Posted by blood roses at 2:57pm Jun 12 '06Recently, a poll was conducted in Canada where respondants were asked to indicate whether they considered a certain issue immoral. Here is the report. Here is a table summarizing the results:
I found a similar poll for America. Here is a summary (with a link to the report). Here is a table summarizing the results:
I thought it might provide some intersting discussion. Here are a couple things I noticed that I thought I'd point out:
- In the US, the abortion and homosexuality positions seem to be split about 50-50. That would certainly explain why those things are so heavily debated. In Canada, only about 35% believe abortion is wrong, and only 31% believe homosexuality is wrong, which explains why abortion isn't considered to be up for debate here, nor are civil unions for gays (although gay marriage still is). (It should be noted that the American survey asks about "homosexual behaviour" whereas the Canadian one asks about "homosexuality"; those who believe there is nothing wrong with being homosexual but believe homsexual sex is a sin and gay people should remain celibate would perhaps answer differently for homosexual behaviour than for homsexuality).
- In America, 50% believe homosexual behaviour is wrong, but only 35% believe sex between unmarried adults is wrong. I really would have thought those numbers would be closer together, as I assumed both would be Christians who believe those things are wrong for religious reasons. Given that the majority of Americans are Christian, it's interesting that so many follow the teachings of their church on homosexuality but not on premarital sex.
- In Canada women tend to be more condemning than men, but not in America. (It could be that the behaviours brought up in the Canadian questionnaire are more distasteful to women than the ones in the American questionnaire). In both countries however, men were considerably more condemning of homsexuality, and slightly more condemning of abortion than women. I'm quite curious as to why women seem to be more accepting of homsexuality (something I've actually noticed in conversing with men and women about it, but I didn't want to generalize based on my own experiences).
That's all that comes to mind right now. If you read the full report for the American poll, it breaks down the responses by gender, age, education, income, marital status, church attendance, religion, ideology, party identification, and region. The Canadian poll is broken down by gender and region (as shown in the table I posted). So there is definately some fun to be had with the numbers if anybody is interested ([private], I'm looking at you! :P)
I found a similar poll for America. Here is a summary (with a link to the report). Here is a table summarizing the results:
I thought it might provide some intersting discussion. Here are a couple things I noticed that I thought I'd point out:
- In the US, the abortion and homosexuality positions seem to be split about 50-50. That would certainly explain why those things are so heavily debated. In Canada, only about 35% believe abortion is wrong, and only 31% believe homosexuality is wrong, which explains why abortion isn't considered to be up for debate here, nor are civil unions for gays (although gay marriage still is). (It should be noted that the American survey asks about "homosexual behaviour" whereas the Canadian one asks about "homosexuality"; those who believe there is nothing wrong with being homosexual but believe homsexual sex is a sin and gay people should remain celibate would perhaps answer differently for homosexual behaviour than for homsexuality).
- In America, 50% believe homosexual behaviour is wrong, but only 35% believe sex between unmarried adults is wrong. I really would have thought those numbers would be closer together, as I assumed both would be Christians who believe those things are wrong for religious reasons. Given that the majority of Americans are Christian, it's interesting that so many follow the teachings of their church on homosexuality but not on premarital sex.
- In Canada women tend to be more condemning than men, but not in America. (It could be that the behaviours brought up in the Canadian questionnaire are more distasteful to women than the ones in the American questionnaire). In both countries however, men were considerably more condemning of homsexuality, and slightly more condemning of abortion than women. I'm quite curious as to why women seem to be more accepting of homsexuality (something I've actually noticed in conversing with men and women about it, but I didn't want to generalize based on my own experiences).
That's all that comes to mind right now. If you read the full report for the American poll, it breaks down the responses by gender, age, education, income, marital status, church attendance, religion, ideology, party identification, and region. The Canadian poll is broken down by gender and region (as shown in the table I posted). So there is definately some fun to be had with the numbers if anybody is interested ([private], I'm looking at you! :P)