Americans’ support for same-sex marriage has dipped in the last year, according to a new poll.
In the Gallup poll, 65 percent of respondents said same-sex marriages “should be valid” under the law, while 32 percent said same-sex marriages “should not be valid” under the law. Three percent had no opinion.
Last May, 68 percent said same-sex marriages “should be valid” under the law and 29 percent said the marriages “should not be valid.” In May 2024, 69 percent backed the legality of same-sex marriages and 23 percent did not.
In recent years, Republican lawmakers in some states have called for the Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision made in 2015, which guaranteed same-sex marriage nationwide. A number of GOP senators in 2022 voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages.
More recently, conservatives have increasingly targeted transgender people through efforts to limit access to gender-affirming care and restrict transgender children competing in sports categories aligned with their gender.
Tension boiled over between House Republicans concerning gay rights earlier this week, with GOP Rep. Mike Lawler (N.Y.) and former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) pushing back on Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) who made a now-deleted social media post saying that “homosexuality has no place in America.”
“Happy Nuclear Family Month,” Ogles added in the message, seemingly referencing Pride Month, which is celebrated in June.
In response to his Republican colleague, Lawler said, “Homosexuality exists. In America.”
“In fact, Andy, you have family, friends, neighbors, colleagues and constituents who are gay and lesbian. It doesn’t make them less than or somehow unworthy of being an American. What an absolutely idiotic statement to make.”
Ogles later told The Hill that he had not approved the post.
The Gallup poll took place from May 1 to 17, featuring 1,001 adults and a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that his government would quickly work to follow recent court rulings requiring Poland to legally recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other European Union (EU) member nations.
Recent rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) both require Poland to recognize foreign same-sex marriages, after a married same-sex couple (including a Polish citizen) weren’t allowed to have their 2018 German marriage certificate entered into the Polish civil registry.
The men challenged the denial at the NSA, which then referred the case to the CJEU. The CJEU ruled in November 2025 that the couple’s marriage was valid throughout the EU’s 27-member bloc, and that Poland could recognize their union without also altering its laws to start offering same-sex marriages.
Then, last March, the NSA ordered the government to transcribe the men’s same-sex marriage certificate into the Polish system, resulting in de facto government recognition of a same-sex couple’s marriage in the country; a historic first for Poland.
In comments to the media before a closed cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Tusk apologized for the “years of rejection and humiliation” that same-sex couples have experienced due to Poland not legally recognizing their marriages, Notes from Poland reported.
“[This is] a matter of human dignity: the right to happiness, the right to equal treatment by the state,” Tusk said. “I would like to apologize to all those who, for many, many years, felt rejected and humiliated. For many years, the [Polish] state has failed the test.”
Tusk also said that Poland currently “lacks statutory regulations” that would ensure that same-sex couples receive the same legal and social protections as different-sex couples.
However, he said, “We have committed to – and I will personally ensure this – abiding by the rulings as a priority,” adding that any changes must be conducted in compliance with existing Polish law. He also urged government members “to respect the dignity of every human being” while figuring out and implementing new policies, some of which may require parliamentary or executive approval.
Karolina Gierdal, a lawyer with the Polish LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Lambda Warszawa, told TVP World, “It is sad that the LGBT community is once again presented as a threat, as if society needs reassurance that adoption rights ‘won’t happen.’ The reality is that children are already being raised in same-sex families in Poland, and maintaining the current legal situation means reducing the level of legal protection available to those children.”
Separately, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who is a senior figure in Tusk’s Civic Platform party (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), announced that his city would begin legally recognizing foreign same-sex marriages immediately on a municipal level, long before the national government updates its own policies.
Last month, a group of over 100 non-governmental organizations urged Poland to take action to abide by the CJEU and NSA’s rulings. The groups noted that Tusk and his party were elected to power in 2023 on promises to restore Poland’s rule of law, after 10 years of corrupt, anti-democratic rule by the country’s far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Law and Justice Party.
