Dems and Divorce Data

DATA: The Boston Globe is running an op-ed that shows the hypocrisy of the Bible Belt lecturing the rest of the country about the sanctity of marriage.

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.

Again, sorry for the light posting. With the election, my personal project, educational projects, and work I've been a little too busy for blog land. I'll be back again shortly.

Comments

[Kaleberg]

Actually, Scientific American pointed this out a few years ago. Not only is the Bible belt the Divorce Belt, it is also the murder belt, with much higher murder rates per capita than in ungodly regions.

This map also gibes with another map in your blog, the one on population gain and loss. Note that the areas gaining population are in blue states. This fits in with real estate prices which have been rising more rapidly in blue state areas than in red state areas.

Apparently, people fleeing regions with high divorce and murder rates drive up real estate prices in the low divorce and murder areas. This leaves the ornery divorce prone and murderous types increasingly concentrated in the red states.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what the marriage rates are for those same areas?

That is to say - in those areas, I would imagine more people are getting married wheras without the Christian societal pressure, people hook up and toss each other out like used kleenexes after they're done with them sexually.

I think there's something deceptive about never considering the hookup and breakup rates.... at least the married couples are trying to commit to each other for longer than one night... or one year....