Americans are becoming more accepting of alternative lifestyles, including gay or lesbian relations and premarital sex, today than they were just a decade ago, according to a new Gallup poll.
The poll’s biggest takeaway was that nearly six in ten Americans consider gay or lesbian relationships to be morally acceptable today, an increase of 19 points over the past 12 years. While the 2000s saw an influx of statewide bans or restrictions on gay marriage, a dozen states – including Minnesota – have legalized same-sex marriage over the past few years.
The number of Americans who consider premarital sex and having children out-of-wedlock morally acceptable also increased significantly over the past decade. Sixty-three percent of Americans believe that it’s ok to have sex before marriage, an increase of 10 percent since the 2001 study, while 60 percent of Americans don’t have a major moral issue with pregnancy out-of-wedlock today – an increase of 15 percent.
That doesn’t mean that Americans are cool with premarital sex among teenagers, however. Only 32 percent of Americans find that to be morally tolerable.
Same with extramarital affairs, as a scant six percent of Americans believe that cheating on your significant other is morally acceptable.
Having an extramarital affair didn’t seem to impact former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who won a special election for Congress earlier this month, however. Sanford was censured by the South Carolina state legislature in 2009 for using state funds to visit his Argentinian mistress.
Gallup surveyed 1,535 adults nationwide from May 2-7, 2013. The margin of error was +/- 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
