Study: Gay Mormons in "Mixed Marriages" Likely to Divorce

Yet more cold water has been poured on TLC's ludicrous show, My Husband's Not Gay which aired this past Sunday.  Not only are most of the individuals in the show affiliated with "ex-gay ministries" - i.e., they are "ex-gays for pay" - but new studies indicate that closeted gay Mormons who marry women are 3 times more likely to divorce that are true heterosexual Mormon couples.  For anyone in touch with objective reality, the results should not come as a surprise. Meanwhile, the proponents of the "ex-gay myth" care nothing about the collateral damage done to straight spouses and/or the children of this faux marriages.  The Salt Lake Tribune has details.  Here are highlights:

The LDS couples profiled on TLC’s "My Husband Is Not Gay" may find these statistics sobering: Marriages like theirs — same-sex attracted husbands and straight wives — are two to three times more likely to end in divorce than others.

That finding and others come from a newly released in-depth survey of 1,612 self-selected LGBT/same-sex attracted Mormons and former Mormons, thought by researchers to be the largest study ever conducted with this population.

The study found that:

• Between 51 percent and 69 percent of mixed-orientation Mormon marriages end in divorce, well above the roughly 25 percent of LDS couples who split up.

• More than 70 percent of LGBT/same-sex attracted Mormons leave the LDS Church.

• 80 percent of respondents reported undergoing efforts to change their sexual orientation — 85 percent of which were religious and private efforts, 31 percent were private efforts only, 40 percent therapist-led and 21 percent group efforts.

• 53 percent rejected their religious identity; 37 percent compartmentalized their sexual and religious identities; 6 percent rejected their LGBT identity; 4 percent integrated the two.

Those whose mixed-orientation marriages ended experience "a kind of triple blame by their family and faith communities — first for being gay, then for having ruined the lives of their spouses and children by ... marry[ing] in the service of trying to ‘overcome’ their homosexuality, and then finally for having failed in the marriage and ‘given up,’ " he says. "They want their story to be known and not repeated; they want vindication for their mistreatment." 

The survey also concluded that many more LDS gays try "personal righteousness" efforts — prayer, fasting, church activity, temple worship and strict observance of the LDS health code — as a way to change their orientation than those who seek psychological interventions such as the discredited "reparative therapy."

Same-Sex Couples Divorcing Much Less Than Straight Couples

Remember how the Christofascist claimed that gays will "destroy marriage"?  Yet another study reveals that the real threat to marriage comes from straight couples.  Just as evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt have the highest divorce rate (Massachusetts, the first state to have same-sex marriage, has the lowest divorce rate in the country), straight couples are divorcing at a higher rate than same sex-couples.  The Williams Institute at University of California (Los Angeles) School of Law studied the rate of marriage and divorce of same-sex couples in the year since the Supreme Court struck down part of Defense of Marriage Act in 2013 and found that the divorce rate for gays was half that of their straight counterparts.  Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

A major finding reveals that currently, same-sex couples are about half as likely to divorce as different-sex couples. And same-sex couples married at a rate about double in 2013 versus in 2102.
Married same-sex couples are divorcing at a 1.1 percent rate, compared to a 2 percent rate of different-sex couples, the Williams Institute notes.

"In early 2014, the Williams Institute collected administrative data on marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships of same-sex couples in the 23 states that offered these statuses at the time data collection began," the study finds. "Two states provided data on divorces: New Hampshire and Vermont. Six states provided data on civil union and domestic partnership terminations: California, D.C, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Washington, and Wisconsin."

The Williams Institute also found differences in female same-sex couples versus male same-sex couples.

"The first analysis shows that female couples are more likely to formalize their relationships than male couples. Female couples account for just over half (51%) of all same-sex couples in the U.S. However, data from the state agencies show that 64% of same-sex couples who entered into legal statuses were female couples."

The study also finds that the SCOTUS decision last summer greatly impacted the decision to marry, even in couples who lived in marriage equality states.  Calling it "the Windsor effect," they note that the "data show that the number of same-sex couples who married nearly doubled in marriage equality states from 2012 to 2013."

10 Years Later, Where Is the Gay Marriage Disaster?

Us at an EV "CookOUT" event with another married couple

As they see themselves losing in court case after court case across the country, the Christofascists continue to come up with ever more insane arguments of how same sex marriage will destroy "the sanctity of marriage" and by extension civilization itself.  From Mark Regnerus' bogus and discredited "study" attacking gay parenting to claims that same sex marriage will somehow discourage straight couples, especially straight males, from marrying, the disingenuous batshitery gets ever more unhinged from objective reality.   Meanwhile, from the data available, states that have legalized same sex marriage have lower divorce rates and fewer teen pregnancies and single mothers - things the Christofascists like to decry - than do the states across the Bible Belt.  Indeed, the data suggests that gay marriage combats the ills the Christofascists claim to want to reduce.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the data to date.  Here are excerpts:

It's been 10 years since same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. So, precisely what are the results of this deregulation? Anti-gay activists predicted disaster for "the family," but were always quite vague about how.

