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Thread: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

  1. #1
    Sitri
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    Default Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Wow, this one caught me off guard. ...
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


    PRESIDENT Bush and Vice President Cheney make reference to "Massachusetts liberals" as if they were referring to people with some kind of disease. I decided it was time to do some research on these people, and here is what I found.


    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.

    How to explain these differences? The following factors provide a partial answer:

    More couples in the South enter their first marriage at a younger age.

    Average household incomes are lower in the South.

    Southern states have a lower percentage of Roman Catholics, "a denomination that does not recognize divorce." Barna's study showed that 21 percent of Catholics had been divorced, compared with 29 percent of Baptists.

    Education. Massachusetts has about the highest rate of education in the country, with 85 percent completing high school. For Texas the rate is 76 percent. One third of Massachusetts residents have completed college, compared with 23 percent of Texans, and the other Northeast states are right behind Massachusetts.

    The liberals from Massachusetts have long prided themselves on their emphasis on education, and it has paid off: People who stay in school longer get married at a later age, when they are more mature, are more likely to secure a better job, and job income increases with each level of formal education. As a result, Massachusetts also leads in per capita and family income while births by teenagers, as a percent of total births, was 7.4 for Massachusetts and 16.1 for Texas.

    The Northeast corridor, with Massachusetts as the hub, does have one of the highest levels of Catholics per state total. And it is also the case that these are among the states most strongly supportive of the Catholic Church's teaching on social justice issues such as minimum and living wages and universal healthcare.

    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. And they have been among the nation's leaders in promoting a living wage as their goal in public employment. The money they have invested in their future is known more popularly as taxes; these so-called liberal people see that money is their investment to help insure a compassionate, humane society. Family values are much more likely to be found in the states mistakenly called out-of-the-mainstream liberal. By their behavior you can know them as the true conservatives. They are showing how to conserve family life through the way they live their family values. William V. D'Antonio is professor emeritus at University of Connecticut and a visiting research professor at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.


    © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

  2. #2
    Sitri
    Guest

    Default Re: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Rank State Number Rate
    ---------------------------------------

    United States 1,191,000 4.6

    1 Massachusetts 14,530 2.4
    2 Connecticut 9,095 2.8
    3 New Jersey 23,899 3.0
    4 Rhode Island 3,231 3.2
    5 New York 59,195 3.3
    Pennsylvania 40,040 3.3
    7 Wisconsin 17,478 3.4
    North Dakota 2,201 3.4
    9 Maryland 17,439 3.5
    10 Minnesota 16,217 3.6
    Louisiana *** 3.6
    12 Illinois 43,398 3.7
    13 District of 2,244 3.9
    Columbia
    Iowa 10,930 3.9
    15 Nebraska 6,547 4.0
    Vermont 2,316 4.0
    17 Michigan 38,727 4.1
    18 South Dakota 3,022 4.2
    South Carolina 15,301 4.2
    Hawaii 4,979 4.2
    21 California *** 4.3
    22 Maine 5,433 4.4
    New Hampshire 5,041 4.4
    24 Ohio 49,968 4.5
    25 Virginia 30,016 4.6
    26 Kansas 12,093 4.7
    Utah 8,999 4.7
    28 Delaware 3,385 4.8
    29 Montana 4,153 4.9
    30 Missouri 26,324 5.0
    West Virginia 9,179 5.0
    32 North Carolina 36,292 5.1
    Colorado 18,795 5.1
    34 Georgia 37,001 5.2
    35 Oregon 16,307 5.3
    36 Texas 99,073 5.4
    37 Alaska 3,354 5.5
    38 Washington 29,976 5.6
    39 Mississippi 15,212 5.7
    40 Kentucky 22,211 5.8
    Arizona 23,725 5.8
    42 Florida 82,963 5.9
    43 New Mexico 9,882 6.0
    44 Idaho 7,075 6.2
    Alabama 26,116 6.2
    46 Indiana *** 6.4
    47 Wyoming 3,071 6.5
    48 Tennessee 34,167 6.6
    49 Oklahoma 21,855 6.7
    50 Arkansas 17,458 7.1
    51 Nevada 13,061 9.0

  3. #3
    madmaxine
    Guest

    Default Re: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Wow, thanks for posting this Sitri. Interesting.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitri
    Wow, this one caught me off guard. ...
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


    PRESIDENT Bush and Vice President Cheney make reference to "Massachusetts liberals" as if they were referring to people with some kind of disease. I decided it was time to do some research on these people, and here is what I found.


    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.
    Now that is some interesting data ! Just more proof of the rampant hypocrisy that is so common among many if not most the christian right .

    But are you really surprised that bastard Bush thinks like that ? As I am sure Sitri knows- there is even a famous conservative quote that says liberalism is a disease.

    Bush and many if not most of those who support him are often foaming at the mouth about how much more moral they are than liberals. But I find that many/ most conservatives support war, the death penalty etc and many/ most liberals oppose violence and the death penalty.

    So really who is more moral those who support killing people or those who oppose it? I have always thought it absurd to say that people who support killing are the more moral of people but that is exactly what so many conservatives do.

    And that's why I love this quote : " Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives"

    I'm not sure there is a more true statement about a political mindset than that one

  5. #5
    Jay Zeno
    Guest

    Default Re: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Quote Originally Posted by Tigerlilly
    there is even a famous conservative quote that says liberalism is a disease.

    ..........

    "Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives"
    It all sounds like name-calling to me.

    I note that one of the reasons cited for the low divorce rate in Massachusetts is the high number of practicing Catholics. I don't necessarily buy into that - I just note it. The article quotes statistics that are presumably facts, but the reasons it gives is conjecture.

    I've observed or been involved in divorce process several thousand times, and the main common demoninator that I see is that the people can't live together. It has very little to do with their religion, politics, economic status, or education. Those provide bumps in the graph - they're not the core reasons.

  6. #6
    Sitri
    Guest

    Default Re: Divorce and Liberals / Christians

    Yes Jay, I think you are correct in that the factors that lead to divorce are all of the above.

    I think what is typically implied by the Christian Right is that they have all of the answers to life to lead to personal success, successful moral families, and ultimately a self-righteous salvation.

    The converse is not implied but outright stated that those who are not in the Christian Right will be failures in life, have broken families, and will be damned to hell.

    I think the article points out the differences between the dogma and the results quite well.

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