A national poll shows that while Americans are still holding on to some traditional moral values, they have validated immoral behaviors that are self-satisfying.

The poll, conducted by Gallup, revealed 91 percent of respondents considered extramarital affairs immoral. In addition to cheating spouses, polygamy, cloning humans, suicide and pornography all ranked as the top five immoral “sins” among Americans.

A majority of respondents also ranked abortion as an immoral behavior.

However, more respondents found cloning animals immoral (62 percent) than doctor assisted suicide (48 percent). A narrow 45 percent of Americans believe assisted suicide is morally acceptable. Cloning of animals also outweighed the moral importance of embryonic stem cell research (only 30 percent found it immoral), fornication (36 percent), gambling (31 percent) and divorce (23 percent).

The poll shows what Richard Land, president of Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says is a deep-rooted problem with Americans’ sense of priorities.

Land says Americans’ moral values are skewed to focus less on their obligations and responsibilities and more on their “supposed rights and privileges.”

Americans’ supposed right to be loved has led a majority of respondents to value divorce (69 percent), homosexual relations (56 percent), sex outside of marriage (60 percent) and even having children outside of marriage (54 percent) as morally acceptable behaviors, according to the poll.

Land disagrees with the popular sentiment. He states that morals begin at home with the family. Yet, “Adults continue to convince themselves that they have the right to walk out on their promises and obligations to their spouses and their children in search of their own self-fulfillment,” he noted.

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