Catholics Are the Leading U.S. Church Group in Terms of LGBTQ+ Acceptance

As many previous surveys have proved before, a new Pew Research report shows that the overwhelming majority of Catholics in the United States support social acceptance of homosexuality and favor the legality of same-sex marriage  Compared to other Christian denominations Catholics are also more favorable of increasing acceptance for transgender people. 

The 2023-2024 Pew Research Religious Landscape Study (RLS) was released earlier this year.  First conducted in 2007 and again in 2014, the study’s latest installment tracks large gains in LGBTQ+ acceptance among U.S Catholics. Over the past 17 years, Catholic endorsement of the statement “Homosexuality should be socially accepted” rose by 16 percentage points, and number of Catholics who “favor” or “strongly favor” same-sex marriage rose by 13 percentage points. 

Importantly, Catholics were more likely than the general Christian population to support homosexuality. Christians showed majority support (59%) for the statement “Homosexuality should be accepted by society”, with Catholics showing overwhelming support at 74%. A large majority of Catholics (70%)  also indicated that they “favor” or “strongly favor”  legal same-sex marriage. 

Sentiments about transgender people are more complicated, partially due to the question’s phrasing and also due to the 2023-2024 survey being the first time the question was raised. Respondents were asked whether increased acceptance of transgender people has been a change for the better,for the worse, or hasn’t made “much of a difference”. Catholic sentiment — like most other denominations — was more divided on the topic, with 36% saying gender acceptance was positive and 35% saying it was negative. 

However, the affirmative 36% is higher than the general Christian average of 29%, and the negative 35% was lower than nearly every other Christian denomination, including the survey catch-all category of Mainline Protestants. Twenty-six percent of Catholics felt that transgender acceptance hasn’t made much of a difference. Notably, the only denominational family with lower negative assessments — Historically Black Churches — was also the only one to have higher endorsements of “not much of a difference”. Suggesting that the difference between anti-trans Catholics and other anti-trans Christians is somewhat absorbed into the indifferent group. 

Catholics across the board largely endorse social and political positions at odds with church teaching, especially concerning abortion, with 59% of Catholics favoring legal abortion in “most or all” cases. The positional disparity between Catholics and their hierarchy on abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender rights might possibly account for the RLS’s report that of all United States Christian denominations, Roman Catholicism has suffered the greatest net losses in terms of people departing the church.

In absolute terms, the 1.5%of American adults who identify as Catholic converts is a mammoth population outnumbering the entire constituencies of many other churches. Yet, those millions of adult converts are not entering at anywhere near the Catholic Church’s replacement rate. A whopping 12.8%of the entire U.S population are former Catholics. The 2023-2024 RLS found that for every person who joins the church another 8.4 leave — up from 6.5 in 2014. The Catholic Church’s share of the total population also slid from 24% in 2007 to 19% in 2024. 

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, June 2, 2025