A new Gallup Poll says Americans are getting more Liberal (or maybe Libertarian) in their views of what's morally acceptable. If this polling is right, there's been a huge leap in just the past four years for folks being fine with gay relations; also in having a baby outside of wedlock, pre- (or non-) marital sex, divorce, stem cell research and even polygamy. I can't think of any public discussions of polygamy in the last four years except the dire warnings of some that Gay Marriage will surely lead to it.
A few folks I know will deny all this and/or predict we're speeding to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah…but they probably said that when the numbers on gay and lesbian relations went from 10% to 12% okay with it. This country is constantly expanding its definition of what's morally acceptable. On the sex-related issues, for instance, we're always moving in the direction that what consenting adults wish to do in private is their own damn business.
Still, a lot of this is too simplified. Take suicide, for instance. The poll says 19% of us now consider it morally acceptable. Yeah, but whose suicide? I'm sure it's different if you're talking about a despondent teenager versus, say, a 90-year-old person who is in miserable health and pain. (That's surely why doctor-assisted suicide ranks so much higher.) Or take gambling. If a rich person wants to go gamble with highly-disposable income, that's a lot different from the father of a family on welfare taking next month's rent money to Vegas and putting it all on Double-Zero.
I also wonder how much rising opposition to the Death Penalty has to do with feeling it's wrong for the government to kill people and how much is the feeling that it's being administered unfairly and/or that we execute innocent people. And how come the poll didn't ask people about one of the bigger moral issues of our time…the serving of cole slaw? I'd like to think I've done my part to raise opposition to that abomination a few points. I'm all for expanding tolerance on most of these issues but there are some things a decent society just cannot tolerate.