Posted on 05/19/2008 1:50:23 PM PDT by PROCON
An alarming 70 percent of Americans now believe that divorce is “morally acceptable,” according to a recent poll by Gallup’s 2008 Values and Beliefs survey.
The new figure – the highest on record – represents an 11 percent increase from just 7 years ago and a 3 percent increase from 2 years ago. Only 22 percent of Americans said they believed divorce was “morally wrong,” according to the results.
The acceptability of divorce among Americans was ranked higher than all of the other 16 ethical issues surveyed – including the death penalty, gambling, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, abortion and medical research on animals. Additionally, divorce has risen faster in moral acceptability among Americans than any of the other ethical issues.
Although the recent results revealed that the acceptability of divorce has risen steadily to the point where it is now “morally acceptable by a majority of nearly every major demographic category of Americans,” respondents who identified themselves as “conservative,” “religious,” or over 65 years in age were more likely to say that divorce was “morally wrong.”
Respondents who identified themselves as “liberals,” “independents,” and “non-religious,” on the other hand, registered the highest number of responses that said divorce was “morally acceptable.” Nearly 91 percent of those who said religion was “not very important” in their lives said divorce was “morally acceptable,” according to the results.
While the recent poll reveals a steady and alarming rise in the acceptability of divorce, more than 70 percent of Americans continued to rate suicide, cloning humans, polygamy, and “married men and women having an affair” as “morally unacceptable.”
The Gallup poll results were based on telephone surveys of over 1,000 adult
What a cryin’ shame!
Divorce prevents alot of homicides. It is good that it is there as a relief valve....
I don't discount divorce, but it's a shame when kids are involved!
“The Gallup poll results were based on telephone surveys of over 1,000 adult”
Not very scientific and before someone comes in and talks about polling and statistics 1000 out of over 100 million is not scientific unless you are willing to bet your life on it. Especially when the polls are taken in one geographic region like the northeast or left coast.
Respondents who identified themselves as “liberals,” “independents,” and “non-religious,” on the other hand, registered the highest number of responses that said divorce was “morally acceptable.”
Not surprising as they haven’t a clue as to the definition of “morals”.
An equal number probably find reality TV and today's sitcoms morally acceptable. Half of America finds Barak and Hillary morally acceptable. America's a moral shadow of its former self, IMO.
.
Suicides too.
I, for one, went from the one of the world's worst wives to one of the world's best. Shortly after my divorce I placed a bumper sticker on my car that said "Choose Life." Friends of mine saw the sticker and told me they were surprised I was anti-abortion. I told them it was a pro-divorce sticker rather than an anti-abortion sticker.
That being said, divorce is horrible, especially when there are kids involved. So many of us get married for the wrong reasons and wind up ruining our lives because of it.
For example, are they reporting on an "always/never" basis? Or are they allowing for the likelihood that people find divorce "morally acceptable" under certain circumstances, and not so under other circumstances?
It makes a difference...
Depends on the circumstances. If adultery or abuse is involved divorce is most certainly morally acceptable. If it's just a matter of boredom or an adolescent desire for change then it's not.
Of COURSE it’s “morally acceptable” to the left.
The nuclear family is the basis of our civilization, our society and culture.
And, in order to overturn that culture and replace it with their own, they have to destroy the basis of the culture.
So, you’re pro-abortion?
If 70% of this nation is “the left,” then the GOP really is in trouble....
This is rubbish. A general answer to a general question doesn’t tell us anything.
Jesus Himself saw divorce “morally acceptable” in cases of “marital unfaithfulness,” even though totally unacceptable for any other reason.
All divorce is caused by sin, but not necessarily in equal measure to both spouses. If your spouse has left you for someone else you may have no choice but to divorce.
It's not a litmus test issue for me.
As the child of it, I don’t.
Ping
And then what? Scripture says that if you get divorced, you stay single from then on, but we have a bunch of friends at church who divorced other church members and married each other. I have a problem with that, even if there was no pre-divorce hanky-panky going on.
As with anything, it depends upon the circumstances. Should two spouses that hate each other and cause harm to their children remain married simply because it is supposed to be “the morally right” thing ? It’s a lot more complex than that.
It’s a complicated question. Some examples...
Say a fella comes home one day and his bride breaks the news to him that she is head over heels in love with their sons’ soccer coach and she is leaving him. Is it morally acceptable for him to accept her decision? I think it is. What’s he going to do, force her to stay with him?
