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.”

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