conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

american family idol?

Americans idolize 'traditional family' even if theirs isn't one, study shows

By Robert Marus

This is interesting:

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- A new survey shows that, even as Americans have become more accepting of non-traditional family structures, their view of the ideal family has remained the same -- a heterosexual couple, married for life, with children.

The survey, commissioned by the PBS program Religion and Ethics
Newsweekly, was conducted by the Washington polling firm Greenberg
Quinlan Rosner Research. It will form the basis for a four-week series
on the public-television show, beginning the weekend of Oct. 28.

The results, released to the press Oct. 19, show "that there is a
significant gap between what we call beliefs and reality" about the
family, said pollster Anna Greenberg, who designed the survey.

"Nearly everyone in this country supports what we would call the
'traditional family,'" Greenberg continued, noting that 71 percent of
respondents agreed with the statement, "God's plan for marriage is one
man, one woman, for life."

However, only 22 percent of respondents agreed that divorce is a sin, 49
percent said it is OK for couples to live together without intending to
get married, and 40 percent agreed that it is "a good idea for a couple
who intend to get married to live together first."
"There's a very strong -- some might even say romanticized -- vision of
what family life should look like," Greenberg told reporters. "Yet,
there is a very strong realization of what family life actually looks
like."

For instance, 52 percent of respondents believed that divorce is
"usually the best solution when a couple can't seem to work out their
marriage problems." That figure included 38 percent of those in
"traditional marriages," defined as a heterosexual couple in their first
marriage with children at home.

Greenberg also noted that divorce rates are similar between the
population at large and evangelical Protestants and traditionalist
Catholics. "If you are more religiously conservative ... you are not
less likely to get divorced and in some cases more likely to get
divorced," she said.

The survey found that less than 20 percent of respondents were
never-divorced married couples with children at home. Another 27 percent
were married and never divorced but with no children living at home.

Nonetheless, a large majority of respondents remain opposed to marriage
and adoption rights for same-sex couples.

The tension between the ideals for marriage and the reality means that,
despite changes in society, institutions charged with defining societal
ideals have held their ground in the area of family life, said John
Green, who helped conduct the study. Green is a professor of political
science at the University of Akron and an expert on American religious
life.

"... [C]hurches and other religious institutions have been very
successful at maintaining a certain ideal that can be held by people who
don't live it out," Green said. "On the other hand, Americans have
become much, much more tolerant of deviations from that ideal, I suspect
because they themselves have experienced those deviations."

The survey was conducted between July 25 and Aug. 7 and involved 1,130
adults across the nation. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3
percent.

Posted by tripp at October 20, 2005 08:45 PM