Of course, they may claim that 10 years is not enough time to gage the extent of the disaster, but surely trends should have already emerged. Exactly how much time is necessary?

In Massachusetts we don't see collapse of birth rates. The trend line has been downward, but that has been true of the entire country for almost 60 years. That trend will increase because we have an aging population. All this unrelated to marriage deregulation. There is a lot of good news in that trend line, however.

Teen birth rates have been falling. Actually, both teen pregnancy and single motherhood, which conservatives think are bad things, have been falling. They remain highest in states utterly opposed to same-sex marriage and lowest in states that deregulated spousal choice. In Massachusetts, teen birth rates are at the lowest levels ever recorded there; they have the second lowest teen-pregnancy rate in the nation. Out of the 10 states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates, nine of them recognize same-sex marriage.

Another no-no on the Right is single motherhood, so they should be praising Massachusetts, not damning it. There, the percentage of unmarried mothers is 34.6 percent compared to the national average of 40.8 percent.

Men and women in Massachusetts do wait a few years longer to marry than Americans in general, but as Pew Research notes, a higher median age at marriage correlates with "high shares of college-educated adults.... Indicating that highly educated individuals marry later in life." It also means they divorce less. In less-educated states, which tend to be ones most opposed to spousal deregulation, "adults are more likely than average to marry three or more times."

Whereas 5 percent of all U.S. adults have been married three or more times, the percentage in Massachusetts is just 2 percent. When it comes to divorce in general, the latest Statistical Abstract from the Census Bureau, for 2009, shows Massachusetts having the lowest divorce rate in the country. 

What has been true in Massachusetts has been true nationally. Marriages in states that regulate spousal selection according to gender are less stable.

As is always the case, the facts do not support the screeds of the Christofascists.  The real threat to marriage is the ignorance and stupidity embraced by the Christofascists as a mark of honor. 

World Vision - Caving to Anti-Gay Discrimination

World Vision describes itself as a Christian humanitarian organization that is dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to help them achieve their full potential "by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice."  In addition to providing sponsorships for children, World Vision provides emergency assistance to children and families impacted by natural disasters and civil conflicts, and it work with communities to develop long-term solutions to alleviate poverty.  It states that it does all of this for "all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender."  On Monday, World Vision announced that for the first time, it would hire employees in same-sex marriages if the marriages had been legally performed.  That's when the Christofascists went utterly berserk and attacked World Vision and threatened to cease funding and severe affiliation.  Within two days, World Vision reversed its new policy and made clear that the discrimination free agenda it promises doesn't apply to gays.  Think Progress looks at this stunning reversal - and the hypocrisy involved:  Here are excerpts:

World Vision, one of the largest humanitarian organizations on the planet, made two surprising announcements this week. On Monday, the evangelical Christian organization announced that for the first time, it would hire employees in same-sex marriages, then on Wednesday, it reversed that decision. Here’s how World Vision President Richard Stearns and Board Chairman Jim Beré explained the reversal:

In our board’s effort to unite around the church’s shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consistent with World Vision U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of Biblical marriage and our Iown Statement of Faith, which says, “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” And we also failed to seek enough counsel from our own Christian partners. As a result, we made a change to our conduct policy that was not consistent with our Statement of Faith and our commitment to the sanctity of marriage.

We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We as that you understand that this was never the board’s intent. We are asking for your continued support. We commit to you that we will continue to listen tot he wise counsel of Christian brothers and sisters, and we will reach out to key partners in the weeks ahead.

The outcry from conservatives after the original announcement Monday was swift and severe. The Family Research Council decried the decision in its daily email Tuesday, describing it as a “rebellion” against Christ and a “very public divorce from biblical truth.” Tony Perkins made it clear that employing gay, lesbian, and bi people who are married was a dealbreaker for his family’s support of World Vision.

The message from these conservatives is clear: discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is a higher priority than humanitarian work. An organization that serves the needy can only be supported if it promises it will never provide a salary to to someone in a same-sex marriage. That pressure was enough for World Vision to cave.

But this is a telling admission about conservatives’ intentions. . . . . No [anti-gay]discrimination? No support. . . . Evangelicals and Pentecostals made it clear this week, however, that they will not consider any compromise when it comes to extending jobs to Christians who are also gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Meanwhile, of course, evangelicals have the highest divorce rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest obesity rate (heard of the sin of gluttony?).  These people are truly despicable and utter hypocrites to boot.  The world will be a better place when conservative Christianity becomes a dead religion. 

