by WorldTribune Staff, June 5, 2018
About half of the U.S. population believes America’s moral compass is pointing straight to Styx, the river in hell, not the rock band, a new Gallup poll found.
“Americans have always viewed the state of U.S. morals more negatively than positively. But the latest figures are the worst to date, with a record-high 49 percent rating values as poor and a record-tying-low 14 percent rating them as excellent or good,” Gallup reported on June 1.
“[I]n 10 of the past 12 annual polls since 2007, Americans have been decidedly more likely to rate it as poor. … When asked whether U.S. moral values are getting better or worse, Americans have consistently said they are worsening.” 77 percent now say moral values in the country are getting worse.
Columnist Cheryl K. Chumley wrote for The Washington Times on June 5 that “Virtues, morals and principles don’t come naturally; they must be taught. And a nation that accepts the worst of humankind as normal – Rome anyone? – rather than pushing and pressing for the best, the highest, the most inspirational, sets itself on a path of depravity and destruction.”
Since the 1960s, Chuley noted, “statistics guiding out-of-wedlock birthrates have soared from around 24 percent for blacks and 3 percent for whites to 64 percent in 1990 for blacks and 18 percent for whites. Why?”
“Well, in part, because the stigma of unmarried sex has been removed,” Chumley wrote.
The U.S. has “gone from a society of wait-‘til-you’re-married expectations to first-date hookups followed by morning-after pills. Sex is recreational, like dining out and catching a movie, or getting together for racquetball.”
America’s TV shows “both reflect and feed that mindset,” Chumley wrote. “Can you imagine, for instance, the mom on the 1950s-era ‘Leave It To Beaver’ handing son Wally a condom as he leaves the house for a night of fun with his friend Eddie? Heck, a modern-day version of that same show wouldn’t just have Beaver’s mom and dad divorced. It would also play on the title to suggest scripts filled with casual sex and vulgarity.”
As for “Lucy and Ricky’s separate on-camera beds? That’s today’s comedic scene, in and of itself,” Chumley wrote. “Yesterday’s ‘I Love Lucy’ sitcom has morphed into today’s ‘Two and a Half Men’, where the bedroom of star Charlie Sheen’s character is an open and revolving door of one-night partners.”
Chumley continued: “So goes the moral compass of the people, so goes the popular culture – so goes the political system, as well.”
Topics like abortion and homosexuality, Chumley wrote, “once regarded as the stuff of secrets and shame, or at least personal and preserved as topics to discuss with best friends only, have come out of the corner, come out of the closet, and crossed into the line of openly discussed, openly flaunted, openly and even, in some respects, publicly and taxpayer-funded. Culture breeds politics? Ask Planned Parenthood; ask the military’s transgenders under Barack Obama.”
“When the culture becomes one of rot, it’s not long until the behaviors and patterns of its people become similarly rotten. … The change may come in dribs and drabs, and take generations. But it comes, all the same.”
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