Faith and Sex Outside Marriage: How US Religious Groups Differ

How do Christian groups differ on premarital sex?

Evangelical Protestants are the least likely to accept sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship, and the religiously unaffiliated are the most likely. In a Pew Research Center survey fielded from October 16 to 28, 2019, among 3,998 adults on its American Trends Panel, the share saying such sex is "sometimes or always" acceptable was 79% for the unaffiliated, 67% for mainline Protestants, 64% for Catholics, 57% for historically Black Protestants and 46% for evangelical Protestants ^[1]. Among Christians as a whole the figure was 57% ^[1].

The spread between the two ends is 33 points, but even the most conservative Christian group is close to evenly divided. Nearly half of evangelicals told Pew that such relationships can be acceptable at least some of the time ^[1]. That is a long way from the position of most evangelical churches, which teach that sexual intimacy belongs within marriage, a subject covered in our article on what evangelicals teach about sex before marriage.

Official teaching and members' opinions are two separate things, and the survey measures only the second. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for instance, defines chastity as having no sexual relations outside a legal marriage between a man and a woman ^[6]. Pew said its sample was too small to analyze Jews, Muslims or adults in other non-Christian religions separately, and the figures consulted include no separate results for Latter-day Saints ^[1]. The findings therefore describe the largest Christian traditions and the unaffiliated, not every American faith.

The question wording matters as well. "Sometimes or always acceptable" is a broad threshold: a respondent who thinks such relationships are acceptable only in some circumstances, such as an engaged couple, is counted in the same column as someone who has no reservations. The percentages show how many people leave room for acceptance, not how many endorse it without conditions.

Share saying sex outside marriage is sometimes or always acceptable (Pew, fieldwork October 2019)

Group	Sex in a committed unmarried relationship	Casual sex between consenting adults
Religiously unaffiliated	79%	84%
Mainline Protestants	67%	54%
Catholics	64%	62%
Historically Black Protestants	57%	56%
Evangelical Protestants	46%	36%
All Christians	57%	50%
Attend services monthly or more	46%	35%
Attend less often	74%	75%

Does church attendance matter more than denomination?

Among Christians, how often someone attends services separates views more sharply than which tradition they belong to. In the same Pew survey, 46% of Christians who attend monthly or more said sex in a committed unmarried relationship is sometimes or always acceptable, against 74% of those who attend less often ^[1]. That is a gap of 28 points, wider than the 21 points between evangelicals (46%) and mainline Protestants (67%).

For casual sex the contrast is starker. Pew reported 35% acceptance among those attending monthly or more and 75% among those attending less often, a gap of 40 points ^[1]. Less frequent attenders look much like the unaffiliated: 74% against 79% on committed relationships, and 75% against 84% on casual sex ^[1].

These numbers do not prove that attendance is the cause. Evangelical Protestants may, as a group, attend more often than mainline Protestants, and the two factors overlap. The Pew release consulted for this article does not cross-tabulate attendance with denomination, so it cannot say how much of the evangelical gap would remain among people with the same attendance habits.

What the data do show is that "Christian" is a poor predictor on its own. A Catholic who rarely attends Mass and an evangelical who attends weekly are in different positions on this question, while two Christians from different denominations who both attend weekly may sit closer together than the headline group averages suggest.

How do views on casual sex compare?

Acceptance of casual sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed relationship is lower than acceptance of sex within one in nearly every Christian group. Pew found 50% acceptance among Christians overall, 62% among Catholics, 56% among historically Black Protestants, 54% among mainline Protestants and 36% among evangelicals ^[1]. Among the religiously unaffiliated it was 84%, and within that category 94% of atheists and 95% of agnostics ^[1].

The gap between the two questions varies by group. Evangelicals drop 10 points (46% to 36%) and mainline Protestants 13 points (67% to 54%) when the relationship is casual, while Catholics move only 2 points (64% to 62%) and historically Black Protestants 1 point (57% to 56%) ^[1]. The unaffiliated actually rise by 5 points (79% to 84%) ^[1]. In other words, commitment seems to matter to some groups and hardly at all to others, though the survey does not explain why.

A broader gauge comes from Gallup, which asks whether sex between an unmarried man and woman is morally acceptable. In May 2026, 65% said yes, with 46% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats agreeing ^[5]. Gallup's wording ("morally acceptable" or "morally wrong") and Pew's ("sometimes or always acceptable") are different questions, and the two sets of percentages should not be merged. Our article on American attitudes toward sex outside marriage compares the polls in more detail.

How do religious groups view cohabitation?

Cohabitation divides religious groups along lines similar to premarital sex, but not identically. In a separate Pew survey of 9,834 adults, fielded from June 25 to July 8, 2019, respondents were asked whether it is acceptable for an unmarried couple to live together even if they do not plan to marry ^[2]. About nine in ten religiously unaffiliated adults said yes, as did 76% of white Protestants who are not evangelical, 74% of Catholics, 47% of Black Protestants and 35% of white evangelical Protestants ^[2].

The categories in this survey are not the same as in the 2019 sexual-ethics questions. White and Black Protestants are reported separately here, and white evangelicals rather than all evangelicals are shown, so comparing the 35% with the 46% from the other survey would be misleading ^[1][2]. Within the cohabitation survey itself, though, the pattern is clear: white evangelicals are the least accepting, and the unaffiliated the most.

Views on children follow the same ordering. Only 33% of white evangelicals agreed that cohabiting couples can raise children as well as married couples, compared with 57% of white non-evangelical Protestants and 59% of Black Protestants ^[2]. Among Catholics, ethnicity mattered: 73% of Hispanic Catholics agreed, against 48% of white Catholics ^[2].