Atheists Divorce Less Than Christians

With the ongoing hyperventilating by the Christofascists over the series of federal court rulings striking down same sex marriage bans and deranged claims that God will smite America for "embracing homosexuality," it is worth revisiting a story from last year which again documents that it is the godly Christian folks themselves who are the gravest threat to marriage.  As noted before, the Bible Belt has the highest divorce rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest obesity rate (gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, not that the godly folk seem to have noticed).  But even more damning for those who whine about the "sanctity of marriage" is the fact that godless atheists divorce less frequently than evangelical Christians.   Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

An Evangelical Christian pollster finds that atheists commit less crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than their fellow Christians. “It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite,” the Knoxville News‘ Al Westerfield writes of the study, adding that “the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.”

“According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists,” Westerfield writes: 

The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are. The godless who are thought to be without morals seem to take their vows more seriously.

According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey, the least-educated Americans are Jehovah’s Witnesses, followed by black Protestants and fundamentalist Christians. The most highly educated are reformed Jews, followed by Unitarian Universalists and the godless.

Some groups seem to like their flocks ignorant so that pastors’ interpretations of God’s edicts are not questioned. Other groups prize scholarship and achieve more in their lives here on Earth.

In fact, a review of worldwide studies found that criminality and religion go hand in hand. The countries with the most religious people have the highest crime rates, highest sexually transmitted diseases and the highest teen pregnancy rates.

This is also true in the United States. The more religious a state’s population, the higher the crime, STD and teen pregnancy rates.

Indeed, it would appear that if we really want to increase morality and reduce crime and many other social ills, the best thing we could do is reduce the number of fundamentalist Christians.  P.S. Yes, the image above is a bit mean, but the hypocrisy of these "godly folks" drives me to distraction. 

Divorce Rate Of Evangelicals Higher Than General Population

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Time and time again we hear evangelical Christians whining and ranting about gays threatening and/or destroying traditional marriage.  The hypocrisy of these folks knows no limit because, as a new study shows, it is the evangelicals themselves who are doing the most to destroy marriage through their own high divorce rate which exceeds that of the general population.   Moreover, the study finds that the higher divorce rate spreads to those living around them.  So, the next time one of these anti-gay bigots starts whining about gays destroying marriage, throw these facts back in their face. Here are highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

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

The study, slated to be published in the American Journal of Sociology, tackles the “puzzling paradox” of why divorce is more common in religiously conservative “red” states. If religious conservatives believe firmly in the value of marriage, why is divorce especially high in places like Alabama and Arkansas?

To figure that out, researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Iowa analyzed county divorce statistics against information from an earlier study of religious congregations. They categorized Protestant denominations that believe the Bible is literally true as "conservative Protestants."

Researchers discovered that higher divorce rates among conservative Protestants were tied to earlier marriages and childbearing – factors known to ramp up divorce. Starting families earlier tends to stop young adults from pursuing more education and depresses their wages, putting more strain on marriages, University of Texas at Austin professor Jennifer Glass said.

Glass and another researcher also discovered that people living in areas with lots of conservative Protestants were at higher risk of getting divorced, even if they weren’t conservative Protestants themselves. 

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.

The study also found that it was not poverty nor higher rates of marriage, on the whole, that were driving up divorce in “red” counties, as others had theorized.

“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.”

As I said, the real threat to marriage if there is one is the godly evangelical crowd.  Their hypocrisy as always is stunning.

Who Is To Blame For America's High Teen Pregnancy Rate?

One of claims the Christofascists put out constantly in their opposition to gay marriage rather than admit that the true motivation is motivated purely by religious based bigotry is to same that children need a mother and a father.  In the straight world, however, America is doing a pretty poor job of seeing that children are born to two parent families where parents are emotionally and financially ready for the responsibilities of parenthood.  As a column in the New York Times points out:

. . . “about half (51 percent) of the 6.6 million pregnancies in the United States each year (3.4 million) are unintended” and “the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate is significantly higher than the rate in many other developed countries.” Among teenagers in high-income countries, those in the United States have the highest rates of pregnancy . .

