Believe it or not, the crazy liberals of Massachusetts have the lowest divorce rate in the country, even though they tend to care more about secular issues such as the economy and healthcare than "moral values" when voting in a presidential election.
Moral values clearly played a decisive role in President Bush's reelection, especially in the Bible Belt of the South. Due to the fact that Gay Marriage Ban Amendments were placed on several state ballots, thousands of people turned out to vote to preserve the eternal bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Because many Southerners care so much about preserving marriage, you would think that the residents of this region would have some of the lowest divorce rates in the country. After all, isn't marriage between a man and a woman an everlasting union?
Well it turns out that the states of the Bible Belt actually have some of the highest divorce rates in the country, while the states of the Northeast have the lowest. The George Barna Research Group, led by born-again Christian George Barna, as well as government statistics confirm these allegations. According to an Associated Press report using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003 the conservative states of the Bible Belt had divorce rates nearly 50 percent higher than the national average of 3.8 per 1000 people.
It is absolutely shocking that the people who seem to care most about preserving marriage and the family are the ones who break the eternal bond and sever their vows more than anyone else in the country. Even more disturbing is that born-again Christians, the backbone of Bush's conservative support, have one of the highest divorces rates among religious groups.
President Bush often referred to Senator John Kerry as a "Massachusetts liberal" who is out of touch with the values of the American people. Even though Kerry himself has had a divorce, his constituents are the citizens of this country who best exemplify true family values through their low divorce rates. In fact, a U.S. Census report showed that the divorce rate for Massachusetts in 2001 was 2.4 per 1000 population, versus 4.1 in Texas.
Clearly divorce is essential for many couples who simply need to separate, especially in cases of spousal abuse. So getting a divorce is by no means a bad thing in certain circumstances. But nevertheless, it is very disturbing that the "moral value" voters of the South, who had arguably the biggest influence in Bush's reelection, have the highest rates of breaking the eternal bond of marriage in the country.
Southerners tend to be less educated, have lower average household incomes, and get married at younger ages than the residents of the Northeast, which are probably reasons why the divorce rates in that region are higher. So there are logical, secular reasons of why divorce rates differ between these regions. Also, more Roman Catholics, a denomination that does not recognize divorces, live in the Northeast, another factor in why divorce rates are lower near Kerry's home.
But from a strictly moral perspective, these state-by-state divorce rate figures simply make no sense. The residents of the states who care most about morality and religion in politics should have the lowest rates of divorce, not the opposite.
State-by-state divorce rates is only one factor out of many that can measure which states or regions are best at preserving marriage and the family. Out-of-wedlock and teen-pregnancy birth rates are other variables that can be used to argue which states best exemplify the preservation of family values.
Yet the bottom line is that when a region has an especially high divorce rate, it is inevitable that there will be more broken families and more children left behind. So there is clearly a bit of irony and even hypocrisy in the Bush-voters of the South claiming that "moral values" was their top priority in determining who to vote for in the Presidential election.
Stephan Vitvitsky is a junior majoring in Political Science and Economics. He can be reached via e-mail at Stephan.Vitvitsky@tufts.edu.
