Divorce rates in the bible belt
 

This is lovely, from Sully:

Preserve the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Outlaw divorce.

Bumper sticker - They can have my marriage license when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

That's not surprising--people surrounded by perceived immorality are the ones most vocal about wanting change. (Hell, the Taliban originally came into power because they took a strong stand against the raping of young boys.) I don't think the Value-Police types in Texas are worried about those debauched gays in Massachusetts as much as they're worried about those debauched gays next door to them.

One would have to ask before drawing a final conclusion ... what are the rates of cohabitation without marriage in the lowest divorce rate states? And the rate of those relationships to end? I'm guessing that throwing in those numbers would even things out quite a lot.

Residents of southern states might be expected to be somewhat more "traditional" in terms of values and behaviors than the Northeastern states, and therefore marrying would be more likely than mere "shacking up."

You mean, they actually went ahead and made a legal partnership and probably religious vows, and then broke up, as opposed to those naughty blue-staters who made no such pledge and then broke up?

Its really not fair to compare marriage across geographical areas. There is a statistical anomoly present when folks generally marry their 14 year old cousins, there is going to be a higher divorce rate. It has nothing to do with values.

I think that does have something to do with values.

If a man has fourteen wives, and if one wife divorces him, then does that count as only one-half a divorce? Or do we say the man is only one-fourteenth divorced? These may be relevant questions when statistics are taken geographically.

Lets see then, [new]7.14% of women get divorced but 100%[/math] of men do. So you're saying only lesbians should be allowed a state sanction?

Seems to me fair enough that since a big distinction between Protestants (and, famously, Anglicans/Episcopalians) and Catholics is that only the last objects to divorce, and the Bible Belt is mostly Protestent, divorce rates should be high. They've got it, might as well flaunt it.

In the red states they cohabit before marriage......as brother and sister. :biggrin:

Interesting point wolf, though I have to say that having been born in NC and lived there till I was 21, there was a fair amount of shacking up.

If we take the divorce rate of 2.4 / 1000 population in MA and 4.1 / 1000 population in TX that was given above we can calculate that the divorce rate in TX is 1.71 times that in MA.

According to the US Census web site, for the 2000 census, the # of unmarried-partner households (this includes m/f, m/m, and f/f) divided by the total state population is 0.0149 for TX and 0.0201 for MA. In this case the rate for MA is 1.35 times that in TX.

This is not very helpful because there is nothing about the rate at which such households "divorice."

Anecdotal experience leads us to understand that when people who have been shacking up successfully for many years decide "oh, what the heck" and tie the knot, the relationship is pretty much over and the divorce attorneys will be doing all the communicating from here on in.

Kinda like "if it ain't broke..." :D

I could have sworn that I also read that the abortion rate for said bible belters are higher than most also.

I'd have to look that one up...

What do you expect, when even church leaders take a compromising position on their OWN book? When church leader induct gay priests? Hypocrisy at it's finest.

The Methodists seem to be taking it seriously. They just defrocked a Lesbian minister who gave a "coming out" sermon to her congregation.

Ms. Stroud's Website, which includes a link to the sermon.

This is one of those divided issues for me.

On one hand I don't care who pokes whom, so long as it's not me without my permission.

On the other hand, she knew the rules before she joined the club.

It's a good indicator of what is wrong with a lot of policies in the world today. The disconnect between what is realistic and what is traditional.

[quote=Troubleshooter]On one hand I don't care who pokes whom, so long as it's not me without my permission.[quote]

HA! i've been looking for a new user title, if you don't mind, i'd like to adopt this, i love it! perfect.

Too long though

Knock yourself out.

Hey, wait. What's wrong with the one about washing stuff off your hands?

this thread is hilarious.

Prize a close tie between

and

That has long been my standpoint ... Ministers, particularly, are supposed to provide an example for the community. That's what makes it newsworthy when one of them falls (think Swaggert and the hooker).

