacceptable”

https://www.them.us/story/nearly-4-in-10-us-adults-think-homosexuality-is-morally-unacceptable

The U.S. placed ninth among 25 countries surveyed.

By Samantha Riedel

March 11, 2026

Madrid traffic lights to promote gender equality and LGBT toleranceBen Vine

Thirty-nine percent of U.S. adults still believe homosexuality is “morally unacceptable,” according to a new report from the Pew Research Center published last week.

Pew researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,605 adults in the U.S. last March, as part of a study about moral attitudes in 25 different countries, according to the report. Respondents were asked whether they believed certain behaviors — including homosexuality — were morally acceptable, unacceptable, or not a moral issue. (In U.S. surveys, the word “unacceptable” was changed to “wrong.”)

Within the U.S. sample, 39% viewed being gay as morally wrong. That placed the U.S. ninth among all countries surveyed by rate of anti-gay sentiment, between Israel (47%) and Hungary (34%). There was a slight net shift upward compared to Pew research from 2013, which found 37% of adults in the U.S. believed homosexuality was immoral.

Researchers did find significant differences in opinion between demographics, however. Sixty-two percent of U.S. women said it was acceptable or not a moral issue to be gay, compared to 56% of men. Disapproval also skewed older, with 43% of U.S. adults 40 years old or older saying homosexuality was unacceptable, compared to 33% of those aged 18-39. People with lower levels of formal education were also more likely to disapprove of all the behaviors surveyed, which included getting an abortion, gambling, and watching pornography.

The largest gaps in acceptance appeared to be based on religiosity. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. adults who said they pray daily disapproved of being gay, compared to just 24% of those who said they pray less often or not at all. That was especially true for Christians, who were “often among the most likely to consider each of the nine behaviors to be morally unacceptable,” researchers noted. In Nigeria, one of several African nations where U.S. evangelical groups have heavily influenced anti-gay laws and public opinion over the past two decades, 96% of respondents said being gay was immoral. (The most gay-accepting countries of the 25 surveyed were Germany and Sweden, where only 5% said homosexuality was unacceptable.)

Moms Are Risking Arrest to Protect Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth

The government wants to ban care nationwide, and hospitals are shutting down treatment. Parents just want it all to stop.

The Pew questions specifically asked respondents for their views on homosexuality, rather than the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, and did not ask about transgender people. A Pew survey of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. last year found that most believed attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual people were becoming more positive, but that acceptance of trans people had declined.

The new Pew report also found that the U.S. was the only country where a minority of respondents (47%) viewed their neighbors as “very” or “somewhat” morally good. Democrats and left-leaning independents were more likely to view other citizens as morally bad, researchers noted, but that trend was also true for people outside the U.S. who did not support their country’s governing party. Overall, the U.S. is “in the middle of the pack” on most behaviors surveyed and was not uniquely judgmental, researchers noted, though U.S. respondents were generally less approving of extramarital affairs than most other countries and more positive about marijuana use than any country other than Canada.

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

---

Samantha Riedel is a writer and editor whose work on transgender culture and politics has previously appeared in VICE, Bitch Magazine, and The Establishment. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is presently at work on her first manuscript. … Read More