There are plenty of moral issues countries are faced with, including abortion, medical testing on animals, cloning humans or animals, and stem cell research, but should homosexuality be placed in the same category?

In a survey of the public in 39 countries, a Pew Research Center analysis found a huge variance by region on whether homosexuality should be accepted or rejected by society, and whether it should even be a moral issue. The findings found a broad acceptance of homosexuality in North America, the European Union, and much of Latin America, while widespread rejection is in predominantly Muslim nations, Africa, and parts of Asia, and Russia.

Eight countries had over 30 percent of their population indicate homosexuality was not a moral issue — Spain, Germany, France, Canada, Britain, Australia, Italy, and the United States. The data gathered from this research raises an important question: Is morally accepting homosexuality actually worse than concluding it’s not a moral issue at all?

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Indicating homosexuality is not a moral issue may be more accepting than applying morality to it. If you believe being homosexual is unchangeable, and therefore not subject to morality, leaning neutral would make the most sense. Despite this, almost all the countries surveyed did not indicate a higher percentage of neutraility than moral acceptance or unacceptance,with the exceptions of France, Canada, Britain, and Austrailia.

Another notable piece of information from the survey is in most of the countries surveyed, views of homosexuality did not differ significantly between men and women. However, in the countries where there was a slight gender gap, women were considerably more likely than men to say homosexuality should be accepted by society. Younger people are also more likely to accept homosexuality than older individuals.

Religion has a strong relationship with a country’s opinions about homosexuality. The more religious a country, the less likely they are to be accepting of homosexuality. However, there were a few exceptions, including Russia who received low scores on the religiosity scale and low scores on homosexuality acceptance. Conversely, Brazilians and Filipinos are more accepting of homosexuality than their religiosity scores would suggest.