According to a new survey among 19,000 people in 27 countries carried out by Ipsos, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium were among the countries most supportive of the rights of same-sex couples. Maybe more surprisingly, Southern European nations Spain and Italy were also among the biggest supporters ahead of other Western European nations. In the five countries, support for the right of same-sex couples to marry or gain another form of legal recognition ranged between 83 and 89 percent – the highest in the survey.
Even though support for gay marriage was higher in the UK and Germany at 68 percent each than in Italy at 63 percent, 20 percent of Italians supported legal unions, resulting in a higher total.
In the U.S., support for gay marriage was approaching 60 percent while support for legal unions stood at 13 percent. The result was below that of Mexico and Canada and slightly above support in Brazil, Colombia and Eastern European nations Poland and Hungary.
India as well as China actually scored higher than one developed nation in Asia. Support for same-sex marriage and legal unions hovered around 60 percent in each country, while South Korea came up to only 54 percent. Support reached almost 70 percent in Japan, with 29 percent supporting legal unions and 40 percent supporting the right to marry. 25 percent of Japanese said that they did not know if they supported the rights of same-sex couples.
The lowest results in the survey came out of Russia and Malaysia at just 29 percent and 16 percent supporting same-sex marriage or legal unions, respectively.
