The Typical American's Shopping Habits

Today's post is about the shopping habits of Jennifer, our Typical American.

The Typical American's Views on Abortion

The Typical American's Moral Views

According to polling by Gallup, Americans' views on various issues of relationships and morality continue to evolve.  As of 2013 the majority of Americans view same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, divorce, sex outside of marriage, and having a child outside of marriage as morally acceptable.  Adultery remains unpopular.  Polygamy also remains unpopular although the percentage of Americans viewing polygamy as morally acceptable has doubled since 2001.

The Rise of Secular America

Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

At the end of the 20th Century in 1999, 81% of Americans identified as Christians.  Today that percentage has dropped to 76%.  In the past 14 years Protestant churches have lost more than a fifth of their memberships.  Catholic membership has declined by 11% compared to 1999.  Some of these Christians may have simply changed their self-reported affiliation to Christian (non-specific), but a large number of Americans now report they have no religion or no religious affiliation.  In the past 14 years the percentage of Nones has almost doubled.

Religion in America

Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

This week is Passover and Easter, so religion in America seems a good blog topic.  Gallup has been tracking religious affiliation in the US since 1948.  In 2013, Gallup found that 3 out of 4 Americans identify as Christians.  One in 6 reported having no religious affiliation (15%) or didn't answer (2%).  One in 14 Americans belong to various other religions such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

The Typical American, Political Party

Gallup just released a new poll on January 8, 2014, of 18,000 Americans that finds the largest percentage of Americans ever identifying as independents.  While the percentage of Americans identifying as Democrats has held steady since 2010, a number of former Republicans have shifted to identifying as independents.  Thus, Jennifer, our Typical American, would identify as an independent. Party registration and party identification tend to be in monthly flux from Gallup data.  Thus, Jennifer might be registered as a Democrat or Republican but identify her party based on her current satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a political party.

Gallup also finds in another poll that 78% of American adult citizens are registered to vote.  So, Jennifer is registered to vote.

George Mason University’s Elections Project estimates the 2012 voter turnout to have been 58.2% of the voting eligible population.  The majority of Americans –and thus Jennifer- vote during presidential elections but do not vote in non-presidential elections.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

Majority:  

• Have been married by age 49

• Want to get married if they have not been

• Morally approve of interracial marriage

• Probably will have an extramarital affair in their lifetime

The first of the Ten Commandments I am going to examine is the prohibition against adultery.  While sociologist Andrew Cherlin projects that 85-90% of Americans will marry by the time they turn 49, marital infidelity is common.  The prevalence of infidelity among married heterosexuals covers quite a range in scientific studies.  Early sexologist Alfred Kinsey found that a third of men and a quarter of women reported having an affair on their spouse.  A meta-analysis of infidelity studies also finds a wide range of estimates, but these studies show 40-70% of married heterosexuals have an extramarital affair at some point in their lives.

In other words, adultery is common and possibly a behavior practiced at least once by the majority of married Americans.  Holy Moses indeed!

Gallup polling finds the majority -72%- of Americans polled in 2013 have been married.  Among those who have never married, 78% would like to marry someday.  One in four Americans, however, report to Gallup they have been divorced.

American attitudes towards sex in general and marriage continue to change.  From Gallup's polling on marriage, one can see big sea changes in Americans' attitudes:

Perhaps the biggest change -and longest tracked by Gallup- involves interracial marriage.  In 55 years the percentage of Americans approving of marriage between blacks and whites has jumped 83%.

Tune in tomorrow for more polling data!

Just How Many Americans Are...

The typical American overestimates the percentage of the population which is Black, Hispanic, or gay.

For me as a demographer, it sometimes seems strange that others don't pour over the latest Census figures and polling data with the glee others dive into a new Harry Potter book.  But, people are strange <wink>.

So perhaps it is not unsurprising that the typical American wildly overestimates the percentage of the population consisting of minority groups.  I believe many people probably base their perceptions on TV programs and the frequency of media coverage involving Americans from various minority groups.  

As I discussed earlier this week, the typical American in a recent Gallup poll estimated a quarter of the US population is gay -rather than the likely more accurate 3.5%.

An older poll from 2001 finds a similar misperception regarding Black and Hispanic Americans.  The average percentages of the population offered by respondents argues that 33% of Americans are Black and 29% of Americans are Hispanic!  The correct percentages from the 2000 US Census are 12.3% Black and 12.5% Hispanic.

Now keep in mind that you can mark Black for your race on the Census, mark Hispanic as your ethnicity, and be gay -a characteristic the Census doesn't ask about individually.  Still, it is fun to ponder that -barring overlap- our poor, hapless typical American may think 87% of the US population is Black, Hispanic, or gay!

Some of My Best Friends Are...

Majority:  The majority of Americans report they know someone who is gay/lesbian.

Various studies and polls find that people who reporting knowing someone who is gay or lesbian are also more likely to support gay rights.  A 2009 Gallup poll finds most Americans (58%) say they personally know someone who is gay or lesbian.  Among self-identified liberals, that percentage shoots up to 71%.

