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."
Please feel free to throw stones at sinners, at least rhetorically.
Our liberal mainstream churches, and even squishy evangelicals, dare not condemn sin from the pulpit. Kids grow up with the sense that adults in the church don’t take the consequences of sin seriously.
Why is sin not mentioned?
Church leaders are deathly afraid that someone in the audience might get offended, not come back, and collection income would drop.
Hit me kinda hard when he did that.
The interesting thing about Beck and many others is one such as myself honestly wonders where they even mentioned anything about homosexuality - at all. I guess though, that the activists have their own list of groups for whom everyone in the group is an enemy.
Oh my goodness, we can't allow our society to denigrate! That would be racist!!!
Yes and its very sad.
Yeah.
I read that the wife put Rush up to that. Which is not a good sign. I hope she is not a social liberal. That can tear a marriage apart worse than anything.
No conservative Christian should invite Elton to sing at a Christian ceremony. Elton has a decadent lifestyle and says horribly abusive things about conservative Christians.
Invite Elton as a guest, then OK. Then he might hear some good gospel preaching (not sure if there was!) But don’t legitimize him as the honored guest.
Prayer is the bulwark of chastity.
— St. Gregory the Great
There’s no way your spouse doesn’t influence your positions. One of the reasons Catholic priests don’t get married.
I’ve seen recent trailers for movies called “Friends with Benefits” and “No Strings Attached” that say that the biggest sin is linking emotional attachment to sex.
I wonder how many social and fiscal conservatives on FR are living with a member of the opposite sex without being married to them?
I wonder how of these same people think they are Christians in good standing with God despite the warning of Jesus that is recorded in Revelation 22:15 that no person who is sexually immoral can inherit the Kingdom of God.
good point.
Model Penal Code published in 1962...
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Model+Penal+Code
by this group, ALI, The American Law Institute.
http://www.ali.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.creation
There’s a very short synopsis of what he Model Penal Code of 1962 wound up accomplishing in, not a right-wing publication, but right in wikipedia if you care to look for it. Look at the section entitled Use.
If you don’t want to look there, the short version is this:
The MPC is not law but it serves as a basis for the replacement of existing criminal codes in over two-thirds of the states.
It omitted sodomy, adultery and fornication as crimes, as well contained stricter gun control law.
So - since this was cooked up by lawyers, judges and legal scholars, then jumped on and passed by state legislators under the LIE of “updating and standarizing”, does anyone feel like that was a fork in the road where we left our morals ?
Nice, eh, the “intelligentsia” of the country didn’t have to work at dropping sodomy by itself on a separate bill in every state legislature - just pass a bunch of “standardization” mumbo jumbo laws that have a big heap of changes, one of which is to quietly omit it.
Could pass anything that way, right ? Anyone ever hear of this before now ?
Prior to 1962 those immoral behavior crimes were laws on the books in every state. Nice job, lawyers, judges and legal scholars for “fixing” our laws - you know best !
RE: Rush Limbaugh
You might want to read his stance on abortion here:
http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Rush_Limbaugh_Abortion.htm
Read what he has to say on Gay Marriage:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052909/content/01125111.guest.html
The OnTheIssues site (I use a lot) sure did take two of the worst they could use. Rush has some great pro-life monologs that get to the fundamental issue of the individual’s right to existence.
This is only one of many examples that could be listed.
As long as we think that man gets to set the rules then we are actually living up to the idea of Humanism which will eventually lead to socialism and communism...see the Humanist Manifesto from 1933 and 1973.
The only answer for the moral decline is a return to the study of God's Word and the decision to live by God's Word.
**The only answer for the moral decline is a return to the study of God’s Word and the decision to live by God’s Word.**
Wise words.
People view morality the same way they view driving. Everybody thinks they’re a good driver, it’s everybody else that’s a problem. People think they’re moral, and that their entertainment is OK, it’s that crap everybody else watches that’s ruining the country.
As a former elder in one of those “evangelical” churches I would say that you hit the nail on the head...”and collection income would drop”. When we brought in the new pastor I noticed a change in the topics on Sunday morning. Attendance grew a little...many new people but several of the original members left...but giving increased. In discussions with the pastor I could see that the church was going the way of “increase the numbers at any cost” and after discussions with the other elders felt that my best option was to resign as an elder and member of the church. This church as well as many others are really only social clubs now...
good point...
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