Conservative Evangelicals drive up divorce rates for everyone

From the LA TImes:

Divorce is higher among religiously conservative Protestants – and even drives up divorce rates for other people living around them, a new study finds.... 

Researchers discovered that higher divorce rates among conservative Protestants were tied to earlier marriages and childbearing – factors known to ramp up divorce. ... 

County by county, for every 1% increase in the share of conservative Protestants compared with mainline Protestants, the divorce rate increased 0.02%, the study found. Glass argued that community institutions in such areas might encourage early marriage, affecting divorce rates for everyone who lives there. 

“Pharmacies might not give out emergency contraception. Schools might only teach abstinence education,” Glass added. On top of that, “if you live in a marriage market where everybody marries young, you postpone marriage at your own risk. The best catches … are going to go first.” 

...“It’s surprising,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. “In some contexts in America today, religion is a buffer against divorce. But in the conservative Protestant context, this paper is showing us that it’s not.”

So much for family values.

Banning Divorce in CA?

There's a movement afoot to ban divorce in the Golden State in response to the debacle of Prop8.

Interestingly, the "pro family groups" are not really in favor. Wonder why?

Marcotte, who is Catholic and voted against Proposition 8, views himself as an accidental activist. A registered Democrat, he led a "ban divorce" rally recently at the state Capitol in Sacramento to launch his effort and was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. About 50 people showed up, some holding signs that read, "You too can vote to take away civil rights from someone."

The official website of the California Marriage Protection Act brilliantly satirizes.


I've got no intention of ever leaving MY marriage, so --BRING IT ON.

When gay people marry: The Horror! The Horror!

Recently, a Chicago Trib writer asked a number of prominent opponents of marriage equality what is it is that they think will happen if gays marry.

At first, none of them answered, although after a while Maggie Gallagher dove in and said that, gasp, if same sex marriage is legalized, then children will learn about gays! And religious people will be persecuted! As Conor Clarke, writing at Andrew Sullivan's blog remarked,

Is this really the best they can do? First, none of these things are "simple, concrete predictions about measurable social indicators." ....Gallagher's list amounts to this: As support for gay marriage grows, the public institutions and sentiments that oppose gay marriage will become increasingly marginalized.

A new scholarly book recently published called When Gay People Get Married addresses the question with actual data. As the publisher's blurb reports,

The evidence shows both that marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage, and that it is the most liberal countries and states making the first move to recognize gay couples. In the end, Badgett compellingly shows that allowing gay couples to marry does not destroy the institution of marriage and that many gay couples do benefit, in expected as well as surprising ways, from the legal, social, and political rights that the institution offers.

That certainly agrees with my experience, being married, as I've previously reflected.
And what's happening here in the US? As discussed at Talk2Action (h/t Toujours Dan), Massachusetts still has the lowest divorce rate of any state (data here ). And where are the highest rates of divorce? There's a big cluster in the South, which corresponds very well with the Bible belt. And born-again Christians reportedly have some of the highest rates of divorce.

So actual data suggest that same sex marriage is good for gay people, does not negatively affect the marriages of straight people, and that those opposed to same sex marriage on faith grounds are no less likely, and may even be more likely, to divorce themselves.

One hopes these data will be used to rebut the lies for the upcoming Federal Prop8 case, and the lies that are being told in Maine in the run-up to their election.

A case in point: Doug Manchester

Doug Manchester is a businessman-hotelier in San Diego who caused an uproar and a boycott when he donated $125,000 to Prop8. (The campaign against his flagship hotel was , "careful who you sleep with!") He offered to donate a similar sum to gay causes, just not supporting marriage.

Recently he announced that he and his wife of 43 years are divorcing.

As commented in the Box Turtle Bulletin,

Manchester said he made his Prop 8 donation to “preserve marriage” because of “my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church” — the very same church that condemns divorce. His Catholic faith doesn’t restrain him from thumbing his nose at the Church in ending his own marriage, but it does serve as a convenient excuse for denying others the right to marry. There’s a word for that, isn’t there?

Hmmm, ya think?

What about divorce?

From a sermon at Southwell Minster by Jeremy Pemberton about the Abps reflections on GC. Mimi has already posted much of this, but I really, really want to return your attention to this bit because the argument about divorce seems to be very important. Undeniably there are a lot more Biblical strictures explicit against divorce (and no arguing required about translations), yet movement on that issue occurred as described. Why are other issues that are much less clear Biblically, so much more intransigent?

When I was a young man there were no divorced clergy or bishops, divorced people could be and were refused the Holy Communion, and there was no thought that divorced people could be remarried in church. Marriage was once, for life, and any deviation from that standard was thought to threaten the whole institution. It is certainly the case that there is apparently substantial Scriptural backing for that position – where Jesus says that anyone divorcing, except under very prescribed circumstances, is committing adultery.

Very slowly and painfully, and with great attention to the pastoral difficulties that this policy was creating in a society with significant numbers of divorced people not only on the streets but also in the pews, the Church has revised its understanding of marriage, divorce and remarriage. There are now hardly any voices to be heard to say that the new policy is unbiblical and sinful, and quietly, up and down the land, divorced people are marrying for the second time in church. We have among us divorced and remarried bishops and clergy. So the transition, the revision of our sexual ethics, in a way that honours the Lord of the Scriptures and also the society in which we are asked to exercise our ministry and mission, can be done, and unity and charity in the church can be maintained.