Say a husband simply abandons his wife and family - is divorce morally acceptable to his wife? I think so.
What about when one spouse simply can’t stand to breathe the same air as the other spouse? Pro family types might insist they stay together, or is divorce morally acceptable?
I think divorce is a terrible thing but not the worst thing. Indeed, based on this survey 30% doesn’t have the range of thought to consider scenarios where divorce might be the best option out of a set of admittedly poor options.
It takes a strange person indeed to insist that you remain with the miserable wife.
Gee, who knew they were still polling on the subject of divorce? Not surprised at the numbers though.
I think the whole social climate has changed in the past 40+years to get us to the point where many behaviors and attitudes are out there.
Would we be breaking the barrier regarding same-sex marriage if not for all of the previous changes which paved the way for that?
At one time, it was controversial to discuss people living together outside of marriage. Then there was the related subject of pre-marital sex. Today it’s completely acceptable and not controversial if unmarried couples live together or do whatever together.
At one time, it was shameful to have a baby out of wedlock. Today, there is no stigma whatsoever among most people on the subject. On a related subject, many women think they don’t need men to be fathers. And related to that, too many men have abandoned their fatherhood responsibility.
Abortion was severely restricted in most states before Roe vs. Wade. Now, unfortunately, it’s seen as just another one of a woman’s birth control choices by too many people. Because of the changing moral climate, we’re not supposed to make moral judgements about subjects such as abortion, instead, we worship at the altar of a woman’s choice.
Homosexuality used to be something not discussed openly. But now society is so open about it, we’re at the point of saying that a homosexual relationship has the same significance to society as a married couple, so thus, we should not “discriminate”, and thus, we must have same-sex marriage.
After so many social changes, what will come next. My best guess is that adult/child sex will become legalized, prostitution will be decriminalized everywhere, not just part of Nevada. And with same-sex marriage, this “right” may not be that important, because fewer people are even bothering to get married in the first place nowadays.
You can bet this one is accurate. I’m surprised it was only 70% Marriage is viewed as a permanent institution by a tiny minority. That’s demonstrable without polls.
It’s a stupid poll.
Divorce has been ‘morally acceptable’ since the days of the Christian Roman Empire, for cause: adultery, forced prostitution, abandonment, a spouse plotting to murder the Emperor, and a few other causes are set forth in a Novella of the Emperor St. Justinian which has since been incorporated into Orthodox canon law.
The thing that is immoral is remarriage of the guilty party after divorce (or of the innocent party, for that matter, without the blessing of the local bishop).
They don’t think it is a big deal because they do not understand the true nature of marriage.
I believe it is morally acceptable to lie to poll takers and I do believe that I’m not alone, poll takers are fair game.
As a child of it I do, got my philandering bad example of manhood father out of my life. My wife’s probably glad divorce allowed me to stop learning at his knee too.
There's nothing about a miserable marriage that's good or wholesome. People who were lucky enough (and luck is a huge part of it) to marry the right person and have a happy (or at least tolerable) marriage can't possibly understand the concept of divorce any more than someone in a miserable marriage can understand the concept of enduring a miserable marriage for a lifetime.
And what about sexless marriages, as many bad marriages are? Imagine being thirty years old in a sexless marriage - once every few years whether you need it or not. This happens a lot. What kind of activity is that going to lead to? I assure you none of it's going to be moral.
OMG! 70% of Americans find divorce acceptable!
Divorced?!? Get thee to the back of the church, and don’t bother us paragons of virtue!
Oh; wait; it’s NOT the Unforgivable Sin.
And the Bible also finds it acceptable, under certain conditions ...or even advisable.
Maybe a bit more information on how this poll was pushed, and why, is in order.
Maybe, but the problem is that a lot of people go into a marriage with the idea that if things don't work out, they can always get a divorce. That's a recipe for disaster. I'm married, and I won't get divorced. My wife and I went into our marriage knowing that divorce was not an option. Period. Full stop.
I think that when you go into a marriage with that attitude, it's an entirely different playing field that allows both spouses to view subjects quite a lot differently, particularly when dealing with problems.
The result of this, I think, is that more miserable marriages tend to be made up of people who believe in divorce, simply because there is less incentive to work through any problems because, in the back of their mind, they always know that they can simply get a divorce.