It might be easy to conclude that knowing someone who is gay makes you more sympathetics to gay people and gay civil rights issues.  On the other hand, perhaps the higher percentage of liberals -a group generally supportive of gay rights- reporting they know someone who is gay may well also express the reverse:  gay Americans may be more likely to come out to heterosexuals known to be supportive of gay rights.

While such questions are interesting, they also leave a bit of a bad taste for me because they other gay people.  Imagine how strange it would be to ask the same Gallup sample "Do you personally know someone who is heterosexual?" 

From Outlaws to In-Laws: Sodomy Laws to Marriage

Majority:  In a reversal from before 2001, most Americans do not support criminalizing private, consensual sexual relations between members of the same sex...and probably also do not support criminalizing private, consensual oral and anal sex for the heterosexual majority either.

With the quick succession of states legalizing civil marriage between same-sex couples, it is easy to forget that private, consensual sexual relations between same-sex couples -as well as certain sex acts between opposite-sex couples in some states- were criminalized up until a decade ago.  Under various names such as crimes against nature laws or sodomy laws, such laws made it a crime for a gay or lesbian couple to be intimate in the privacy of their own home.

The American Bar Association's model penal code revisions in the 1960s began to urge state legislatures to remove victimless moral crimes including consensual sodomy.  Keep in mind that such laws often banned oral and anal sex for heterosexuals too -and breaking these laws could lead to a felony conviction, listing on a sex offender registry, years in prison, and fines.  While the laws were rarely used against heterosexual couples, they were frequently cited in custody cases involving a lesbian mother and the heterosexual father of her children from a former relationship.  They were also cited as rationale for denying domestic partner benefits and allowing gay student organizations under the premise that such actions would support criminalized relationships.

My home state of Kentucky provides an interesting case study via Wikipedia:

At that time, Kentucky law criminalized consensual sexual relations between people of the same sex, even if conducted in private. Specifically, the law criminalized genital-oral (oral sex), genital-anal (anal sex), and anal-oral (rimming) sex -but only between partners of the same sex. Such sexual activities between mixed-sex (male-female) couples were legal. Such conduct was a misdemeanor punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $500. Solicitation of same was also a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $250. Historically, Kentucky's sodomy statutes had changed over time. The 1860 sodomy statute criminalized anal penetration by a penis and applied to both male-female couples and male-male couples. Because the law focused exclusively on penile-anal penetration, consensual sex between women was technically legal in Kentucky until 1974. In fact, in 1909 the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a ruling in Commonwealth v. Poindexter involving two African-American men arrested for consensual oral sex. In this decision the court upheld that the then current sodomy law did not criminalize oral sex but only anal sex.

In 1974 Kentucky revised its statutes as part of a penal code reform advocated by the American Law Institute. While the American Law Institute urged states to decriminalize consensual sodomy and other victimless crimes, the Kentucky legislature chose to decriminalize anal sex involving male-female couples but to broaden the new statute to criminalize anal-genital, oral-genital, and oral-anal sexual contact involving same-sex couples (both male-male and female-female couples). Thus, the 1974 revised statute decriminalized consensual anal sex for mixed-sex couples but expanded criminalization of sexual acts to include both male and female same-sex couples.

Morrison, Matthew (2001). "Currents in the Stream: The Evolving Legal Status of Gay and Lesbian Persons in Kentucky". Kentucky Law Journal 89 (4).

Jones, Jeffery (2001). Hidden Histories, Proud Communities: Multiple Narratives in the Queer Geographies of Lexington, Kentucky, 1930-1999. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky (dissertation).

Illinois became the first state to decriminalize sodomy in 1968.  Various states dropped their sodomy laws until the movement stalled with the advent of AIDS in the early 1980s.  It was not until 1992 when Kentucky's Supreme Court overturned the state's same-sex only sodomy law on state constitutional grounds that decriminalization proceeded.  Using similar arguments made in the Kentucky case, a lawsuit involving a gay couple arrested in one man's bedroom by Texas police serving him for traffic violations came before the US Supreme Court.  In a close 5-4 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the US Supreme Court overturned the last remaining sodomy laws in 2003.

Interestingly, conservative Republican Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli is running for Governor of Virginia.  He has argued Virginia's consensual sodomy law is still in force and applies to all Virginians:

Virginia Is for Retro Anti-Sodomy Law Campaigns

But regardless of the US Supreme Court's ruling, does our Average American want anal -maybe even oral- sex between consenting adults criminalized?

Well, considering that one study looking at sexually transmitted infections finds that one-third of a sample of over 12,000 heterosexuals report having anal sex, and three-quarters say they have had oral sex, enforcement of such criminalization would be challenging to say the least.

But what about only criminalizing homosexual sodomy?  It turns out that Gallup polls from 1977 to 2011 show a steady increase in Americans stating they believe gay or lesbian relations -sexual relations and relationships- should be legal.  In 1977 Gallup found support at 43%.  By 2011 this had risen to almost two-thirds of Americans (64%).  Most Americans (56%) also now say they find homosexuality to be morally acceptable -an increase from 40% in 1977.

So, no, according to polling most Americans would not be in favor of criminalizing sexual relations between members of the same sex.