Who is to blame for this unfortunate and embarrassing reality?  I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Christofascists and their puppets in the Republican Party who (i) oppose reality based sex education in our schools in favor of a fantasy based abstinence only approach, and (ii) seek to close down organizations like Planned Parenthood which provide contraception services and se education counseling, abortion services being only a tiny percentage of their activities.  Most other advanced nations have comprehensive sex education and grasp the reality that teens are going to have sex no matter what the godly folk want to believe in their alternate universe.  One need only look at data that shows that teen pregnancies are the highest in the Bible Belt (and that evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rates).  The Christofascusts' approach to sex education is as nonsensical as the advice the nuns gave my former wife in Catholic school in New York City: "if you have to sit in a boy's lap in a crowded car, put a copy of the New York phone book between you."  The column goes on to offer other solutions to this problem caused by puritanical views and America's sick definition of what it means to be a man:

This, even though young Americans are not necessarily the most sexually active youth of developed countries, according to a previous Guttmacher report. That report pointed out two important issues. First, “less contraceptive use and less use of hormonal methods are the primary reasons U.S. teenagers have the highest rates of pregnancy, childbearing and abortion.” Second, “more sexual partners, a higher prevalence of infection and, probably, less condom use contribute to higher teenage sexually transmitted disease rates in the United States.”

Most want fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. And, most want fewer women to have to face the often wrenching decisions about what to do about such pregnancies.

There are some rather simple ways to move in this direction if we can agree to be less puritanical and more practical. We could, for example, begin teaching young people to value themselves in a way that contextualizes the initiation of sexual activity as a thing fully within their control and not so easily manipulated by peer and societal pressures. 

Furthermore, we must provide thorough and unimpeded sex education — in the home and at school — about how to engage in sex safely and responsibly. And, we must provide a full range of reproductive services — prophylactic and contraceptive as well as post-pregnancy. Here we are moving in the wrong direction. A Guttmacher report released last week found that more abortion restrictions were enacted in the last three years than in the previous decade.

Furthermore, much of the discussion about single-parent families and births outside of marriage is focused too heavily on young women and is simply a form of sex shaming that blames them for not being proper guardians of chastity. The shaming itself is a shame, and often inflames the pathology of patriarchy in our culture. 

We teach boys, overtly and implicitly, that sexual potency is a marker of masculinity and that empathy and emotional depth are purviews of a lesser sex. The ways we force boys to adhere to a perilously narrow reading of masculinity become a form of “oppression all dressed up as awesomeness,” as Lisa Wade, an Occidental College sociology professor, put it last month in Salon.

Boys are not taught to value themselves as fully human, but only as conquerors of everything — women, the workplace, the world. And men who are incapable of valuing their own humanity are incapable of fully valuing the humanity of a love interest.

We can address our societal problems, but to do so we must first address our societal issues. 

Will any of these common sense solutions be implemented?  Not if the Christofascists and their political whores in the GOP have anything to say about it.   Instead we will see more denial of objective reality and modern knowledge as these people cling to a Bronze Age world perpetuated by unthinking acceptance of the Bible.  Another informative article notes this: 

It's no coincidence that the states with the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections are also the same places where young people are taught to simply not have sex.

America's Changing Families - The Christofascists Rejection of Reality

One of the myths that Christofascists - the folks at The Family Foundation in Richmond are a case in point - constantly disseminate is that of the Norman Rockwell nuclear family which is held out as the norm but for the threat of gay marriage.  The reality, however, is that such families are increasingly NOT the norm and in the past many continued to exist simply because people stayed in bad marriages that were often toxic for all concerned.  To the Christofascists, it's better that everyone remain in unhappy sham heterosexual marriages than face the truth that their little ideological world is largely a fantasy in their own minds.  Their rigid agenda insults the lives and loves of more and more Americans.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the changing face of America's families.  Here are highlights:

Kristi and Michael Burns have a lot in common.  . . . . their blended family is a sprawling, sometimes uneasy ensemble of two sharp-eyed sons from her two previous husbands, a daughter and son from his second marriage, ex-spouses of varying degrees of involvement, the partners of ex-spouses, the bemused in-laws and a kitten named Agnes that likes to sleep on computer keyboards.

If the Burnses seem atypical as an American nuclear family, how about the Schulte-Waysers, a merry band of two married dads, six kids and two dogs? Or the Indrakrishnans, a successful immigrant couple in Atlanta whose teenage daughter divides her time between prosaic homework and the precision footwork of ancient Hindu dance; the Glusacs of Los Angeles, with their two nearly grown children and their litany of middle-class challenges that seem like minor sagas; Ana Perez and Julian Hill of Harlem, unmarried and just getting by, but with Warren Buffett-size dreams for their three young children; and the alarming number families with incarcerated parents, a sorry byproduct of America’s status as the world’s leading jailer. 

Researchers who study the structure and evolution of the American family express unsullied astonishment at how rapidly the family has changed in recent years, the transformations often exceeding or capsizing those same experts’ predictions of just a few journal articles ago. 

