Executive Summary Around the issue of same-sex marriage, there has been a slate of popular and legislative actions in a number of states in the past four years. Some states have supported marriage recognition for same-sex couples while other states have prohibited it. The marked differences among states on this issue raise three questions: the current position of each state's general population on the legality of same-sex marriage, how it differs across the 50 states and District of Columbia,

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... d its change since 2004. This research brief seeks to directly address those three questions. Yet, despite all of this recent activity, it is not possible to simply use state-level polling results to measure the present level of popular support for same-sex marriage. Not every state has the relevant polling data available , especially when wanting to draw comparisons across time. Instead, this research brief reports results generated by applying an established statistical technique to data from multiple national surveys to generate reliable estimates of state-level public opinion. Main findings from the report include: > By the end of 2012, 12 states and the District of Columbia had support for same-sex marriage at or above 50%. > Of these 12 states, all currently perform marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. > 13 additional states presently are within 5 percentage points of majority support > In the last eight years, every state has increased in its support for marriage for same-sex couples with an average increase of 13.6%. > If present public opinion trends continue, another 8 states will be above 50% support by the end of 2014.