On the other side of it, the Church must have known what they were getting into when she was ordained ... she went to Bryn Mawr, ferchrissakes. I haven't read through all her sermons, but I'm guessing that the "Coming Out" sermon wasn't much of a shocker to most of her congregants.

I still have issues with the American Episcopal Church, given their confirmation of a gay Bishop ... not because he's gay, but because he's in a active homosexual relationship.

Strictly speaking, you can be a (insert appropriate homo tag) so long as you are a celibate (insert appropriate homo tag). I don't think her sexual preferrence was in question, just the status of her relationships.

On the one hand, a church can kick anyone out for whatever reason they want. On the other hand, if you don't challenge the rules, they'll never change, and any organization that doesn't change with the times will die. I'm talking generically, not specifically about this case - just saying that challenging rules is a necessary part of any organization. This challenge didn't make it, but the 7-6 vote shows it was hardly a longshot.

Watch the United Church of Christ's Ad that is too controversial for TV. This is just ridiculous. I have a feeling the controversy will serve them well. Go Unitarians Go!

www.stillspeaking.com

The 7-6 vote was only on how to punish her, it was 12-1 I believe on her guilt.

The UCC and the Unitarians are different churches, at least on the surface.

Specifically, "Last Thursday I spoke with the Rev. John Thomas, president of the UCC, to offer my personal support and that of the Unitarian Universalist community."

I assume the problem with the ad was that the ones the guys at the start let through looked like rejects for a 50s poster for the nuclear family.

Well, she admitted it in the pulpit. She was obviously guilty. The punishment is what defines the rule. If they hadn't defrocked her, that would have changed the "no actively gay ministers" rule to "actively gay ministers are frowned upon" at most.

Without knowing their feelings in regards to the other oprions, I think that the biggest conflict was over how to handle her position. She knew that there would be a negative outcome for her, but she may also have been resolved to that position in the first place and was willing to take it on the chin to start a ball rolling in the church heirarchy.

I've seen that ad several times. On TV. Can't for the life of me remember where, though. Cable, certainly, but that's as close as I can get.

I think they suffer a loss of yardage for making the implication that any other church is full of white supremacists who don't let just anyone in their doors ...

I think that the UCC denomination is quite different from the Unitarians (UUC) ... aren't the UUCs the ones who are only kind of marginally Christian, or at least offer greater leeway in terms of what one considers a godform? I do know that the UUC's have a subgroup of pagans that they sanction worship services for ... CUUPs? Coven of Unitarian Universalist Pagans.

I was wondering if the UCC group was the same as Unitarian...I'm sure I'm condensing them and their godform(S)! appologies.
Anyhoo, Its about joining their club! I think their's is a clever marketing strategy. The fact that there is controversy just helps them out.
I personally like that they call out all the competition on exclusion based on racism, homophobia, hypocrisy. Take a stand. In my book, that's a first down.

Oh, and I guess the bans were on CBS and NBC.

The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.


Just interested in where you get your statistics from. The ICC once boasted how they had never had a divorce within the church while both the husband and wife still attended. But then again they practiced kicking people out quite regularly. And from what I've heard the national divorce rate is like 49% so if your stats were true and mine were true that would be noone in the bible belt stays married. :eyebrow:

No one? 50% higher than 49% is 73.5%... isn't it?

oh I see.... :3_eyes:

Yes & no, that would imply that only 26.5% of the bible belt marriages last. The problem lies in the higher bible belt divorce rate is already factored into the national rate. I think that's a distorted picture. :confused:

But they wouldn't have used the national average in any way to figure out the divorce rate in the bible belt - just noted that that's where the higher numbers were coming from and compared them to the average.
The 74% figure is wrong anyway because they aren't counting the number of marriages that fail, they are counting the number of divorces per 1,000 people. As Wolf pointed out - there are probably much higher marriage rates in the high divorce rate states.

Nevermind. :blush: