Posted on 05/28/2011 12:28:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
While the majority of Americans believe that the country’s morality is poor and lacking, the gap between those looking for the moral high ground and those who believe we are already morally good is closing.
A Thursday Gallup poll shows the number of Americans who believe the overall state of moral values in the U.S. is poor has dropped seven percentage points to 38 percent. Meanwhile, the number of those who believe the country's morality is excellent or good has risen eight percentage points to 23 percent.
Fewer Americans also believe the country's moral values are getting worse. Sixty-nine percent, down from 76 percent in 2010, say the state of moral values is worsening, while 22 percent, up from 14 percent, believe it’s getting better.
But just by looking at the media, it’s not apparent why more Americans have a positive outlook on U.S. morality today.
"If you look at our popular entertainment, you have a situation where Americans are essentially bombarded immoral or amoral messages," said Matt Philbin, the Culture and Media Institute's managing editor and editorial director.
From movies to animated series and feel-good shows such as "Glee," Americans are constantly met with inappropriate, ungodly, unpatriotic and sexual themes, he pointed out.
If Americans continue to accept and adopt the values portrayed in pop culture (what Philbin calls "Rihanna and Lady Gaga television"), then “you'll see a decline in modesty, in probity, in a lot of things we have always valued in our culture,” he said.
Richard Land, president of Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, shares the same concern. "The media is a detrimental influence," he remarked. "You would never know by watching American television that 61 percent of Americans say religion is very important in their lives."
For Philbin, one message in particular that the media is continuously throwing at Americans is that of affirming homosexuality and gay marriage.
A poll released by Gallup last week found that for the first time since 1996, more than half of Americans say marriage for gays and lesbians should be legal.
Philbin clarifies the data as the result of Americans being brow-beaten through various forms of media and being constantly sent a message that says "you're wrong, now change your view."
"I think frankly Americans are just tired of getting beat up over their resistance to it," he explained. "I think that at a certain point cultural fatigue sets in and you get tired of being told that you're backward, being told you're puritan troglodyte (a caveman) and a homophobe who hates people. So you shrug and say, 'yea, I'm for it' and go about your business."
Civilization, he lamented, is headed in a direction that devalues the family unit.
"If a family is just a group of people cohabitating or pooling resources, and ceases to be the very basis and building block of society, I think you're in a sort of moral quicksand where things lose meaning," Philbin cautioned.
According to the Gallup poll, Republicans make up the majority of those who hold a negative view of America's current state of morality. Moral issues that have concerned the GOP include national attacks on the Defense of Marriage Act and the nation's debt.
Land said these moral issues are rooted in the home. When morals are not instilled in children through the proper influence of a wedded father and mother, the consequences become evident in society.
"You can't separate economic issues from moral issues," said Land.
Still, fewer Independents and Democrats believe the country is in a moral decline.
Land said of these two groups, "If they're not concerned with the morals of America, then they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution."
The Southern Baptist is concerned that America has become "a nation of liars" full of people who fail to fulfill their obligation to their marriages as spouses or parents in order to satisfy their own selfish desires.
That dishonest streak, said Land, is becoming more evident in the nation's financial practices.
"The reason Wall Street failed is because of dishonest people," noted Land. "There's no system that can [succeed if it] doesn't have the basis of honesty and honor."
While the state of moral values appears to be disintegrating, Philbin believes the U.S. moral fabric is not yet in a total moral decline. Where is the evidence?
"People are still marrying, they’re still having children, they’re still concerned about what their children see," he commented.
Land’s outlook on the state of morality in the U.S. was less optimistic.
"We're seriously broken and it's getting worse and we're reaching a crisis point where we're either going to have to restore traditional American values ... or we going to see our society denigrate."
“Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society When an immoral society has blatantly and proudly violated all the commandments, it insists upon one last virtue, tolerance for its immorality. It will not tolerate condemnation of its perversions. It creates a whole new world in which only the intolerant critic of intolerable evil is evil.”
Where has this person been the last 20 years?
It has been for quite some time now. Some have observed and warned of this trend decades ago.
For all the influence ring-wing radio has, they never mention our declining morals, i.e. homosexuality. Hate to say that even some people on the right are blind to it if their leaders aren’t saying it.
The decline has been slow but steady. It will speed up now that so many so called Christian churches have abbrogated their moral authority.
