One line in my column last week -- in which I discussed Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer's speech during a University of Mary commencement ceremony earlier this month -- resonated with responding readers who agreed and disagreed with the article.
"What Cramer should have gotten at ... is that it's not the government's job to be your moral compass," I wrote.
With social issues like abortion (as the right calls it), otherwise known as women's right to choose (as the left calls it), and gay marriage (as just about everyone calls it) heating up under the political limelight, there's been a lot of talk of getting the nation back into good moral standing.
And as it turns out, a sampling of 1,535 adults by habitual pollster Gallup revealed that 72 percent of Americans say the nation's moral values are "getting worse," compared to 20 percent who say they are "getting better" and 6 percent who say they're "the same."
The results of Gallup's Values and Beliefs poll were reported Wednesday by The Washington Post, which said the percentages were "slightly more optimistic than 2006-2008, when more than 80 percent of Americans thought moral values were getting worse and only 11 percent thought they were getting better."
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With recent calls by politicians to realign America's morals, I really began to wonder when the nation's morals had ever been so good. Was it when the Native Americans were slaughtered for their land? Or was it when women hung from the noose after being accused of witchcraft? Was it when brother fought brother and father fought son in a bloody war to abolish slavery?
A quick Google search for "America's moral decline" reveals no shortage of commentary on the subject, with the search returning more than 1 million results. The first result, a March 2012 article from The Economist, says crime -- including homicide -- is down since 1991; the abortion rate declined 8 percent from 2000 to 2008 (although information from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the 2008 rate was slightly higher than the 2005 rate); divorce and infidelity rates are down; teenage pregnancy rates are down; and the nation's graduation and charitable giving rates are up.
Another article -- which actually may be a sermon -- found on ContenderMinistries.org says commercials full of profanity, sexually explicit content and barely clothed women, no prayer in schools, condom machines in restrooms, and immoral behavior are driving forces behind the nation's moral decay.
But long before scantily clad women offered ice-cold refreshing soft drinks, we had a nation that segregated its races. So-called good white men believed it was their moral duty to beat black men in the street for so much as looking in their direction. In 1963, near the climax of the civil rights movement, a Birmingham, Ala., Baptist church was bombed. Is this the moral America to which we want to return?
Maybe we should go back further -- long before there was a TV on which to broadcast profanity -- to a time when women were nothing more than a man's property. They had no right to vote. They had no right to speak. Their only right -- as taught to them in church -- was obedience to their man lest she face his wrath. Why even today there may still be laws in the books in some states permitting a man to beat his wife (although any such law would be superseded by domestic violence laws).
If America's moral values are in decline, I'd venture to say the slope isn't nearly as steep as some would have us believe. And looking back, there's certainly no period in moral value history to which I'd like to see the nation return. To be honest, it appears many people confuse a decline in morality with an increase in the number of Americans not affiliated with organized religion. That's a fallacy.
The perceived failure of our youth's role models, be them parents, religious leaders or famous athletes, to instill a sense of morality in the next generation is not a sign that politicians should step in and take over, especially considering the competency of the U.S. government.
It's up to you to understand that simply because abortion is a legal medical procedure doesn't mean you have to have one. You don't have to tune in as Victoria's Secret is broadcast on TV, and you don't have to stop praying in school simply because teachers no longer lead a prayer.
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Seeking moral values from the government is a quest doomed to failure because a moral America starts and ends with you.
Byrd is the news editor for The Dickinson Press. Email him at kbyrd@thedickinsonpress.com or tweet him at klarkbyrd.
