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Fact check: What percentage of UK Muslims support LGBTQ+ rights according to recent polls?
Executive Summary
Recent polling evidence is mixed and limited: one UK source indicates 28% of British Muslims said it would be undesirable to outlaw homosexuality, a figure sometimes interpreted as limited support for LGBTQ+ rights; other supplied surveys do not directly measure UK Muslim support for LGBT protections, offering instead related political or international comparisons. The available materials underscore data gaps and reliance on surveys from different countries and problem definitions (acceptance vs. legal protection) that produce conflicting impressions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Extracting the central claim that drives the debate
The central claim presented is that a relatively small minority of British Muslims support keeping homosexuality legal or support LGBTQ+ rights more broadly. This claim rests largely on a single figure reported in the supplied material: 28% of British Muslims said it would be undesirable to outlaw homosexuality in the UK, a formulation that can be read either as opposition to criminalisation or as an indicator of weak support for active LGBT rights promotion [1]. The supplied analyses also include voter preference and party alignment data for British Muslims, but those items do not directly quantify attitudes toward LGBT equality or non-discrimination laws, creating a gap between the headline figure and broader claims about “support” for LGBTQ+ rights [5].
2. UK polling available in the material and what it actually measures
The only UK-specific figure in the provided dataset is the 28% statistic regarding attitudes toward outlawing homosexuality, drawn from a British Muslim attitudes polling summary [1]. That question frames attitudes around the legality of homosexuality rather than explicit support for anti-discrimination laws, civil partnerships or social acceptance. The supplied Survation poll of British Muslim voters (February 2024) focuses on party identification and political sentiment, not LGBT rights specifically, so it cannot substitute for direct measures of LGBT support [5]. That mismatch in question wording and topic is crucial: opposition to criminalisation is a narrower metric than affirmative support for LGBTQ+ civil rights.
3. International surveys in the dataset that complicate interpretation
The dataset includes US-focused polling showing higher levels of pro-LGBTQ sentiment among American Muslims in some surveys: a 2017 Pew finding that 52% of American Muslims said homosexuality should be accepted by society and a 2021 PRRI survey where 75% supported legal protections against discrimination [2]. These figures illustrate that Muslim-majority communities in different national contexts can hold substantially different views. Country context, question wording, religious identity, age and political environment shape responses; therefore US percentages cannot be directly projected onto UK Muslims without risk of error [2].
4. Broader LGBT opinion trends included but not decisive for UK Muslims
Two Ipsos LGBT+ Pride Reports (2024 and 2025) included in the package map changing support for LGBT issues across G7 countries and by age, but they do not provide a breakdown specifically for UK Muslims [3] [4]. These reports show that support for some LGBT issues has been steady while others have declined since 2021, and that younger cohorts are more likely to support LGBT rights. While useful for context about national trends, these documents do not fill the core gap: a reliable, recent, UK Muslim-specific estimate of support for LGBTQ+ rights across measures like legal equality, social acceptance, or anti-discrimination protections [3] [4].
5. Reconciling the numbers and assessing the evidence quality
Taken together, the supplied materials present one UK-relevant data point (28%) and several non-UK or topic-adjacent datasets. The 28% figure is headline-worthy but limited by question framing; it measures attitudes toward outlawing homosexuality rather than affirmative support for LGBT rights. American and G7-level surveys in the set show higher support levels in other contexts and point to generational shifts that could apply in the UK, but they do not directly substantiate claims about UK Muslims. The dominant limitation is absence of multiple, recent, UK Muslim-specific polls using consistent measures of support for LGBT civil and social rights [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
6. Bottom line: what can and cannot be concluded from the supplied material
From the provided sources it is supportable to state that one UK poll reported 28% of British Muslims expressing that outlawing homosexuality would be undesirable, but it is not supportable to generalise a single percentage as the definitive level of UK Muslim support for LGBTQ+ rights across policy and social domains. International surveys suggest higher support in other national Muslim populations and younger cohorts tend to be more supportive, but those findings must be treated as contextual, not confirmatory for the UK. A clear research priority is contemporary, multi-question UK polling that distinguishes legal tolerance, anti-discrimination protections and social acceptance among British Muslims [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].