How about the fact that everyone wishes to take things, but not enough people are willing to pay?
How about the fact that there’s a trend to claim you are so victimized but seemingly denying that you are fallible, and therefore can also be an awful perpetrator yourself?
How about the fact that taking responsibility for what you did is less and less of a trend nowadays?
Men have not changed one iota since the first man. What has changed is that our virtuous culture has degraded to a godless self serving lying culture. We have had warnings in the form of 9-11 and the financial collapse and other FUBAR but we have not learned to stop the lying and self deception that facilitated those catastrophes.
If you shrink from grim portents don’t do the math here.
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Thankss to Libs, America is becoming a cesspool.
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Saturday smiles:
Mother cat hugs baby kitten (adorable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4KVoEVcr0&feature=player_embedded
(Viral on YouTube, made it to Good Morning America)
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Phoebe Allen, the hummingbird, presently hatching her fifth clutch:
(Live cam)
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Our society has been depraved for quite some time, and it’s only going to get worse. Since our once great country has abandoned God, it’s all been downhill.
This is all deliberate doing by the Marxists, destroy morality,the family and corrupt children.
For all the influence ring-wing radio has, they never mention our declining morals, i.e. homosexuality.
I notice that too. But that’s largely because guys like Rush Limbaugh associate with such figures as Elton John. When you are rich enough, you get members of the PC crowd as part of your payroll. These people are commercial actors, like it or not, and that is what they do.
My two main issues with the larger identity politics agenda are this:
1) Rampant obsession with one’s victimization, which is often imagined or exaggerated. The percentage of your religious crowd who participate in some despicable acts are small, and decent investigation into the perps show that the hateful individuals were often not so great people to know up to the point of the crime. In other words, there is little need to fear. But according to the identity politics’ stance, they make it out to be as if all these hateful people were somehow people who were decent and suddenly gone bad. If you ask me, this is encouraging paranoia.
2) There is some sort of inherent debt owed to you, and again the focus on being the victim. Never mind the fact that all individuals, including the hated ones, are fallible, and don’t forget as well, the fact that people can want revenge, or can turn it around and become the perpetrators as well. After looking back at politically-incorrect accounts of history, there are practically no groups who were solely victims in what they did. In fact, it’s the norm that any given group has played both roles.
Excellent quote.
I was amazed the other day when my grandson’s soon to be bride sat by me with “nothing left to the imagination” clothes on, talking all about her church and love for the Lord. Yes, she has a living mother.
bttt
As we know from Glenn Beck's expulsion from TV despite his large audience, media personalities depend on advertisers. The culturally immoral have taken over corporations to such an extent that they can control the media -- even Fox News -- by proxy.
Anti-discrimination laws have created a de facto ban on morally conservative businesses. Therefore there are far less material resources for outspoken conservatives to rely upon, either for their media or for their political campaigns.
I'd go one further, however to state that Americans have gotten use to immorality and excuse their children and grandchildren for all manners of perversions, as "lifestyle" differences.
Even churches, who are supposed to "hate the sin, love the sinner" are embracing immoral behavior, not showing sinners a way out of their lives of depravity.
Many main line protestant churches not only accept open homosexuality but actually celebrate it and proudly sport homosexuals in their ministry.
Catholics and Jews don't fare any better, performing marriages for couples that have lived together for decades, with their children taking part in their ceremonies.
Unorthodox Jews have embraced immorality for many decades.
Lest anyone here think I'm the sinner throwing stones at others, I would merely say that Jesus said he, "came not to condemn the world but that the world, through Him might be saved."
One will also note that Jesus, speaking to the woman at the well, told her to, "go and sin no more;" told another whom cured from being lame and said, "your sins are forgiven."
The Pharisees wanted to kill Him for they said, "only God can forgive."
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, has been replaced by “Do unto others!”
You are so right about rightwing radio hosts.
My hero Rush Limbaugh, one of our greatest living Americans, rarely mentions social issues. He’s brilliant on the free market, death panels, wanting our socialist president to fail, and the greatness of America.
But he hardly ever complains about the breakdown of the family (he himself with several divorces) foul-mouthed television shows, or the evils of abortion and the forcing of the homosexual agenda down our throats.
Instead he invites Elton John to sing at his wedding.
When America got comfortable with abortion it became comfortable with immorality.
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