“Right-wing governments have distorted what we understand by the rule of law, treating it as an empty slogan rather than a real principle of state operation,” the groups wrote. “In a democratic state governed by the rule of law, the government has no authority to decide which judgments merit enforcement.”
So far, 18 countries in the EU offer legalized same-sex marriages, though all member countries are required to legally recognize them, even if they don’t offer them to their own citizens.
While Tusk’s political party promised to work to offer national same-sex civil partnerships, the initiative died due to opposition from Poland’s center-right Polish People’s Party (PSL). A parliamentary coalition considered offering some rights to same-sex couples and unmarried partners instead, but without actually offering civil unions nationwide.
However, neither proposal has come up for a parliamentary vote.
A same-sex couple fighting for a legal marriage in South Korea has the staunch support of two very loving parents behind them.
Park Yeo-jin and Hwang Hee-yeon committed to each other for life in a 2020 wedding ceremony, but have been unable to register their marriage legally, since South Korea doesn’t recognize marriage between two people of the same sex.
They have filed a lawsuit in response, and Yeo-Jin’s parents have submitted heartwarming depositions in support, as reported by South Korean publication Hankyoreh.
“I can’t help wondering what is so wrong about the courage and devotion that these two people have shown,” wrote her father.
He admitted he was “worried that they could end up hurt” when he first learned they were dating, due to “how hostile the world can be.” He also thought it could be a phase.
“But the two of them have been truly brave,” he said, “supporting each other with love and devotion through all of life’s hardships. As a father and a human being, I respect Park Yeo-jin and Hwang Hee-yeon and their wishes.”
“As someone who knows them well, I don’t see any difference between them and other married couples, even if they are a same-sex couple,” he continued. “I think we make society better when we focus on and embrace what is fundamentally right rather than discriminating based on difference.”
Yeo-jin’s mother also wrote to the court, saying that the couple has shown “love and dedication to one another, living and planning their future together.” She said seeing that “helped turn my concerns into affirmation and support for them.”
“If marriage is a relationship based on love and trust where you spend your life together, overcoming life’s difficulties through understanding and dedication,” she added, “then Yeo-jin and Hee-yeon are unquestionably a married couple.”
The court held a hearing on the matter on April 27, reportedly the first time in 11 years that a case of this nature was not dismissed outright.
“I was surprised and thankful that we were unexpectedly given this hearing,” Hee-yeon told Hankyoreh. “The fact that we were able to share our experience was encouraging and meaningful.”
“What we want isn’t special rights or treatment,” she added. “All we want is for the bare minimum rights so that we can protect and take responsibility for one another, just like any other couple.”
South Korea has made some advances recently. In October 2025, it was announced that the country’s census would allow same-sex couples to identify themselves as spouses for the first time. LGBTQ+ activists praised the move as a significant step toward equality.
While homosexuality is not criminalized in the country, same-sex marriage remains illegal, and according to Equaldex, only 23% of the public fully supports LGBTQ+ people being open about who they are.
Despite South Korea’s portrayal in its global entertainment industry as modern and gay-friendly, the country has long tolerated LGBTQ+ discrimination and, in a 2020 report, was ranked among the least gay-inclusive countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The absence of progress can be traced to lobbying efforts by the United Christian Churches of Korea and other church associations, and to very public hate campaigns by loosely affiliated groups like Anti-Homosexuality Christian Solidarity, who have deep-rooted connections to the country’s political class.
Efforts to pass a broad anti-discrimination law through the legislature have failed many times, but hope was renewed last year when the country’s liberal party took a majority of seats in the legislature.
While LGBTQ+ rights have a long way to go in South Korea, advocates scored another major victory in the summer of 2024, when the nation’s top court ruled to uphold the rights of people in same-sex relationships, giving them the same rights as people in heterosexual relationships.
The landmark ruling states that benefits from South Korea’s National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) can be claimed by people in same-sex partnerships and that treating same-sex couples differently from heterosexual ones is “an act of discrimination that… violates human dignity and the right to pursue happiness.”