Yet for all the restless shape-shifting of the American family, researchers who comb through census, survey and historical data and conduct field studies of ordinary home life have identified a number of key emerging themes. 

Families, they say, are becoming more socially egalitarian over all, even as economic disparities widen. Families are more ethnically, racially, religiously and stylistically diverse than half a generation ago — than even half a year ago. 

Good friends join forces as part of the “voluntary kin” movement, sharing medical directives, wills, even adopting one another legally. 

Single people live alone and proudly consider themselves families of one — more generous and civic-minded than so-called “greedy marrieds.”

[T]he old-fashioned family plan of stably married parents residing with their children remains a source of considerable power in America — but one that is increasingly seen as out of reach to all but the educated elite. 

“We’re seeing a class divide not only between the haves and the have-nots, but between the I do’s and the I do nots,” Dr. Coontz said. Those who are enjoying the perks of a good marriage “wouldn’t stand for any other kind,” she said, while those who would benefit most from marital stability “are the ones least likely to have the resources to sustain it.”

The nation’s birthrate today is half what it was in 1960, and last year hit its lowest point ever. At the end of the baby boom, in 1964, 36 percent of all Americans were under 18 years old; last year, children accounted for just 23.5 percent of the population, and the proportion is dropping, to a projected 21 percent by 2050.

One big reason is the soaring cost of ushering offspring to functional independence. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average middle-class couple will spend $241,080 to raise a child to age 18. Factor in four years of college and maybe graduate school, or a parentally subsidized internship with the local theater company, and say hello to your million-dollar bundle of oh joy. 

Also démodé is the old debate over whether mothers of dependent children should work outside the home. The facts have voted, the issue is settled, and Paycheck Mommy is now a central organizing principle of the modern American family.  

There are many more insights.  The take away message, however, is that if Republicans and the Christofascists are truly worried about "protecting marriage," they need to support policies that address the stresses now faced by families.  Gays marrying have NOTHING to do with these forces.  The fact that they refuse to face reality and adopt and supported supportive programs speaks volumes about their dishonesty and hypocrisy.

Barna Research Group: Atheists Divorce Less, Commit Fewer Crimes Than Christians

Today's posts may seem disproportionately rough on "godly Christians," but there just seems to be a plethora of stories that underscore the hypocrisy and batshit craziness of the so-called Christian Right.  As a number of previous posts have set forth, states with gay marriage have lower divorce rates than anti-gay Bible Belt states.  Likewise, studies have shown that evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rates of any religious groups/denomination.  Now, a new study by the Barna Research Group - a conservative Christian organization - confirms that atheists have a lower divorce rate than the "godly Christian" crowd.   Here are highlights via The New Civil Rights Movement:

An Evangelical Christian pollster finds that atheists commit less crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than their fellow Christians. “It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite,” the Knoxville News‘ Al Westerfield writes of the study, adding that “the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.”

“According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists,” Westerfield writes:

The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are. The godless who are thought to be without morals seem to take their vows more seriously.

Some groups seem to like their flocks ignorant so that pastors’ interpretations of God’s edicts are not questioned. Other groups prize scholarship and achieve more in their lives here on Earth.

In fact, a review of worldwide studies found that criminality and religion go hand in hand. The countries with the most religious people have the highest crime rates, highest sexually transmitted diseases and the highest teen pregnancy rates.

This is also true in the United States. The more religious a state’s population, the higher the crime, STD and teen pregnancy rates.

The hypocrisy is mind numbing.  Why do politicians give a damn about what these ignorant, promiscuous and  obviously unfaithful folks have to say about anything?  Oh, I forgot.  These folks are today' Republican Party.

Teen Pregnancy Rate Highest in Rural (Conservative) Areas

Just as the evangelical Christians who blather the most about the "sanctity of marriage" have the highest divorce rates of any religious grouping in the country, so too rural - translate Republican - areas have the highest teen pregnancy rates.  Obviously, the children of the Bible beaters are not heeding their parents' supposed beliefs on chastity until marriage and the abstinence only sex education course so favored by the Christofascists.  And then there's the lack of availability of contraception and women's health clinics in these areas where they Christofascists seek to drive away programs that would provide meaningful means to reduce unwanted pregnancies.  The Des Moines Register has coverage on the findings of a new study.  Here are excerpts:

Nationally, the birth rate for U.S. teens has plunged to record low levels, but a new analysis shows that a disproportionate share of teen births are in rural communities.  In 2010, the birth rate for girls ages 15 to 19 in rural counties was 43 per 1,000, nearly one-third higher than the rate for metropolitan counties (33 per 1,000), says a report released Thursday.

