Evidence of Inconsistent Thinking

This Gallup poll is an interesting one, at least to me. Let me list some of the findings of the poll. The first number is the percentage who find the thing "morally acceptable" and the second number is the percentage who find it "morally wrong".

Abortion: 39 to 48
Having a baby outside of marriage: 54 to 41
Gay or Lesbian relations: 56 to 39
Sex between an unmarried man and woman: 60 to 36
Pornography: 30 to 66
Divorce: 69 to 23
Married men and women having an affair: 7 to 91

So, for at least 9% of the respondents, abortion is okay but porn is not. For at least 24%, having a baby outside of marriage, which usually involves heterosexual fornication, is okay, but porn is not. Speaking of heterosexual fornication, at least 30 percent of those who think it is okay think porn is not. For at least 39%, divorce is okay, but porn is not.

So... it is okay to engage in heterosexual fornication and homosexual behavior, but someone watching video of the same is wrong.

Of course, the opinions of the public are probably more nuanced than allowed by the poll. A few points on this:

1) Most people would not consider selective abortion and abortion to save the mother's life equivalent. But do people know that many birth control methods are abortive, rather than contraceptive? What do they think of using fertility treatments and/or IVF, having multiple embryos implanted, and then having some of them aborted?

2) Most people would not place all divorce in the same category. Divorce to get away from an abuser who married under fraudulent pretenses is not the same thing as divorcing to "go find oneself".

3) What is meant by pornography? Photos from Playboy magazine? Romance novels? Stuff found on Cinemax? Hardcore video?

Another interesting thing to me is that very high majority of Americans have viewed (and continue to view) porn, yet 66% say it is wrong. Also, it is apparent that a lot of people have affairs knowing they are wrong. Of course, neither the reality of behavior not always following professed belief, nor the reality that some people have internally inconsistent worldviews, are newly discovered.

But what are we to think, given that Americans take these views:

Doctor assisted suicide: 45 to 48
Suicide: 15 to 80

So, for some reason, at least 30% of Americans think suicide is wrong, unless you drag a doctor into it to essentially make the doctor a killer. I'm not sure what sense can be found in that. But then, most people would make a distinction between a serial child rapist-killer committing suicide as opposed to a father of three minor children with a financially dependent wife killing himself because he was stressed.