Earlier this year, a group of 47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations launched a new campaign to end marriage equality in the U.S., demanding that the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. The campaign, called “Greater Than” – a response to the push for equality by claiming that straight people are “greater than” queer people – immediately got the media’s attention.
Now the Seattle Timeshas revealed that a key organization behind the Greater Than campaign is being funded by the conservative Christian business Hobby Lobby, the same business that got the Supreme Court to rule in 2014 that for-profit corporations don’t have to pay for employees’ health care that covers contraception if that contraception goes against the corporation’s religious beliefs.
Katy Faust is the founder and president of Them Before Us, an organization devoted to ending marriage rights for same-sex couples in the U.S. Faust’s mother is a lesbian who came out after marrying Faust’s father, and her parents divorced when she was 10. She converted to Christianity a few years later, when she was in high school.
Faust insists that she didn’t devote her life to attacking LGBTQ+ rights out of some kind of resentment towards her mother, although she now says she no longer considers her mother a parent.
The Seattle Times notes that Faust has been campaigning against marriage rights since at least 2012, when she started a blog called “Ask The Bigot,” a website she claimed would “debunk” the notion that marriage rights opponents are bigots.
She advocated for ending marriage rights over the years, but saw an opportunity for a renewed push after the Supreme Court overturned federal reproductive rights protections guaranteed in Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Court effectively let states decide whether abortion would be legal, and many of them immediately banned it, something people like Faust hope to see happen for same-sex marriage.
And the recent push is getting more funding. Them Before Us was founded in 2018, and its IRS reports show that it received less than $50,000 in revenue for its first few years of operation before Roe was overturned. In 2022, though, it received $200,000. In 2024, that became nearly $1 million, and Faust collected a salary of $135,000.
Them Before Us’s 2024 filings show a $300,000 donation from The Servant Foundation, a Christian organization funded by Hobby Lobby’s founder, David Green, and his family. It’s the same organization behind those “He Gets Us” ads about Jesus that ran during the 2024 and 2025 Super Bowls.
Them Before Us – referring to how children’s interests should come before adults’ – is attempting to refocus the debate on marriage rights around children in order to capitalize on the recent moral panic around “groomers,” a push from the right that started in the early 2020s to associate LGBTQ+ people with child sex abuse once again.
Republican lawmakers in South Carolina are trying to pass a resolution to demand the Supreme Court overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalized marriage equality in all the states that hadn’t yet done so, including South Carolina.
A group of 12 Republicans in the South Carolina House of Representatives introduced H-5501, a concurrent resolution that calls on the state to “reject the Supreme Court of the United States’ Obergefell decision and to call on the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell and restore the natural law definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman and to insist on restoring the issue of marriage and enforcement of all laws pertaining to marriage back to the several states and the people.”
The local TV news station WACH notes that concurrent resolutions have no legal force in South Carolina. Still, progressive advocates called out the resolution.
“Lawmakers in South Carolina cannot undo marriage for all committed couples in this country,” ACLU of South Carolina executive director Jce Woodrum said. “These lawmakers are fringe extremists.”
South Carolina passed a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from getting married in 2006. In 2025, a PRRI poll found that 54% of people in South Carolina now support marriage rights for same-sex couples.
The resolution is part of a trend started last year, as far-right Republicans in state legislatures across the country started introducing resolutions demanding the Supreme Court overturn marriage equality. Other states that have seen such resolutions include Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Several red states have also considered bills that would give extra rights to opposite-sex couples who get married.
Tennessee lawmakers have advanced a host of anti-LGBTQ bills that would run counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
Two measures, both proposed by Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Franklin, would challenge landmark cases that legalized same-sex marriage and established protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, questioned the legality to going against Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“We’re talking about federal law that supersedes state law,” Johnson said. “You can’t just ignore the federal law. So, therein is the problem for those of us who believe in our U.S. Constitution.”
Bulso answered, arguing that, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not govern all employers. It only governs employers with more than 15 employees.”
The legislation, Bulso said, would only apply to small businesses — but could jeopardize federal funding by putting the state at odds with federal law.
