Support for gay marriage has reach record highs in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, just one week before a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on the issue.
According to the poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally.
This represents a marked change over the past nine years.
In this same poll back in June 2006, just 36 percent of Americans believed gay marriage should be legal. In 2009, it jumped to 49 percent and reached a majority — 53 percent — in 2011. But the steady growth has continued.
The poll noted that age, ideology and partisanship factor heavily into a person’s views on the subject.
Poll respondents under the age of 30 overwhelmingly support gay marriage, with 78 percent stating that they believe it should be legal. Seniors are the age group that disagree with it the most — just 46 percent believe in it.
Liberals support gay marriage, along with self-described political moderates, 83 percent and 69 percent respectively. But among conservatives, support drops.
Just 47 percent of Americans who considers themselves “somewhat” conservative believe it should be legal and 24 percent of those who are very conservative.
It ranges broadly along party lines as well, according to the poll. About 76 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents support it, while just 34 percent of Republicans said that they do.
