Well, well, surprise surprise. The one state in the union where same-sex marriage is legal hasn’t seen an erosion of marriage or the destruction of family values. In fact:
The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.
But don’t take the US government’s word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.
The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that “the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people.” The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
… For all the Bible Belt talk about family values, it is the people from Kerry’s home state, along with their neighbors in the Northeast corridor, who live these values. Indeed, it is the “blue” states, led led by Massachusetts and Connecticut, that have been willing to invest more money over time to foster the reality of what it means to leave no children behind.
Yeah, well, they had tort reform in Texas and it didn’t change malpractice insurance costs either. But a slavish reliance on cause and effect was ever the hallmark of the discredited reality-based community.
Jerry Pournelle says, “you can prove anything if you make up your ‘facts.'” Jerry is right.
Gene Cowan says, “George Barna… found that… born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.” Gene is wrong.
Actually what Bara found is that the divorce rate among born-again Christians is the SAME as America as a whole. Read it for yourself:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_20_121/ai_n7069172
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Title: “Divorce rate no lower among the born-again”
In one of George Barna’s largest national surveys on marriage and divorce, the pollster has confirmed previous findings that born-again Christian adults have the same likelihood of divorce (35 percent) as other Americans.
But the California-based researcher, whose primary market for books and seminars is the broad evangelical world, also proposes that one reason for the similar finding is that couples who profess Jesus as savior are also more likely to marry than to live together.
“If the non-born-again population were to marry at the same rate as the born-again group,” Barna said, “it is likely their divorce statistic would be roughly 38 percent.”
Using a representative sample of 3,614 adults interviewed between January and April this year, the Barna Group found that the divorce rate is quite similar to that reflected in a survey ten years ago. (See http://www.barna.org.) This was despite the research group’s observation that many conservative churches attempt to discourage congregants from considering divorce.
Faith perspectives make a difference in whether adults agree with the teaching that divorce is a sin unless adultery has been committed but not as much of a difference as might be expected, according to Barna.
Born-again adults were twice as likely in the 2004 survey as nonborn-again adults (24 percent against
10 percent) to affirm that teaching. However, a majority of the born-again group (52 percent) disagreed that divorce without adultery is sin, whereas 74 percent of the non-born-again adults disagreed.
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
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Gene also says: “Massachusetts [had] a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.”
Doesn’t everyone see the problem with calculating a divorce rate as a percentage of POPULATION? Calculated that way, if nobody married, and everyone just “shacked up,” the divorce rate would be zero. If the “divorce rate” has any significance at all, it should say something about the impermanence of marriage. So it makes no sense at all to include children and other single people in that calculation. So the proper way to calculate divorce rates is as a percentage of the number of MARRIED people.
-Dave
Speaking of getting your facts right: you say several times that “Gene says” or “Gene is wrong”, but in fact, the entire article was from the Boston Globe. I certainly didn’t write it, I only call attention to it.
That said, I agree with the assessment that a true statistic can’t be derived by using population as a whole… but don’t you think that the statistician who created this survey took that into account? Obviously, the divorce rate among all the 3 year olds in Massachusetts is pretty low.
The survey you quote — an article from a Christian foundation which is necessarily biased — does not seem to be the same as the one the Associated Press reported in on the Boston Globe story. The Sept. 8 survey release mentions nothing about state-by-state divorce rates.
I can’t seem to find the survey that is mentioned by the Globe; what’s more interesting is that it also mentions findings by the AP using census data — so, who exactly DID do this survey?