A poll co-sponsored by Zogby International and AOL Personals shows that 44% of Americans between 20 and 69 don’t think that someone needs to get married to verify their love. Some of the other revelations of this poll of 7,100 were equally interesting. For instance, most people in their twenties don’t feel that marriage is even necessary. And that older people are more likely to forgive infidelity. That one actually makes more sense. Older people are probably a little more pragmatic about human foibles and weakness.

We’ve always been a little nervous about blanket polls like this. Some percentage of those polled obviously are AOL Personals users. And as such are likely single. And possibly even desperate. This poll would have been far more useful if it could have gotten a bigger cross-section of Americans. Oh well, we weren’t terribly surprised to see that VD and poor hygiene were bigger deal-killers than religion, race, looks, or handicaps. That means people are either getting more tolerant of uncontrolled circumstances or people are completely dishonest even in random polls. Maybe some of these singles were angling for dates from the pollsters and wanted to let the pollster see their tolerance and cleanliness (both genital and otherwise). It looks like literally dirty folks are the last group of Americans that can be discriminated against. And possibly lawyers.

Check out more on this poll from Reuters…