The phrase "acts were forbidden" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to indicate that certain actions or behaviors are not allowed or prohibited.
Example: "In the ancient city, certain acts were forbidden under the law, and violators faced severe penalties."
Alternatives: "actions were prohibited" or "deeds were not allowed".
Suicide - like homosexual acts - is forbidden in the Catholic Church.
According to Weeks, "[a]s a practical matter, it is extremely difficult to successfully prosecute a section 201 action if reference to a defendant's legislative acts is forbidden".
So whereas the first one among you produced only 15% of you saying that it was prohibited to turn the trolley, the second case, the one where you're asked to push the fat man off the bridge, thereby killing one and saving five, produced among you a 78% conclusion that the act was forbidden.
There's another element at work (vital to romance and the age of censorship in the movies) which is that desire may mean the most when it cannot be consummated: the wish for intimacy is so intense because the act is forbidden or impossible.
In 1990 the northern spotted owl was granted protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and logging companies were forbidden from removing more than 60 percent of old-growth forest within 2.1 km (1.3 miles) of each nesting site.
The Muslim Brothers, who were forbidden to act as a genuine political party, began colonizing professional and student unions.
Maypoles, "a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness," were forbidden by an act of parliament in 1644.
Back before the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, all kinds of jobs were forbidden to women.
I asked if Muslims were forbidden by Islamic law to engage in specific acts of retribution.
Pictures were forbidden here.