There’s a similar fiscal note on another of Bulso’s bills that would challenge Obergefell v. Hodges. Bulso argued that the opinion only dictates that public actors must recognize same-sex marriages, not private citizens.
Tom Lee, member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Pride Chamber, spoke against the bill, arguing that it could allow discrimination against LGBTQ couples.
“Imagine if under this bill a private employer said, ‘Well, you can’t take family leave because I, as a private citizen, don’t recognize — using the language of the bill — your purported marriage,’” Lee said. “Or a bank says, ‘You’ll pay the higher rate (for unmarried couples). We’re not bound by the 14th Amendment. You’re not married in our eyes.’”
Both measures advanced Wednesday along party lines.
Other measures proposed this year would expand previous bills aimed at LGBTQ Tennesseans. State law that allows teachers to ignore a student’s preferred pronouns would expand to include honorifics like “Mr.” or “Mrs,” and the state’s drag ban would expand the type of businesses that could be penalized under the law.
Marcus Ellsworth with the Tennessee Equality Project said that the legislature wants to consider queer people obscene at a time when all people, regardless of gender or sexuality, are struggling.
“What is actually obscene is that every year we have to watch our state prioritize wasting time, money, and resources, fabricating ways to hurt us,” Ellsworth said.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed legislation that sent several potential state constitutional amendments to voters this past Friday, including a measure that would remove the state’s ban on same-sex marriage from the state constitution, which was originally passed in 2006.
While the state’s ban on marriage equality has not been enforced since the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states, advocates for its removal say that it is discriminatory and could be enforced if Obergefell were ever overturned.
“We want to make sure that Virginia families know that here in Virginia, it is not just a Supreme Court decision that protects them, but it is also our state constitution,” Spanberger said in comments during the signing ceremony. “It’ll be a big step for Virginia to ensure that every family knows that Virginia is a place that welcomes them, appreciates them, and sees them for the wonderful family and Virginians that they are.”
“So before I get too emotional on that one, I will start signing.”
LGBTQ+ issues played a large role in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial campaign, with Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears running ads throughout the election season that accused Spanberger of wanting “boys to play sports and share locker rooms with little girls” and letting “children change genders without telling their parents.”
At a debate later in the year, Spanberger pointed out Earle-Sears’ opposition to anti-discrimination laws and her opposition to marriage equality. Earle-Sears blurted out, “That’s not discrimination!” when Spanberger brought up how Earle-Sears believes “it’s OK for someone to be fired from their job for being gay.”
LGBTQ+ advocates hailed the marriage ballot initiative measure.
“Twenty years after banning marriage equality, it’s time for our commonwealth to fully complete our evolution – and finish the job on protecting marriage equality for all,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman in a statement. “It’s up to all of us to vote on November 3, 2026 to safeguard marriage for all Virginians and remove the stain that exists in our constitution. We have come too far over the past 20 years to have any doubt that Virginia voters will support love and dignity for all couples this November.”
Spanberger also signed a bill that will send a reproductive rights amendment to voters in the fall. The proposed amendment would give Virginians a right to reproductive health care and include IVF, contraception, and abortion.
“This amendment protects families’ entire scope of reproductive needs,” said state Sen. Jennifer Boysko (D), who introduced it in the Virginia Senate.
“I look forward to spending ample time in advance of the 2026 elections campaigning to make sure that people understand the importance of this constitutional amendment,” Gov. Spanberger said last year, according to the Virginia Mercury.
Spanberger sent two other constitutional amendments to voters on Friday. One would automatically restore voting rights for convicted felons who finished their prison sentences (they currently have to appeal to the governer after their sentences are over to get their voting rights back), and the other would allow the state’s General Assembly to change the state’s congressional district map in the middle of decades in order to respond to other states doing the same, according to WOBC.
Texas judges can decline to perform same-sex weddings because of their “sincerely held religious belief” and not be in violation of the rules on judicial impartiality, according to the Texas Supreme Court.
A lawsuit is being brought by Judge Brian Keith Umphress in Jack County, Texas, against the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct. In November 2019, the commission issued a “public warning” to Dianne Hensley, a justice of the peace who recused herself from officiating at same-sex weddings, according to coverage by Legal Newsline.
