How Views on Traditional Moral Issues Vary by Community
There are different ways to define what is acceptable in a civil society. There are laws defining what people can and cannot do, and there is morality defining “right” and “wrong” in a broader sense. And morality can look very different from community to community.
The Pew Research Center surveyed Americans in 2025 about their attitudes on many traditional moral issues, including abortion, contraceptives, infidelity, divorce, pornography, alcohol, marijuana, and gambling, and the results showed divides along religious and age lines.
But filtered through the American Communities Project’s typology, those data take on another dimension.
The well-known urban-rural divides appear. For instance, rural communities were more likely to say abortion is “morally wrong.” There were some less expected findings, too. On several key issues, including abortion, Americans often do not use a moral lens. Majorities said contraceptives, marijuana, and alcohol are not moral issues; gambling came in close behind at 50%. Pluralities said getting a divorce is not a moral issue.
The Pew Research Center surveyed 3,605 U.S. adults from March 24-30, 2025, and shared a breakdown by community type this summer. The analysis was not complete. The ACP’s Aging Farmlands, Evangelical Hubs, LDS Enclaves, Military Posts, Native American Lands, and Working Class Country — places that are some of the more culturally conservative locales in the ACP — were not included because their sample sizes were too small. The data, however, still show where there is agreement and disagreement on what is morally acceptable in the United States in 2026.
RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
Singularly United on View of an Extramarital Affair
On relational issues, one topic stood out: infidelity. Overall, 90% of American adults said, “Married people having an affair” is “morally wrong.” This view also was held almost uniformly in all the ACP types with sufficient sample sizes, places differentiated by their demographics, population density, educational attainment, income level, religious values, and lifestyle. Indeed, just 5 percentage points separated the African American South, Big Cities, College Towns, Exurbs, Graying America, Hispanic Centers, Middle Suburbs, Rural Middle America, and Urban Suburbs. It is a rare sociocultural issue that overwhelmingly unites communities across the country today.
Divides Over Abortion and Divorce
In contrast, the issue of having an abortion generated the widest viewpoint divides by community type, aligning with communities’ different populations, educations, and degrees of religious adherence.
- Hispanic Centers, where many Hispanics hold Catholic and conservative values, were the most disapproving of abortion — 64% said it is “morally wrong” and 15% said it is “morally acceptable.”
- Majorities in two other rural community types, 58% in Rural Middle America and 51% in the African American South, said abortion is “morally wrong” compared to the 47% nationally who said so.
- Comparatively, 38% in College Towns and 40% in Big Cities said abortion is “morally wrong.” Both community types were also the most accepting of abortion — 24% and 27% said it is “morally acceptable” — above the 21% national figure.
- Overall, 31% said abortion is “not a moral issue”; in the 171 College Towns, the figure reached a high of 38%.
Nationally, a plurality reported that divorce is “not a moral issue,” and that was generally true at the community level. Hispanic Centers, 178 counties concentrated in Florida and the Southwest, were the most divided on their views of getting a divorce: 33% said it is “morally acceptable” and 31% said it is “morally wrong.” Big Cities and College Towns showed the lowest “wrong” share for divorce, at 20% and 17%, respectively.
Contraceptives Broadly Not a Moral Issue
In the case of contraceptives, 40% nationally said using them is “morally acceptable,” and 51% said this is “not a moral issue.” Generally, it was rare for people to say contraception is “morally wrong.” The African American South was an exception with 13% saying it is “morally wrong.” These communities are often known for strong family and religious values. Meanwhile, at the low end, 3% of Graying America said it is “morally wrong.” This 10% range among types shows that contraception is a much less culturally polarizing issue than abortion or divorce.
Mind-Altering Substances
A big takeaway from the data on substances: Marijuana use seems to be particularly unremarkable from a “moral” perspective. In fact, when examining the nine community types, marijuana use doesn’t really look different from drinking in most of the communities.
About 16% of Americans overall viewed drinking as “morally wrong.” The only community type where the “morally wrong” number climbed to more than 20% was the Hispanic Centers, where 27% reported feeling that way.
