The Telegraph (U.K.) chortles, Champions of "alternative" lifestyles will be cheered by the results of the latest British Social Attitudes report, which seem to suggest that the heterosexual married couple is no longer seen as the model of a normal household.The survey suggests that public opinion now accepts less conventional forms of relationship - such as gay partnerships and cohabiting heterosexual couples - as being on a par with traditional marriage. Two thirds of respondents told the survey that they regarded cohabitation as effectively indistinguishable from marriage...
The findings also showed that 70% of people thought there was nothing wrong with sex before marriage, 66% saw little difference between being married and living together, and only 28% thought married couples make better parents than unmarried ones.
A particularly smug reporter over at the Times (U.K.) responds to the survey results:
So, society has spoken: to the average person, marriage is fairly irrelevant. It’s not that we are particularly opposed to the institution – it just doesn’t much interest us any more.
Whether you have a swanky £50,000 wedding or live in sin, few of us genuinely seem to care. The vast majority believe that there is no difference between being married and cohabiting, even when raising children, and two thirds believe that divorce can be a positive step. Oh, and three quarters of us think that a mother and stepfather can bring up a child just as well as two biological parents.
So much for traditional values enjoying a comeback....
