The Gallup polling organization, which does public opinion research, has been taking the Americans' moral pulse, and this time they dealt with the Americans' perspective on controversial moral issues like pre-marital sex, stem cell research, euthanasia and same-sex marriage, among others.
The results appeared to be contradictory because people are aware of the degrading moral tone of the society; however, they tend to be more accepting and understanding of the things that were previously considered taboos.
Frank Newport, Gallups' Editor-in-Chief said, "We have Americans largely saying that the overall moral tone of our culture is in bad shape and getting worse, even as they increasingly say that formerly taboo behaviors are morally acceptable."
There was a huge difference in how Americans view the moral of the society. Seventy-two percent of the individuals who participated in the survey admitted that the moral values of the country are getting worse. However, 22 percent of those surveyed believed that the current standard of the society towards morality is getting better, Yahoo reports.
According to a Gallup report, "On a list of 19 major moral issues of the day, Americans express levels of moral acceptance that are as high or higher than in the past on 12 of them, a group that also encompasses social mores such as polygamy, having a child out of wedlock, and divorce."
Specific examples of these include the following:
Sixty-nine percent find divorce acceptable and about 66 percent view same-sex marriage in the same light. Other issues that used to be taboo are slowly winning the acceptance of the people, and these include suicide (19 percent), polygamy (16 percent) and human cloning (15 percent).
From the recent polling, Mr. Newport finds five interesting things and these are the following:
1. The shift of perspective towards liberal attitude on social and value issues occurs in all ages; it is not limited to young people.
2. There are moral issues where Americans' perspective remains to be the same. Married man and woman having affairs remain to be a taboo even if their behaviors on other sexual issues have shifted.
3. The majority of the shift in cultural attitude is related to gay and lesbian issues
4. Despite the shifts in perspective towards moral issues, the majority of Americans—about 72 percent—still believe that the state of moral values in the country is getting worse.
5. All cultural shifts have consequences, and one of it is politics.
In the 12 years Gallup has been doing this research, they observed that there was a big shift in the Democrats' attitude, saying they tend to be more tolerant. Independent and Republicans' views change a little. What is even more interesting according to the Washington Post is that even the conservatives and those who do not support same sex marriage are open to the idea that one day, it will be legal across America.
With the shift of the Americans' perspective towards moral and social issues, Newport is sure that during the election it will be difficult for conservative candidates to focus on specific moral issues.
