Clergy have middling reputation. What do nurses, soldiers, pharmacists, elementary school teachers, doctors and police officers have in common? Americans say they all are more ethical and honest than members of the clergy, according to a new Gallup survey. Slightly more than half of Americans—53 percent—rate the moral values of priests, ministers and other clerics as “very high” or “high.” That percentage is a slight bump from 2009, when only 50 percent of Americans said men and women of the cloth are ethical paragons, the lowest number in Gallup’s 32 years of measuring professional reputations. One-third of Americans this year said the clergy’s morals are “average,” and 8 percent rated them “poor,” according to the survey. Bringing up the bottom of the professional ethics list were lobbyists, car salesmen and members of Congress. Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Nov. 19-21, with a random sample of 1,037 adults, aged 18 and older. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Higher well-being related to religious commitment. The most religious Americans also have the highest rates of well-being, according to a Gallup survey. The finding is based on a poll of more than 550,000 people about their physical and emotional health and their work environment. Overall, the very religious received a score on Gallup’s well-being index of 68.7 percent, while both the moderately religious and the nonreligious received a score of 64.2 percent. The very religious were defined as those who said religion is an important part of their daily lives and they attend worship services at least every week or almost every week. The survey involved a random sample of 554,066 U.S. adults between Jan 2 and July 28 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 0.5 percentage points.
Is marriage obsolete? Marriage is on the decline in American society, with nearly four in 10 people claiming the institution is obsolete, according to a Pew Research Center study. The Pew survey, conducted in association with Time magazine, showed 44 percent of adults have lived with an unmarried partner at some point in their lives. A majority of Americans agree single parents with children (86 percent), unmarried couples living together with children (80 percent) and same-sex couples with children (63 percent) are families. However, almost seven in 10 say single women having children is bad for the society, and 61 percent think children need both a mother and a father “to grow up happily.” People who regularly attend religious services were less likely than other Americans to accept new forms of family. When asked if “new family arrangements are a bad thing,” 45 percent of church-goers agreed, compared to 15 percent of those who either rarely or never attend church. People who attend religious services also favored a traditional arrangement of a working father and a stay-at-home mom over a marriage where both parents work. Results were based on phone interviews with 2,691 adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
Compiled from Religion News Service