Umphress later sued the commission’s members, citing that a judge’s refusal to officiate only same-sex unions could result in sanctions by the commission and violate his federal constitutional rights.
He is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to restrain the commission from punishing judges for not performing same-sex marriage ceremonies, for either religious or secular reasons.
A court found Japan’s refusal to legalize same-sex marriage was constitutional Friday in the last of six cases that are expected to be brought to the Supreme Court for a final and definitive ruling, possibly next year.
The Tokyo High Court said marriage under the law is largely expected to be a union between men and women in a decision that reversed a lower court ruling last year and was the first loss at high courts in the six cases brought by those seeking equal marriage rights.
Judge Ayumi Higashi said a legal definition of a family as a unit between a couple and their children is rational and that exclusion of same-sex marriage is valid. The court also dismissed damages of 1 million yen ($6,400) each sought by eight sexual minorities seeking equal marital rights.
Plaintiffs and their lawyers said the decision was unjust but they were determined to keep fighting through the Supreme Court.
“I’m so disappointed,” plaintiff Hiromi Hatogai told reporters outside the court. “Rather than sorrow, I’m outraged and appalled by the decision. Were the judges listening to us?”
“We only want to be able to marry and be happy, just like anyone else,” said another plaintiff, Rie Fukuda. “I believe the society is changing. We won’t give up.”
With all six high court cases done, the Supreme Court is expected to handle all appeals and make a decision.
Though discrimination still exists at school, work and elsewhere, public backing for legalizing same-sex marriage and support in the business community have rapidly increased in recent years.
Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven industrialized countries that does not recognize same-sex marriage or provide any other form of legally binding protection for LGBTQ+ couples.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ‘s conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party is the main opponent of same-sex marital rights in Japan. The government has argued that marriage under civil law does not cover same-sex couples and places importance on natural reproduction.
More than 30 plaintiffs have joined the lawsuits on marriage equality filed across Japan since 2019. They argue that civil law provisions barring same-sex marriage violate the Constitutional right to equality and freedom of marriage.
Friday’s ruling was only the second that found the current government policy constitutional after the 2022 Osaka District Court decision.
The European Court of Justice has issued a ruling that all nations in the European Union (EU) must recognize lawful same-sex marriages that were performed in other EU countries. Previously, a country could refuse to recognize a marriage if it had taken place in another country and did not align with its own laws.
The court declared that EU citizens have a right to “a normal family life” regardless of borders. “When they create a family life in a host member state,” they said, “in particular by virtue of marriage, they must have the certainty to be able to pursue that family life upon returning to their member state of origin.”
Citizens of the European Union have the right to freedom of movement between the different nations within the union. The court suggested that this right, as well as the right to “respect for private and family life,” would be breached if one country could refuse to acknowledge a lawful marriage from another country.
The court added in a press release, “Member States are therefore required to recognize, for the purpose of the exercise of the rights conferred by EU law, the marital status lawfully acquired in another Member State.”
The case was brought to the Luxembourg-based court on behalf of a Polish couple who had been married in Berlin, Germany, where same-sex marriage is recognized. When, years later, they returned to their home country, they submitted their marriage certificate, which was in German, to the Polish government to be transcribed and recognized in the Polish civil register.
The Polish government denied their request, as the country does not recognize same-sex marriages. With this new ruling, they will no longer be able to refuse legally.
Of the 27 EU member states, only 18 have legalized same-sex marriage.
LGBTQ+ rights have taken some big hits in Poland in recent years. The far-right Law and Justice Party held power from 2015 to 2023 and enacted a range of anti-LGBTQ+ policies during that time. It was only in April of this year that the last “LGBT-free” zone created by the party was finally repealed.
Poland is currently led by a coalition government. The prime minister, Donald Tusk, campaigned on introducing same-sex civil unions and has pushed for such legislation to be passed. However, Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki of the Law and Justice Party, has said that he would veto any legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage.
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