Not so fast. A close friend of mine put up with her husband smacking her around, pushing her down a flight of stairs and cheating on her but when she found him making unfatherly advances to their oldest daughter she decided it was time to call it quits.
In that case the only thing more morally acceptable then divorce IMHO would have been 00 buck through his center mass and a quiet burial under the rose bushes.
All divorces are not created equal.
Don't get me wrong, in many cases, as in your friend's, it's quite justified.
My Gommorah comment was just a general comment on how American attitudes have changed!
I personally don't believe divorce is the correct choice except for the triple A's (Abuse, Adultery, Addiction) but if someone asked me if divorce is morally acceptable then I would have to say that it can be.
If they asked me if it was acceptable because you don't like the way your spouse squeeze the toothpaste tube I would have to say no. But I doubt they broke it down that way.
Me, personally, I think folks should wait awhile (at least a few years) before getting married... and once married, wait at minimum 5 or even 10 years before having children. If you can get past those humps of time, you’ve got a stronger foundation to bring children into this world. If you can’t, just call it a mistake and move on. I don’t think a couple should be punished for a lifetime just because they both happened to pick, as it would turn out, the wrong person to marry.
I remember back in ‘96 when the Clintons had the nerve to pontificate on the subject of marriage, stating that they had stayed married and Bob Dole had not. Contrast the Clintons that had been married for over 20 years at that point, both of whom had engaged routinely in philandering (Hillary’s including both sexes) claiming a “stable” and “moral” marriage vs. Dole’s first marriage, which fell apart because his wife made the demand that he either exit politics, give up his life’s work, and return to Kansas, or she’d leave him. He said he wouldn’t abandon his work, and so they divorced. He remarried somebody that shared similar goals and they had had a happy marriage since. I mean, which is the better situation here ?
My former fiancee's parents marriage was precisely this. She was conceived on a one-night occasion, they decided to get married, and at no point from then on did her parents ever have sexual relations again. It was one of the most dysfunctional and twisted relationships I had ever seen, and the kind of side behavior the two of them engaged in (mother engaging in group sex with friends, father molesting and abusing his own daughter) was nothing short of horrible. They should never have been married in the first place. I envy folks that have good marriages, but there are more than a few deplorable ones that resemble what I described above.
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Exactally. A woman who is beaten by her husband should divorce him. A consistently unfaithful spouse {more than a one time fall} I can see divorce as legitimate. A spouse on self destructive behavior such as drug addiction, alcohol abuse, compulsive gambler, etc that harms the family, yes divorce is often needed. A pervert who molest their own children or others? DIVORCE obviously is reasonable and necessary. Many things can be legitimate grounds.
But at the same time where these above listed conditions are absent all effort to preserve the marriage should be made by both spouses especially if children are involved.
As well I also see no wrong in marrying someone who for the above reasons divorced their spouse or for the spouse who was done such a way to remarry. I'm happily married 23 years. Second marriage for both of us. Her marriage was ended due to physical abuse done upon her, adultery by her husband, and his chasing a girl {not a woman} barely out of puberty and not of age by any means in any state. His loss my gain :>}
As for being faithful to our vows we both took in both of our previous marriages we fulfilled them. Her husband ended their marriage by dating a kid also others including his wifes best friend plus severe physical abuse. My first marriage was ended by the the final words said in most marriage vows. "Till death do you part"
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You got it! :-)
Does anyone here really believe that?
How about those around you... about the same stats or not?
Exactly. They should make the full poll docs available.
After you see what they asked, it will be clear it’s crap.
I personally am a conservative Christian, and those stats do not even come close with the folks I hang with.
You?
I don’t discount divorce, but it’s a shame when kids are involved!
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Yes it is — I know — I was one. I had a father that was a fall-down drunk who liked to beat my mom up for fun when he was drunk.
Divorce is a good thing when needed.
Better two happy households for kids than one unhappy one. I divorced my childrens' mother when they were very young, 1-1/2 and 3. A couple of years later I married a wonderful woman, who is a first grade teacher, and my kids got to spend 50% of their time observing how a good marriage works. Had I not gotten divorced they would have spent 100% of their time observing how a bad marriage works. It's certainly not ideal, but what do you think is better for them in the long run?
Eagle, my post 47 wasn’t meant for you, but instead for procon.
I will point out that Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Rudy Giuliani have, what, nine or ten marriages among them? It's pretty obvious that divorce is 'morally acceptable' to the right as well.
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