Here's the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs poll, which they conduct every year in the U.S. (and, at least sometimes, in other countries). The poll asks people whether a variety of things are morally acceptable or not.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx

Here are my opinions about whether these things are acceptable or not:

The Death Penalty--no*

Divorce--yes

Stem Cell Research--yes

Gambling--yes (unless it's gambling a family's savings or something like that)

Medical Testing on Animals--no (at least unless it's absolutely necessary to prevent horrible suffering and death by other animals or humans)

Sex between single adults--yes

Buying and wearing real fur--no

Having children outside of marriage--yes

Doctor-assisted suicide--yes

Same-sex relationships--yes

Abortion--yes

Cloning Animals--yes

Suicide--yes

Cloning humans--no (sounds like the Nazi idea for a master race).

Polygamy--yes

Married people having affairs--yes


*As far as the death penalty, I believe some people do things so bad (and furthermore, that we know with absolute certainty they did it) that killing them is justifiable or excusable. I don't think Israel was wrong to execute Adolf Eichmann for his major role in the Holocaust. In the Godfather, I don't think Vito was wrong to kill Don Ciccio for killing his whole family, or that Michael was wrong to have Carlo executed for Sonny's death. But I think it's wrong to have the death penalty as a legal policy, because situations like this are few and far between. The potential for innocent people to be executed is simply too great. What if Andy Dufresne in "The Shawshank Redemption" had been given the death penalty and executed? Yes, he's fictitious, but there are people like him in real life.

I don't think any rational nonreligious argument can be made against things like homosexuality and single people having sex. Suicide and, to a lesser extent, extramarital affairs may not be a good idea in many cases, for obvious reasons, but I don't think they're morally wrong either.

I invite others here to give their opinions about the issues asked about in the poll, the same way I have.

I'm pretty liberal and agree with most of your answers, Vito, with the exception of animal medical testing. I love animals and I've had pets all my life, but it's my belief that people come first. That's where the extremists at PETA go off the beam. When you care more about the animal kingdom than you do about humanity, I think you're a little bit off. So while I'm dead set against snobby Upper East Side women wearing animal pelts just to be fashionable, if animal testing cures cancer or HIV someday, I'm all for it.

If there was a reason to believe that a cure for cancer or HIV (or something similar) was in sight, and the only effective way to test it was to test on animals, that would fall under the "preventing horrible suffering and /or death" exception I said I would make.

Not long ago they successfully reversed the aging process in mice. This may take some time to perfect of course, but this will eventually be made available to us. Imagine Sonny Franzese getting his hands on this shit. He'll be underboss forever.

Here are my opinions about whether these things are acceptable or not:

The Death Penalty--yes

Divorce--yes

Stem Cell Research--yes

Gambling--yes

Medical Testing on Animals--yes; however, I don't understand the need for the testing of cosmetics. That's disgusting.

Sex between single adults--yes

Buying and wearing real fur--yes. If you'll wear leather, why not fur?

Having children outside of marriage--no

Doctor-assisted suicide--yes

Same-sex relationships--yes

Abortion--yes

Cloning Animals--not sure why we need to, unless it would help with transplant patients. For example, if we could learn how to grow someone a new liver, then I'm all for it.

Suicide--yes and no. I have compassion for the person who is in such horrible pain, but I also feel that it's a bit selfish. The pain of those left behind is also enormous.

Cloning humans--no

Polygamy--no

Married people having affairs--no. If you want to continue having affairs, then don't get married. They are called "vows" for a reason.

I agree, Babe. If you're a sexual hedonist and you have some type of need that can't be filled by just one partner, hey, that's your business. But keep it out of the marriage, unless you're in some kind of mutually agreed upon "open marriage."

I mean, if that's your lifestyle, again, it's your business. But if that's the case, why bother getting married in the first place?

I can't help but shake my head in disgust when animal lovers go ape shit if somebody wears fur. Did you know that a large majority of those PETA bastards do not give a fuck about ugly animals. I remember this news story not long ago when some girl tossed a few puppies into this big ass river and everybody went nuts. PETA wanted to execute this chick. If she had tossed rats into the river, nobody would've cared.

Yeah, but some Italian guy would get indicted for it .

Well, if he's from The Bronx, then yeah. Just say you're Swedish.

This seems like selective logic to me. By this reasoning, divorce should usually be unacceptable too, since most people's vows include "till death do us part" or a variation thereof. It strikes me as odd to basically argue that only one part of the vows is morally binding while the rest of it isn't.

This reminds me of those who oppose gay marriage on the grounds that marriage is about having children, yet have no problem with a 70 year old woman getting married.

Moreover, some marriages seem to be very successful despite the fact that one or both people is known to have affairs. Bill and Hillary Clinton are a good example. One would have to have a lot of chutzpah to argue otherwise.

Not to mention the fact that most people who have affairs don't end up wanting to have them until they're already married.

In my list of issues, I forgot to include pornography, which was also mentioned in the poll. I consider porn morally acceptable.

By the way, in 2008 Gallup polled people in Britain, Germany, and France about these issues at the same time they asked Americans about them. It's very interesting to compare the responses. It appears that the British, French, and Germans are more conservative than Americans about the death penalty and more liberal about everything else in the poll (this is true of Canadians as well). For example, while 62% of Americans in 2008 said the death penalty was morally acceptable, only 22% of Germans did. Conversely, while only 7% of Americans said it was morally acceptable for a married person to have an affair, 35% of Germans did.

Vito, you misunderstood my post. If you enter marriage INTENDING to have other relationships, then why bother getting married in the first place?? Marriage is supposed to be about forsaking all others. If you have no intention of doing so, then what's the point?

I personally don't want to get married at all. But I think that for some people, there IS still a point to getting married even if they want to also have relationships with other people. They want to be with the person they're marrying the rest of their life, they just don't want to give up having relationships with other people too. I think Bill Clinton is a good example of this--there certainly seems to have been a point to his marrying Hillary even though it's obvious he's had sex with many other people.

Also, I don't think marriage is inherently "about" anything. It's about what ever it's about to the person in question who's getting married. Marriage has been about many things at different times and places in history.

I see what you're saying, I think it's just that many people simply love animals more than they do other people. Part of it, I think, is the feeling that unlike people, animals are totally innocent. I was opposed to the Iraq War, for example, but an Iraqi victimized by the war looking for vengeance could justly say I was partly complicit in it because I paid taxes to the government that helped finance the war. But even if this person wanted to hurt me, I could say: "Don't hurt my dogs. They had nothing to do with any of this."

My mom, who's a huge animal lover, can't watch the scene where Woltz finds Khartoum's head in his bed. She told me if I ordered that done, she'd never have anything to do with me again, although she'd still love me. At first I thought she was exaggerating, but now I realize she's telling the truth. However, she doesn't have a problem watching the scene with Senator Geary's prostitute--the only other case in the films where the Corleones deliberately have an innocent living thing killed. In view of what she said about the horse, I asked her if our relationship would end if she found out I had Geary's prostitute killed. She said she would think it was a terrible thing, but she wouldn't stop having anything to do with me because of it.