Parshall Partners

Declining Support

         In the musical, Carousel, one of the memorable choruses is “June is bustin’ out all over!” The town prepares for a clambake while fisherman and many New Englanders anticipate a great feast and the welcoming of summer. Today, June is less about summer and more about sex.

         June has become a month where so-called “Gay Pride” is celebrated by some.  The month coincides with police riots that took place at a gay bar in New York in 1969.  For the homosexual community, these events were seen as the beginnings of “gay liberation”. President Bill Clinton officially declared in a presidential proclamation that June would be "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month" in 1999.  Presidents Obama and Biden did the same thing.

         But are the majority of Americans really celebrating “gay pride”?  According to Gallup, support for LGBTQ issues has fallen from its peak.  The group stated, “After two decades of rising support for LGBTQ+ issues, U.S. attitudes have plateaued and begun to slide back modestly. Approval of same-sex marriage, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations, and endorsement of gender changes are all down from peaks reached in the early 2020s”.

         There was a time when the homosexual community just asked to be “left alone.” Then came the demand for the recognition of same-sex marriages with the Supreme Court ruling, in a 5-4 decision in the Obergefell case, that same-sex marriage was now legal across the country.  But have all of these attempts at coerced acceptance started a backlash?

         Gallup has noted, “While most Americans still favor legal same-sex marriages, the 65% who do so today is down six percentage points from the peak in 2022 and 2023. Similarly, the percentage viewing gay or lesbian relations as morally acceptable, 62%, has not been lower since 2016. And the share of Americans who consider changing one's gender morally acceptable has declined eight points over the past five years, to 38%”.

         To add further clarification to that last point, 57% now say that changing one’s gender is morally wrong.  In 2021: 46% approved and in 2026: only 38% approve. So why the downward trend of support?

         Gallup concludes that it’s the result of push back against DEI programs, programs designed to force acceptance of something many people will always consider wrong and immoral.  But here’s my theory.

         I think it’s the testimony of people who struggled with same-sex attraction or gender identity but have discovered, as we all must, that our identity is not found in our sexual attractions or in our outward appearance.  But rather, our true identity is found in Christ.

         It’s one of the reasons why there’s an intense push to eliminate “conversion therapy”.  That abusive moniker is used to silence the truth that people can change.  It’s why Paul declares that “such were some of you.”

         I praise God for the full-throated testimonies of those who struggled in this area but now have been set free.  Their stories are changing the soul of this nation.

         Those are my thoughts. I’m Janet Parshall.