Are Americans Immoral?

By Brad Miner
Yes. But so have many people been throughout history. And now some good news, although it's the only good news.
The Pew Research Center recently released a report, What Do Americans Consider Immoral? (We should be cautious about that verb, consider. I suppose pollsters can't really ask the more pointed question, "What actions do you engage in that you know to be morally wrong?")
And the good news is that a whopping 90% of Americans believe adultery ("Married people having an affair") is wrong. Let's look at Pew's chart:

As I say, good news. Yet we might compare this with recent reports from the General Social Survey and the Institute for Family Studies that say 20% of married men and 13% of married women have cheated on their spouses, and that these data have been consistent for three decades. Of course, opinion doesn't necessarily comport with behavior. This is called hypocrisy.
And the numbers represent an upward trend, although not dramatically so, and the rise is being driven by men and women over 55. Does this suggest that the old notion of a 7-year itch has become a 27-year itch? In any case, this deviation from 90% opposition to adultery is significant. But, perhaps, it means nothing more than that only 70% of men actually think adultery is immoral, and 87% of women do. I'm not a statistician, so I can't vouch for those numbers.
But hypocrisy is certainly at work here, and some of those who state their opposition to adultery may cross the line into an affair if tempted by the right person – or by the Tempter himself.
The old joke about economists (and it might apply to statisticians) is that they should have one of their hands cut off so they can't say, "But on the other hand . . ."
But on the other hand (I can use the phrase because I'm not an economist), the Pew report's index notes that no matter what religion a person is, 90% oppose adultery. Religion matters.
Most disheartening are the data in the chart concerning abortion. The "not morally wrong" response to "having an abortion" stands at 52%, which is a sickening reminder that most people have been beguiled into believing that thing in the womb is not their son or daughter. Another chart at the Pew website indicates that "Republicans are 3 times as likely to say having an abortion is morally wrong." GOP members are 71% opposed; Dems only 24% opposed. Not to get political. . .
The overall tone of the report is depressing. One can't help thinking that "tolerance" in America is on a slippery slide towards perdition. When it comes to pornography, for instance, only White Evangelical Protestants are steadfastly opposed (80%), whereas among Catholics (white and Hispanic), only 56% think the naked cavorting in videos is morally wrong. Could it be that we Catholics have been desensitized by all those nude figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling? I doubt it.
Only 23% of Jews think porn is morally wrong, and that may be because those good people are Republicans. Sixty-five percent in the GOP think porn is wrong; only 39% of Dems do.
Twice as many Republicans as Democrats oppose marijuana, but that's not saying much, since approval in both parties is very high; 69% v. 84%.

But I'll tell you what, the thing that really struck home for me is what the report's data says about contraception. This would appear to be a battle the Roman Catholic Church has lost. Just 9% of Americans believe artificial birth control is wrong; among Catholics, it's a merely better 13%.
No doubt this is a measure of failed catechesis and Biblical ignorance. After all:
God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28)
That's, you know, in the beginning – just two short verses after the creation of humankind!
There's no silver lining here, but I will note that only Catholics and black Protestan...