Behavior has moved well ahead of the most conservative opinions. Pew's analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth found that 59% of adults aged 18 to 44 had lived with an unmarried partner at some point, while 50% had ever been married ^[2].

Are religious attitudes changing?

National opinion has loosened over two decades and then begun to pull back, but religious-group data on that shift are thin. Gallup found 53% of Americans calling sex between an unmarried man and woman morally acceptable in 2001, rising to 76% in 2022, then 72% in 2023, 69% in 2024, 68% in 2025 and 65% in 2026 ^[4][10]. Gallup says its long-term gains have "largely plateaued or pulled back" recently, though acceptance remains above its level of 25 years ago ^[5].

The group data used in this article date from 2019, and the sources consulted include no newer release with identical wording. Change since then, within a given denomination, therefore cannot be measured here. Party identity is available from Gallup, which found a 37-point gap in 2026 between Democrats (83%) and Republicans (46%) on sex between unmarried adults ^[5], but the sources do not separate religious from political influences, which overlap.

Opinion and behavior have never matched closely. A Guttmacher Institute analysis of the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, published in Public Health Reports in 2007, found that 95% of Americans aged 44 had had premarital sex, and that even among those who had abstained until at least age 20, 81% had done so by age 44 ^[3]. The study did not break results down by religion, so it speaks to the population as a whole, not to any one faith.

What does "Bible Belt" mean, and does geography matter?

The Bible Belt is an informal name for a region, chiefly in the southern United States, whose inhabitants are believed, in Merriam-Webster's definition, to accept the literal accuracy of the Bible without question; the dictionary gives 1924 as the first recorded use ^[7]. It is a cultural label, not a statistical region with fixed borders, and the dictionary presents the belief as a perception rather than a measured fact.

Whether sexual attitudes differ there can be tested only indirectly with the sources consulted, since neither Pew nor Gallup, in the pages read here, reports opinion by state. One behavioral marker is births outside marriage. In 2024, 53.9% of births in Mississippi were to unmarried mothers, against 39.5% nationally ^[9]. The Census Bureau's 2023 survey also places Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia above the national share ^[8].

The picture is not uniform, though, and it should not be read as a measure of belief. The same Census report lists Utah, Idaho and Kansas among states below the national share, and it ties the state-level pattern to poverty and education rather than to religion ^[8]. Whether the Bible Belt really differs from the rest of the country on sex outside marriage is a question these data cannot settle. Our article on Bible Belt sexual morality treats the cultural side of the term.

What do these surveys leave out?

Survey percentages summarize self-reported views at one moment, and they carry several limits. Pew's committed-relationship and casual-sex questions rest on a single wave, and its groups are defined by how people describe themselves, so "evangelical" and "unaffiliated" include people with very different practices ^[1]. The unaffiliated category, for example, combines atheists and agnostics, whose acceptance of casual sex was 94% and 95%, with people who describe their religion as "nothing in particular," for whom the page reports no separate figure, so the 84% overall figure may mask internal variation ^[1].

Teaching and belief also diverge inside every tradition. A church can hold a clear doctrine on chastity ^[6] while many of its members hold more permissive views, and Pew's numbers cannot show how members reconcile the two. The reverse is also true: a low acceptance figure does not tell us what members do in practice.

Finally, the figures are snapshots. Gallup's 2026 results suggest that national opinion has shifted in the last year or two ^[5], and Pew's group-by-group results predate that shift. Anyone citing the 2019 percentages should present them as a 2019 reading, and should treat any claim about today's religious groups as an estimate until new comparable data appear.

Frequently asked questions

Do most Catholics accept premarital sex?

Yes, in Pew's data. Sixty-four percent of Catholics said sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable, and 62% said the same of casual sex. Official Catholic teaching, as summarized in our religion section, is stricter, and the survey measures opinion, not practice.

Are the religiously unaffiliated more accepting?

Yes. Seventy-nine percent accepted sex in a committed unmarried relationship and 84% accepted casual sex, with atheists (94%) and agnostics (95%) highest on the casual-sex question. Pew grouped atheists, agnostics and those with no particular religion as unaffiliated.

Does the Bible Belt differ from the rest of the US?

The sources consulted cannot say. Neither Pew nor Gallup pages read here report opinion by state. Births outside marriage are above the national share in Mississippi (53.9% in 2024) but below it in Utah and Idaho, and the Census Bureau ties the state pattern to poverty and education.

Which religious group is least accepting of sex outside marriage?

Evangelical Protestants, at 46% for committed relationships and 36% for casual sex in Pew's 2019 fieldwork. Christians who attend services monthly or more were similar, at 46% and 35%. Even in these groups, a large minority said such sex is sometimes acceptable.

Does church attendance matter more than denomination?

Among Christians, attendance separated views more than denomination did. Those attending monthly or more were 28 points less accepting of committed unmarried relationships than those attending less often, against a 21-point gap between evangelicals and mainline Protestants. Pew's release does not cross-tabulate the two factors.

How do religious groups view living together unmarried?

White evangelical Protestants were least accepting in Pew's 2019 survey, at 35%, against 47% of Black Protestants, 74% of Catholics, 76% of white non-evangelical Protestants and about nine in ten of the religiously unaffiliated. The question asked about couples who live together without planning to marry.

Are Americans' views on sex outside marriage changing?

Yes, and recently downward. Gallup found 53% calling sex between an unmarried man and woman morally acceptable in 2001, a peak of 76% in 2022 and 65% in 2026. Pew's group-by-group data date from 2019, so change within each religious group cannot be measured here.