Gallup released a poll regarding whether certain acts were moral or immoral. You can look at the results here:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=16318

I'm not going to post the poll here, because I'd like you to answer the poll first, and then see how you compare. We could also see how RM compares if enough people respond.

Here are the acts. The simple question was, is it morally acceptable or not? If you're undecided or want to clarify your position, then that's perfectly fine to me--I know I am on some of these.

1. Abortion
2. Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur
3. Cloning animals
4. Cloning humans
5. The death penalty
6. Divorce
7. Doctor-assisted suicide
8. Gambling
9. Having a baby outside of marriage
10. Homosexual relations
11. Married men and women having an affair
12. Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos
13. Medical testing on animals
14. Polygamy
15. Sex between an unmarried man and woman
16. Suicide

Some of those are hard to answer yes or no to because there can be different instances where the same "moral" is being tested where I might choose differently.

A=acceptable U=unacceptable


1. Abortion - A
2. Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur - A
3. Cloning animals - A
4. Cloning humans - A
5. The death penalty - A
6. Divorce - A
7. Doctor-assisted suicide - A
8. Gambling - A
9. Having a baby outside of marriage - A
10. Homosexual relations - A
11. Married men and women having an affair - U
12. Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos - A
13. Medical testing on animals - A
14. Polygamy - A
15. Sex between an unmarried man and woman - A
16. Suicide - U but A in some cases

Yeah I know, I'm struggling with wording a couple of these answers right now.

Interesting - 49% say doctor assisted suicide is acceptable

Amazing how many people find homosexuality "unnacceptable." I mean marriage is one thing, but if you don't know anybody who is gay in 2005 you are living in the dark ages.

Looking at the results a lot of it is strange. Polygamy is 92% wrong but having a baby outside of marriage is accepted by a majority of the population.

People are fucking strange. I really despise organized religion at this point.

Wow, a whole group of subjects ripe for controversy.

Hmm, I think it all depends on how the individual defines morality. If I look through this list and try to define morlity as what I would do without a burden on my conscience, then I find all of these immoral. That may seem a little rough, however I do not hold any other individual to my set of standards for morals and as such I would define these all as morally acceptable. For example while I would never even consider aborting a child that I gave life to, I don't believe that I am in a position to tell someone else that they can't. I guess that is why I consider myself a libertarian for the most part.

So to answer the question, I don't know.

So its okay to gamble, abort a fetus, clone a human being, but not okay to smoke pot. Smoking pot is BAD!

so youre assuming that everyone who took this poll is tied to some religious sect? how you have the nerve to despise anyone is beyond me



i swear, your name really is stanley isnt it?


just because i make a choice that i will never do or take drugs and thinks its stupid, does not mean i think the act itself is moral or not, but i do know for sure that it is 100% wrong in the instance youre talking about

The majority of those are Christian/Judeo morals.

Going on my pure gut instinct, using Peep's abbreviations:

1. Abortion-U
2. Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur-A
3. Cloning animals-A
4. Cloning humans-U
5. The death penalty-U
6. Divorce-A
7. Doctor-assisted suicide-A
8. Gambling-A
9. Having a baby outside of marriage-A
10. Homosexual relations-A
11. Married men and women having an affair-U
12. Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos-A
13. Medical testing on animals-A
14. Polygamy-U
15. Sex between an unmarried man and woman-A
16. Suicide-A

Now I'll check the poll results.

I'll never understand why people think having an affair is morally worse than killing another human being, whether a felon or a fetus.

I'm confused as to whether I'm pro-choice or pro-life, but I realize that abortion is morally reprehensible.

the only reason i said cheating was unnacceptable, is if youre going to cheat on someone...if youre going to have the courage to stick it somewhere else, or spread your legs for someone, then also have the courage to end your current relationship. noone ever leaves an adulterous relationship with out some kind of hurt

the reason polygamy gets my ok is, all parties know before hand, unless we are talking the polygamy where the guy has business trips to many different states, and not that kind that utah is famous for

This is part of my personal philosophy. I will do my best to never cheat, but instead end the relationship. I think cheating is one of the most cowardly things one can do.

well very basically, and if youd like, we can draw it out.


kiling someone as in the death penalty - some things a person does is just so bad that there is no other recourse but to end their life. you can say thats cold and calculated and it is, and people will say, well taking the killers life is no different then his taking his victims, to which i say:

the victim had no choice in the matter, the killer who will be put to death did, and that was not to kill

as far as abortion - i dont consider a fetus a living breathing thing untill well into 4-5 months or so, and even then, nothing more than a parasite at best

I've heard these justifications again and again, but I still say that no human being has the right to kill another human being. "But they voided their right by killing someone in the first place, so why should they be allowed to live?" The answer: violence begets violence, and hatred creates hatred. You do not replace a human being by killing another one. Combine this with the facts that the death pentaly is not a deterrent to crime and many death penalty cases turn out to be innocent men, and you will understand why I am so strongly against it.

As for abortion, it's murder. It may be murder of a non-human for some, but it is stilll murder, and I'm not willing to say it's morally acceptable.

see i think the whole, the death penalty is/isnt a deterrant is a little misleading. how do you know how many people didnt go and kill someone because they didnt want to face the death penalty?

and likewise, saying, well people still kill people knowing if they get caught, they can face the death penalty, these would be the folks who would break the law no matter the consequences

Yeah, I guess if there were any issues that I was more inclined to go against it would be the issues involving the life of another thing, be it any living creature. I would also be curious as to where drug usage would fall into the moral spectrum.

I'm saying it's not a deterrent due to statistical studies that have shown this. These include a study that shows that there are significantly higher murder rates in death penalty states than non-death penalty states and that this difference increased during the 90's, among others that show similar results.

Some of these studies: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167

I realize that the source and method of these studies may create bias, but it seems that any doubt as to the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime is significant in such an important issue, and that a stong indication of deterrence should be shown in studies if we are to believe law enforcement's claim that the death penalty does in fact deter crime.

And your question of "how do we know?" is important, because the answer is this: we don't know. But statistics can provide for somewhat concrete and often very significant answers, and are the only tool we have for investigating questions such as these.

I read over those, and I decided that "moral" is just not the right word to apply to those things. It made me realize that using the word moral is necessarily applying my own opinion onto the actions of others. I may find some of those things disgusting or despicable, but to say that they are immoral is to impose myself and my beliefs onto others. I think the question is MUCH more telling than the answers. The very fact that Americans think in such terms as moral and immoral is more interesting than what exactly they find moral or immoral.

If forced to answer, I'd say they are all acceptable.