"The prevailing stereotype is that teen parenthood is primarily an urban and suburban phenomenon," says Bill Albert, chief program officer for the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit. In fact, "the landscape of teen childbearing is more open spaces and fresh air than gridlock and high-rises," he says.

The results indicate that "the rates are far, far higher in rural areas compared to other parts of the country," he says. That suggests a greater need for efforts directed at helping rural teens avoid too-early pregnancy and parenthood.  Among findings from the analysis:

- Between 1990 and 2010, the birth rate among teens in rural counties declined by 32%, far less than in major urban centers (49%) and suburbs (40%).

- Rural counties account for one in five teen births; only 16% of teen girls live in rural counties.

- The teen birth rate is higher in rural counties than major urban centers for all ethnic and racial groups

What's behind the high rural teen birth rate? One factor is that even with all of the improvements in birth control methods, availability "lags far behind availability for teens living in urban and metro areas,"

Once again the lesson is clear:  if the Christofascists were serious about reducing teen pregnancies and abortions, they would support comprehensive sex ed programs and making contraception widely available.  Instead, they whine about the unborn while perpetuating the problem and typically not giving a damn about children once they are actually born.   Pretending in one's delusional mind that teens aren't having sex simply doesn't make it so.

The Corelation Between Religiosity and Obesity, High Divorce Rates, and Teen Pregnancies

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Gallup has a new report on religiosity by state and not surprisingly, other than Utah and Oklahoma, all of the most religious states are in the Deep South.  Meanwhile, the least religious states clustered in the Northwest and in the Northeast.  In a related report, Gallup also found that the highest rates of obesity, lack of health insurance coverage and struggles to subsist were correlated to the most religious states.  First these findings on levels of religiosity (see the chart above as well):

Overall, 40% of Americans nationwide were classified as very religious in 2012 -- based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week. Thirty-one percent of Americans were nonreligious, saying religion is not an important part of their daily life and that they seldom or never attend religious services. The remaining 29% of Americans were moderately religious, saying religion is important in their lives but that they do not attend services regularly, or that religion is not important but that they still attend services.

Eight of the top 10 religious states are in the South -- basically comprising the entire Southern belt from Georgia and the two Carolinas on the Atlantic coast through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, to Louisiana and Arkansas in the west. The states outside the Southern belt are Utah -- with its strongly religious majority Mormon population -- and Oklahoma, which straddles the border between the South and the Midwest.

The 12 least religious states comprise the entirety of New England -- Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut -- along with the three most Northwestern states in the union, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, plus the District of Columbia, Nevada, and Hawaii.

As for social malaise correlating to the most religious states, there are these highilights:

Texas residents continue to be the most likely in the U.S. to lack health insurance (25.5%) in 2012 and those in Massachusetts remain least likely (4.1%).

One in four Mississippi residents report lacking enough money to buy the food they or their families needed at times in the last 12 months -- more than any other state in 2012. North Dakotans were the least likely to struggle to afford food, at 9.6%.

A majority of American adults in all 50 states are either overweight or obese in 2012. West Virginia residents are the most likely to fall into one of these weight groups (69.3%), while Coloradans are least likely (55.1%).

Obesity rates remain highest in many Southern and Midwestern states. Western and Northeastern states still boast the lowest obesity rates in the country. Diabetes and high blood pressure rates follow the same geographic pattern.

As this blog has noted frequently, states in the Bible Belt also have the highest divorce rates and the highest teen pregnancy rates.   Obviously, there is a major discontent between claimed religiosity and actual behavior.  Some might call the phenomenon rank hypocrisy.

Are Evangelicals Sure They Want to Claim the Bible is Inerrant?

One of the ironies is that evangelical Christians scream the loudest about "protecting Marriage" from the gay agenda, yet meanwhile they have the highest divorce rate of any religious group in America. And they also use the Bible - which they describe as the "inerrant Word of God - to regularly condemn gays and others who they deem to be sinners. As the image above suggests, they apparently do not know their Bible very well. Otherwise, executions of women should be widespread across the South's Bible Belt. As I have noted many times before, the ignorance and hypocrisy of the Christian Right knows few limits.

Rick Santorum's Moral Delusions

With Michele Bachmann now out of the GOP presidential nominee race, Rick Santorum has taken Bachmann's place as the craziest and most untethered from reality of the candidates. Yes, "craziest" is a relative term since most of the GOP contenders are crazy. But like Bachmann, Santorum is obsessed with gays and sexuality in general and is only too willing to fan the flames of bigotry in the hope that the nastiest elements in the GOP will reward him with their vote. The reality that facts do not back up his claims is irrelevant to Santorum. A column in the Chicago Tribune trashes Santorum for his lies and advocacy for marginalizing those who do not conform to his own twisted religious beliefs. Here are highlights: .

