Discussion for article #234848
Without knowing the equivalent answers in previous decades (and even then) a lot of the language in this poll seems way too ambiguous to draw any but the most tentative conclusions. See, for example, the question about whether the country is on the right track, with no followup about what that track might be. But from reading the report that went along with the numbers, I have a sense that the results were not what the people who commissioned the poll really wanted them to be…
A lot of it is just the difference between believing “immorality” means being manipulative or exploitive or doing things you know are highly likely to result in someone else experiencing hurt feelings or remorse and believing “immorality” means doing things deemed categorically sinful by Gawwwwd. Millennials are a lot more likely to adhere to the first definition, which leaves a lot of room for exceptions.
I’ve always thought “morality polling” is fundamentally flawed. Nobody’s going to be honest in saying they’d rather get laid now and married at some future time. They do it…they just aren’t as vocal or honest about expressing it…just look at the success of all the “hook up apps” out there…they aren’t for dating, you know.
One thing the poll does seem to show is that there’s a large chunk of kids raised by wingnut parents who will tell a pollster what they think the pollster wants to hear. Might even believe it, some of them.