With marijuana, the national figure for “morally wrong” was higher, at 23%, but still not even at a quarter of all Americans. The one outlier was again the Hispanic Centers, where 31% said using marijuana is “morally wrong.”
The blue-collar Middle Suburbs were the least likely to say drinking is “morally wrong”; only 9% held that view in those communities. While the College Towns (17%) were the least likely to say using marijuana is “morally wrong.”
Notably, while respondents in every community type represented were most likely to say drinking and marijuana use are not “moral issues,” there were differences in the data showing some apprehension about marijuana use.
In two community types, the African American South and the Hispanic Centers, respondents were more likely to say marijuana use is morally wrong than it is morally acceptable. In two others, the Big Cities and the Middle Suburbs, respondents were equally divided on whether marijuana use is morally acceptable or morally wrong.
The Hispanic Centers were particularly interesting on these questions, however. On drinking and marijuana use, residents in these communities were more likely to say those behaviors are morally wrong than to say they are morally acceptable.
Gambling
Views on the morality of gambling are more complicated. Overall, respondents tended to believe it is “not a moral issue” — 50% said that nationally, while 20% said it is “morally acceptable,” and 29% said it is “morally wrong.” And in every one of the nine community types where there was a big enough sample to measure, “not a moral issue” was the most popular choice, with either a majority or a plurality making that choice.
But for those who do consider gambling a moral issue, it is viewed negatively. In every community type, more respondents said it is “morally wrong” than “morally acceptable.”
Here, too, the African American South and Hispanic Centers stand out for having more moral concerns about gambling. Those two community types had the highest “morally wrong” responses at 36% and 35%, respectively.
The Big Cities, which are far more densely populated, are not far behind, with 32% saying gambling is “morally wrong.” It should be noted that those communities are more racially and ethnically diverse than most communities — with larger African American and Hispanic populations.
Still, the higher “not a moral issue” score in every community type is a sign that at least a plurality of Americans everywhere have something of a libertarian point of view on gambling. That is, whether or not you wish to wager on anything is a personal choice, not a question of right and wrong.
Pornography
There are decidedly less libertarian views on viewing pornography. Nationally, more than half of all respondents said viewing pornography is “morally wrong.” In each of the nine community types measured, at least a plurality said so.
Also of note, nationally and in every community type measured, “morally acceptable” was the third most likely choice behind both “morally wrong” and “not a moral issue.” A few community types were slightly less moralistic. Just under 50% of Big Cities, College Towns, and Middle Suburbs said viewing pornography is “morally wrong.” And again, the Hispanic Centers stood out for having the strongest concerns, with 60% saying viewing pornography is wrong.
But for the most part, these data strongly suggest that viewing pornography is truly seen as a moral vice. Considering some of the other responses here (on gambling and marijuana), one question might be why people view it differently.
Sorting that out would take more research, of course, but one possibility is that while viewing pornography is a personal choice, that choice helps sustain an industry that many view as morally questionable. That is to say, it is not “victimless.”
There is also the possibility that people simply view individual choices around sex differently. In the United States, sex is often held to a higher standard than other vices. Think of film ratings. Light violence is often not enough to earn a film an “R” rating, while nudity and sex are almost certain to push a film into that category.
Regardless, as the data make clear, viewing pornography is held in low regard across all the types measured here.
Conclusion
Taken together, it’s a complicated mix of responses, but with more agreement than may be expected.
On some issues there is something of a libertarian view of right and wrong across all the types, particularly on actions and habits that are often perceived as “victimless” — such as gambling or drinking. And other issues, such as extramarital affairs, produce uniformly negative feelings across all groups.
But views on having an abortion show how stark moral divides remain in the United States, especially at the community level, and how they exist outside of traditional red-and-blue lines (some of the strongest “morally wrong” numbers come from places that tend to vote Democratic). And remember this data set was too small to measure what the ACP has come to know as some of the most culturally conservative community types.
In the ACP’s survey work, one consistent (and positive) finding has been that majorities of people in all community types believe that “Americans have more in common with each other than is generally believed.” The data here lend some support to that finding, but they also reveal how some issues make the nation’s deepest divisions very hard to overcome.