Why is Rick Santorum running for president? Because America is in trouble and he knows why. Faith and family are under attack. "Moral relativism," he warns, is breeding "aberrant behavior." Gay rights advocates are bent on "secularization." Liberals have brought about a "decaying culture."

Santorum insists that gay marriage will destroy the family, "the very foundation of our country." Lamenting the scandal of pedophile priests, he wrote in a Catholic publication: "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

Santorum takes it for granted that religious belief, at least of the Christian variety, is a powerful force for moral behavior. That's not apparent from looking at this country.

But where is the evidence that the developments cited by Santorum are producing harmful side effects? In the past couple of decades, most indicators of moral and social health have gotten better, not worse. Crime has plummeted. Teen pregnancy has declined by 39 percent. Abortion rates among adolescents are less than half of what they were. The incidence of divorce is down.

It turns out that religiosity does not translate into good behavior, and disregard for religion does not go hand-in-hand with vice. Quite the contrary. Consider homicide, . . . . Of the 10 states with the most worshippers, all but one have higher than average homicide rates. Of the 11 states with the lowest church attendance, by contrast, 10 have low homicide rates.

Teen pregnancy also tends to follow a course precisely the opposite of what Santorum preaches. Almost every one of the most religious states suffers from more teen pregnancy than the norm — while the least religious ones enjoy less.

What impact does gay marriage have on how kids handle sex? Massachusetts, the first state to legalize it, has less teen pregnancy than the country as a whole. Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont, which have also sanctioned same-sex unions, are also far better than average.

Does gay marriage undermine the health and stability of heterosexual marriage? Not so you can tell. Massachusetts has the nation's lowest divorce rate. Iowa and Connecticut are also better than most. Vermont and New Hampshire are about average. In the Bible Belt, by contrast, marriages are generally more prone to break up.

In fact, in his indictment of tolerance, individual conscience, sexual freedom and secular morality, he [Santorum] is not telling truths but spinning sanctimonious fairy tales. American culture is not sick, and Santorum is no healer.

The Bible Belt Divorce Epidemic

Much of the delusional Christianist base for the Republican Party is centered in the South. This segment of the GOP party base claims to worship the Bible and the Ten Commandments and insist that all Americans conform with their "family values" agenda. The problem is, that these folk - who some would call total hypocrites - as a group have the highest divorce rate of all Americans. Meanwhile, the decadent (at least in Christianist minds) Northeast has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Obviously, if the "family values" crowd and their boot licking sycophants in the Republican Party are truly concerned about "protecting marriage," rather than foaming at the mouth over same sex marriage, they need to put their own foul house in order. Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, are you listening? Here are highlights from a CNN story that looks at the Bible Belt's disconnect from what it preaches:

While the Bible Belt is known for its devotion to traditional values, Southerners don't do so well on one key family value: They are more likely to get divorced than people living in the Northeast.

Southern men and women had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than their counterparts in other parts of the country: 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

Of the 14 states reporting divorce rates for men that were much higher than the U.S. average -- ranging from 10.0 to 13.5 per 1,000 -- most were in the South. They included Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

In contrast, men in the Northeast divorced less than the national average. Five of the nine states that had divorce rates for men significantly below the U.S. average -- ranging from 6.1 to 8.5 -- were the Northeastern states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey , New York and Pennsylvania.

The same was true for Southern women. Nine of the 14 states with divorce rates for women above the U.S. average, ranging from 10.7 to 16.2, were in the South. They included Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

By comparison, four of the 10 states with below-average divorce rates for women, ranging from 6.0 to 8.9, were in the Northeast: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Values about premarital sex associated with the Bible Belt and rural America may be encouraging people to marry early, at ages when they are likely to have less education and less income to support a long-lasting marriage, according to Naomi Cahn, law professor at The George Washington University Law School and co-author of "Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture."

"There's a moral crisis in red states that's produced by higher divorce rates and the disparity between parental values and behavior of young adults," said Cahn. "There is enormous tension between moral values and actual practices."

Marriages and families within faith communities are no healthier than in the rest of society. Faith communities must provide support systems to salvage damaged marriages and resurrect dead marriages."

Could it be that the Bible beater's obsession over same sex marriage is aimed at avoiding focus on their own hypocrisy and failed marriages?

