Just realized I'm not really finding out what I want to know simply by posting an open-ended question, so I've designed a poll, which is at the top of the blog. There is a statement "Sex before marriage is wrong", followed by a number of options. If none of them suit you, I'm sorry about that, but I'm not trying to discover every possible nuanced position. Hopefully you can tick one of the boxes (and you can only tick one). Please resist the temptation (should it occur to you) to fill it in twice!
Anyone can view the results (I think) - you just need to slide the 'slider'.
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Results so far are telling!
ReplyDeleteGood post; important topic; thank you!
Interesting for all kinds of reasons - for one thing it seems the vast majority of your readership is male! (Unless the women don't vote!!)
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Bridcut
Wirral
I am female and voted!
ReplyDeleteI found it difficult to know what to put though. Because I agree with Si (see other thread) I put that "sex before marriage is wrong". However I think marriage is an inner state, the ceremony makes it official and public. I think people can be married but just haven't chosen to go through the ceremony.
If you mean "is sex that occurs before an official ceremony of marriage has taken place wrong", my answer would be "no" - although obviously sometimes it is. But then sex after an official ceremony of marriage might in some (hopefully rare) circumstances be "wrong" as well, depending on why the couple had married.
I know you didn't want this kind of answer - but that's my answer. Relationships involve human complexity and unknowability and the moral questions they raise are not black and white!
Elizabeth, interestingly the poll results go with the demographic analysis given by Alexa (see, on the left hand side of the blog, the Alexa ranking figures).
ReplyDeleteAlexa gives these results:
Relative to the general internet population:
25-34 year olds are greatly under-represented at ugleyvicar.blogspot.com.
45-54 year olds are greatly over-represented ...
people who went to college are greatly over-represented ...
Males are greatly over-represented ...
people with children are under-represented ...
people without children are over-represented ...
people browsing from home are greatly over-represented ...
people browsing from work are greatly under-represented ...
So your typical Ugley Vicar reader is a university-educated man over 45 without children browsing from home.
The technical term is 'sad loners', I think ;-).
So glad to be over 54
ReplyDeleteDavid Brock
This poll is a swizz! I voted twice and it still showed 0%. Though I see it has gone up slightly now, much later in the day. Fix!!
ReplyDeleteOh Jill! I know that some say "vote early, vote often, but that is a JOKE!
ReplyDeleteJill, I suspect it rounds down fractions, so until your percentage appears as above 0.5, it will show zero. I may be wrong though - it may just not like women. ;-)
ReplyDeleteNot like women! On this blog! Along with all the other sad,aged losers without children browsing from home?
ReplyDeletePS: Only joking :)
suem
ReplyDeleteyour thought through but 'then if' answer is just like a woman!!! whats the matter with you!!!!!!!!
how funny but then again not if you take it that this might actually be a serious synod debate in a few years but on the other hand if you take it that few know what synod are talking about then this is actually just a blip in the space that dr Who has not visited yet...
ok i think i am bored now! sorry
As your future 'defender of the faith' has been shacked up with his intended for quite some time, and the Pope is even sliding back from the anachronistic view on condoms surely this is all moot anyhow. Shouldn't you should be taking your lead from these progressives??
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see how the results are shaping up so far. If they're roughly in proportion to the wider population,
ReplyDelete- Christian males are 5 percentage points (pp) MORE LIKELY than Christian females to say that sex before marriage is wrong. This gap widens to a whopping 14pp for non-Conservatives, but shrinks to 2pp for Conservatives.
- 13% of Christian males and 18% of Christian females say that it is NOT wrong to have sex before marriage. This shrinks to 8%/10% for Conservatives, but balloons to 30%/44% for Non-Conservatives.
- If we assume gender balance, Conservative Christians are 28pp MORE LIKELY than non-Conservative Christians to say that sex before marriage is wrong (91% versus 63%).
Er, you don't mean "Conservative" (large C) do you, as in Conservative and Unionist Party, Tories, M. Thatcher, etc? Besides, "conservative" Christian is a derogatory term used by people who call themselves "Liberal" (who I would call "Revisionist", or even "post-Christian" in the case of the more extreme ones). I (who they would unkindly call "conservative") call myself "orthodox" or "authentic Christian"; but I won't answer to "conservative", even for peoples' polls.
ReplyDeleteJohn, why don't you just choose this option: "I am a male Christian, but would not describe myself as Conservative, and I agree/disagree with this statement"?
ReplyDeleteO. K., fair do's ... I'll take your advice. But (I hope you'll all take my point) labels are important - and rarely innocent; capitalisation also.
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ReplyDelete