Survey: Support for gay marriage surges

Associated Press

NEW YORK

In the two years since same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, support for it has surged even among groups that recently were broadly opposed, according to a new national survey.

The Pew Research Center survey found that for the first time, a majority of blacks and baby boomers support allowing gays and lesbians to wed. It said Republicans are now split almost evenly, a marked shift from 2013, when 61 percent opposed gay marriage.

Pew’s survey was conducted by telephone among 2,504 adults across the U.S. from June 8 to 18. It was released Monday, the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling on same-sex marriage.

In the aftermath of that ruling, there were some flare-ups of defiance. A county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore, ordered probate judges to stop issuing such licenses.

But such acts of resistance have largely faded way, and same-sex marriage is now treated as a routine occurrence across the U.S. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, there are now more than 547,000 same-sex married couples in the U.S., including at least 157,000 couples who married in the past two years.