LGBTQI Americans are far more likely to be religiously unaffiliated than the general populace, according to a Public Religion Research Institute report published March 23.

The report is an analysis of data from PRRI’s 2022 American Values Survey, first published in October 2022.

Half of all LGBTQI Americans say they are religiously unaffiliated, compared to 26% of the entire adult population who are unaffiliated. Nearly all Christian traditions have fewer LGBTQI adherents than their composition of the general population.

For example, 13% of all U.S. adults identify as white evangelical Protestants, but only 4% of LGBTQI Americans affiliate with this Christian tradition. The same pattern was found for most other Christian traditions: white mainline Protestants (13% and 8%, respectively), white Catholics (13% and 7%, respectively), Hispanic Catholics (8% and 7%, respectively) and Black Protestants (8% and 5%, respectively).

The one exception is Hispanic Protestants, with 4% LGBTQI adherents compared to 3% of all U.S. adults.

“About two in ten non-Christians identify as LGBTQ. This includes 19% of Unitarian Universalists, 19% of the religiously unaffiliated, 15% of Buddhists, 11% of Jews, 9% of Muslims, 5% of Hindus, and 32% of members of other non-Christian religions,” the report said.

All but one faith tradition surveyed had majority support for non-discrimination protections for LGBTQI Americans, with the highest support among Unitarian Universalists (92%) and lowest among Hispanic Protestants and white evangelical Protestants (62% for both). Jehovah’s Witnesses were evenly divided, with exactly 50% supporting such protections.

Only three faith traditions – Jehovah’s Witnesses (50%), Latter-Day Saints (46%) and white evangelical Protestants (37%) – did not have a majority oppose religiously based service refusals by businesses.

Among the traditions with majority opposition to such refusals, Unitarian Universalists had the highest level of opposition (88%), and Orthodox Christians had the lowest (51%). “The level of opposition has increased among every group except Orthodox Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, and white evangelical Protestants,” the report said.

There are four faith traditions without majority support for same-sex marriage: Latter-day Saints (50%), Hispanic Protestants (43%), white evangelical Protestants (38%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (19%). Support for legal same-sex marriage is highest among the religiously unaffiliated (87%), with majority support among the other faith traditions surveyed ranging from 81% to 53%.

The full report is available here. The topline results, noting an overall margin of error of plus or minus 0.8 percentage points, are available here.

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