The results of a BuzzFeed News/Ipsos poll are in, including a snapshot of the world’s views on marriage equality. Among the findings: a surge of support for marriage equality in the Pope’s home country.
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Support for legal rights for same-sex couples tops 70% in some countries where lawmakers are attempting to jump-start attempts to establish marriage equality in the wake of Ireland's historic vote last week.
This is among the findings of a new BuzzFeed News/Ipsos poll of 23 nations which was conducted online over a two-week period beginning about a month before Irish voters voted for marriage equality by a 24-point margin.
We have the clearest picture of attitudes in the 16 of the countries we surveyed where the internet is widely accessible because it was possible to get a sample in our online survey that is representative of the country as a whole. These are concentrated heavily in Europe and North America.
But data collected from the seven additional countries in our survey — Mexico, Brazil, China, South Africa, India, Turkey, and Russia — also suggests there may be surprisingly broad support for partnership protections in many corners of the globe. (We included these countries in our analysis only where our findings appear to reflect broader public opinion based on other surveys despite our limited sample. But they're marked with an asterisk as a reminder that these figures may not be truly representative.)
This is what we found.
This is how many people support same-sex marriage or partnership rights in 23 countries around the world.
Not surprisingly, support for marriage equality tends to be strongest in Western Europe, the region that saw its first marriage equality law passed in the Netherlands in 2000. Our three Latin American countries — Brazil* and Argentina, which have marriage equality, and Mexico,* where it is on the verge on becoming a nationwide reality through the courts — also show majority support for at least civil unions. But our data also hints that majorities support at least civil unions in Japan, South Korea, and possibly China.*
BuzzFeed/Ipsos