Based on Jesus’s words, we cannot love him and say it is “morally acceptable” to commit sexual immorality. We cannot love Jesus and say committing adultery, consuming pornography, engaging in homosexual relations, or engaging in sex as an unmarried person (whether adult or teen) is “morally acceptable.” Jesus doesn’t give us the option of loving him while disagreeing with him about sexual morality. That means we all have a choice to make: we can either choose to obey him or admit we don’t truly love him.
The Story:
According to a new Gallup survey, more Americans consider consider behaviors “morally acceptable” that the Bible condemns.
The Background:
Beginning in the early early 2000s, Gallup started tracking the views of Americans on the moral acceptability of various issues and behaviors. The overall trend clearly points toward a higher acceptance of behaviors that the Bible clearly condemns. In fact, as Gallup notes, the moral acceptability ratings on abortion, sex between unmarried men and women, having a baby outside of marriage, and gay/lesbian relations are at record highs.
The first number in each category lists the percentage of Americans who consider the behavior “morally acceptable,” while the second number is the percentage that consider it “morally wrong.” An asterisk indicates an issue at a record high level of acceptance since Gallup began surveying the issue.
- Sex between an unmarried man and woman*—73 percent/26 percent
- Gay or lesbian relations*—69 percent/30 percent
- Gambling—68 percent/30 percent
- Having a baby outside of marriage*—67 percent/32 percent
- Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos—64 percent/34 percent
- Doctor-assisted suicide—54 percent/43 percent
- Abortion*—47 percent/46 percent
- Changing one’s gender identity—46 percent/51 percent
- Pornography—40 percent/58 percent
- Sex between teenagers—43 percent/52 percent
- Suicide—19 percent/77 percent
- Polygamy—20 percent/78 percent
- Married men and women having an affair—10 percent/89 percent
What It Means:
On every single issue—from abortion to suicide—the shift has been in a more permissive direction. None of the issues polled shows a meaningful change toward a more biblical position compared with when Gallup first measured them in the early 2000s.
A bare majority (51 percent) say that changing one’s gender identity is morally wrong. But that statistic is skewed by the older generations. Of those 65 and older, 64 percent say it is morally wrong, as do 52 percent of those 50–64. In contrast, a majority of Americans ages 30–49 (51 percent) and 18–29 (55 percent) say it is morally acceptable.
