Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
National Journal Magazine - Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families? (http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/st_20100501_5904.php - broken link)
The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of "San Francisco liberals." But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.
The country's lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts's enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections. (That is using family data for 2006 and 2007, the latest available.)
You can do a good job of predicting how a state will vote in national elections by looking at its population's average age at first marriage and childbirth.
Six of the seven states with the lowest divorce rates in 2007, and all seven with the lowest teen birthrates in 2006, voted blue in both elections. Six of the seven states with the highest divorce rates in 2007, and five of the seven with the highest teen birthrates, voted red. It's as if family strictures undermine family structures.
Not surprising. Blue states have more of a community focus and a sense of loyalty to those they care about. Now if they were just intelligent enough to decouple that from their philosophy on federal fiscal policy.
A lot of the red states are in the deep South and have large African-American populations, From what I once read and assume is stil true today, blacks have higher rates of teen pregnancy than whites.
Not surprising. Blue states have more of a community focus and a sense of loyalty to those they care about. Now if they were just intelligent enough to decouple that from their philosophy on federal fiscal policy.
You obviously didn't take the time to read the article before spouting off.
A lot of the red states are in the deep South and have large African-American populations, From what I once read and assume is stil true today, blacks have higher rates of teen pregnancy than whites.
A lot of the red states are in the deep South and have large African-American populations, From what I once read and assume is stil true today, blacks have higher rates of teen pregnancy than whites.
Good point and one the authors of the article did not even consider. The rate of out-of-wedlock child births among blacks is about 75%. It is just over 50% for Hispanics. Those numbers have to impact the conclusions at some level.
Is that because all the S. states are the pipeline to get the drugs from the red states to the blue states?
Sheesh...you & Jay...
The "Piplelines" of the drug trade are in places like Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, all of which are close to borders, and when we try to do something about it Libs call us racist.
Let's not forget that family values is just a concept to manipulate low information voters and religious conservatives in to voting Republican (mostly) against their own financial interest. Anyone living in central Kansas making 20K a year, from an economic standpoint, has little reason to vote Republican. However they do so because campaign communications strategies are organized around "family value" issues that play to the fears of these same low information voters... Race (illegal immigrants), Gay marriage, tough on crime, gun ownership etc... They vote on these issues despite the fact that the Republicans fail to deliver anything substantive on family value issues while they provide corporate welfare, lower taxes for themselves and the elites, and an unregulated financial climate that favors the wealthy investor class and leads to foreclosure for the guy who voted for them in Kansas in the first place.
The fact that more liberal areas of the country score higher on family values factors is the penultimate irony.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
