This Gallup poll is an interesting one, at least to me. Let me list some of the findings of the poll. The first number is the percentage who find the thing “morally acceptable” and the second number is the percentage who find it “morally wrong”.
Abortion: 39 to 48
Having a baby outside of marriage: 54 to 41
Gay or Lesbian relations: 56 to 39
Sex between an unmarried man and woman: 60 to 36
Divorce: 69 to 23
Married men and women having an affair: 7 to 91
So, for at least 6% of the American population, heterosexual fornication is okay, but having a baby outside of marriage isn't. I doubt many of those people fall into the 39% that think abortion is okay (though they may do it). I'll go out on a limb and say that most of those people also don't think the answer is to give their child up for adoption. More likely, they think that the right thing to do when you find out your actions have caused a pregnancy is to go ahead and marry each other.
But why?
If marriage is not about children, why get married under such circumstances? As the "marriage is not about children" mantra is explicitly repeated in the push to neuter marriage or justify divorce (for reasons other than abandonment, abuse, addiction, and unrepentant adultery), and implied by equivocating marriage with nonmarriage and widespread support of divorce when minor children are involved, we can expect fewer people to bother to get married when they find out a child is on the way.
I have more thoughts on this poll over at my namesake blog.
This poll shows quite a telling story about the acceptance of sexual relations outside of marriage, but without a note of those pesky consequences. (Well, except for abortion, which the majority thinks is morally wrong.)
ReplyDelete