Not opposing same-sex parenting doesn't mean supporting it, study finds

Not being opposed to same-sex parenting is not the same as actively supporting it, finds new research spanning 26 European countries.

Researchers from Corvinus University of Budapest and the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences challenge a common assumption in research: that support and opposition are two ends of the same scale. The researchers analysed survey responses from over 115,000 respondents, specifically looking at attitudes toward same-sex parenting and adoption based on religion, political orientation, gender, and generation.

Their findings show that factors associated with actively supporting same-sex rights are not always the same as those associated with actively opposing them. For example, people who occasionally attend religious services were less supportive of same-sex rights, but not significantly more opposed. And left-wing political orientation is strongly associated with support, while right-wing orientation is strongly associated with opposition.

Women were also more supportive than men of same-sex parenting and adoption, but show similar levels of opposition. The researchers suggest this may be related to women placing greater importance on love and care within family life over traditional family norms, fostering a more supportive attitude to same-sex parenting.

These findings provide evidence that attitudes towards same-sex parenting cannot always be understood as a single scale running from opposition to support. Instead, they should be treated as two distinct variables.

Therefore, asking whether people “support or oppose” an issue may obscure two different processes: what drives people to actively support something, and what drives people to actively resist it.

“We hope this study will encourage researchers in other fields to theorise and empirically study separate support and opposition mechanisms, because taming negative sentiments is not the same as developing positive ones,” says Professor Tamás Bartus from Corvinus University, the lead author.

These findings were first published in the Journal of Homosexuality in September 2026, and can be accessed here. The authors are Tamás Bartus, Ivett Szalma and Judit Takács.

For more information, a copy of the research paper, or to speak with researcher Professor Tamás Bartus, please contact Kyle Grizzell-Smith from BlueSky Education on +44 (0) 1582 790709 or kyle@bluesky-pr.com