States With Gay Marriage Have Lowest Divorce Rates

Self-enriching cow Maggie Gallagher and the wide-assed bigots like Archbishop Dolan in New York in Catholic Church bishoprics around the country whine incessantly about "protecting" marriage from the threat of same sex marriage. Yet a new report shows that divorce is the least prevalent in states where gay marriage is legal and the highest - yes, you guessed it - in the Bible belt and ultra conservative states. It's one more example of the deliberate lies and untruths put out by the anti-gay folks whose real agenda is to punish LGBT citizens for not conforming to Christianist religious beliefs. They can whine and blather all they want, but it comes down to seeking to force others to live by the beliefs of the Christofascists. Here are highlights from Edge of the Net:

One would think that the liberal Northeastern states, which include five of the six where marriage equality is legal (including, that is, the federal District of Columbia), would have the highest rate of divorce because they are perceived as more freewheeling. In addition, the main argument against gay marriage has been that it undermines the state of marriage. So it would follow that, in states that have embraced gay marriages, heterosexual marriages are in a perilous state of collapse. Except that the opposite appears to be true.

At first glance, it looks counterintuitive -- at least, if you pay attention to the rhetoric of religious conservatives, who frown on divorce because they believe heterosexuals shouldn’t engage in premarital sex and once married, should remain so for the rest of their lives.

Here’s the really surprising part: It’s the Bible belt, the swathe of religious ultra-conservatives that swings from West Virginia down through Dixie that has by far the highest proportion of divorce rates among the general population.

Massachusetts, the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, for years has had the lowest number of divorces in the nation. In 2009, there were only 1.8 divorces per 1,000 population. Marriages also are legal in Washington, D.C., which closely trails Massachusetts with 2.1 divorces per 1,000 residents.

New York, the largest and most recent state to legalize marriage equality, has a divorce rate of 2.5 per 1,000. That ties the rate in Iowa, the sole non-Northeastern state to allow same-sex marriages. The other states with marriage equality also all have low divorce rates compared to the national median: Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont.

The same things that produce higher acceptance of diversity are the things that tend to lower divorce rates," she explained. "This is one of the ironies. People who are higher educated and who have experience outside marriage because they have delayed getting married and have a higher degree of economic security and sophistication tend to be more acceptable of same-sex marriage and have lower divorce rates."

College graduates, of whom there are many more in the low-divorce states, have higher incomes, which tend to make marriages last. "Those in the South have much lower income and education levels," Coontz reported.

That's right. The very ignorance and close mindedness preached by the Catholic bishops, the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and other anti-gay denominations is what really helps to increase divorce rates. Not Adam and Steven being civilly married and being treated as a lawful couple. So the next time you hear Maggie Gallagher pontificating, know that she's lying. Worse yet, I suspect she knows that she is she loves enriching herself more than telling the truth.

10 Years of Gay Marriage in the Netherlands - And Gays Have a Lower Divorce Rate

This coming Friday will mark the tenth anniversary of the advent of full same sex marriage rights in the Netherlands and - I'm sure to the shock and dismay of Maggie Gallagher, et al - the world has not come to an end. Nor have heterosexual divorce rates soared as a result of civil law recognition of same sex marriages. Indeed, the Netherlands continues to have a markedly lower divorce rate than the USA as a whole and even more so compared to the Bible Belt where divorce and unwed mothers rank the highest. One might even conjecture that Ms. Maggie and her fellow gay haters' real motivation in trashing same sex unions is because they are scared to death that we gays might be better at marriage than the heretofore privileged straights. So far in The Netherlands, gays divorce at a rate of roughly 5% versus a rate of 38% for the larger public. Rex Wockner has a few reflections on the upcoming anniversary and here are some highlights:
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In the intervening 10 years, 14,813 of the Netherlands' 55,000 gay couples have gotten married, according to Statistics Netherlands. Of those couples, 7,522 were female and 7,291 were male. There have been 1,078 same-sex divorces, 734 of them by female couples.
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Same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Mexico (where same-sex marriages are allowed only in the capital city but are recognized nationwide).
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In the U.S., same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C. In addition, same-sex marriages from anywhere in the world are recognized as marriages in Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and California (if the marriage took place before Proposition 8 passed) even though those states do not let same-sex couples marry.
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As noted, what is striking about the Netherlands and most of the nations that allow full same sex marriage, is that most have much, much lower divorce rates that the USA. Just as Massachusetts - the first U.S. state to have gay marriage - has a much lower divorce rate than say Arkansas or Mississippi deep in the conservative Christian Bible Belt. So just maybe, its the far right, multiple divorced conservative Christians who are the real threat to marriage. Here are some statistics from Divorce Mag.com:
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Country Divorce Rate (per 1,000 population per year):
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United States 4.1
Belgium 2.6
Sweden 2.4
Canada 2.28
Norway 2.2
Netherlands 2.1
Iceland 1.9
Portugal 1.9
Spain 0.9
South Africa 0.81
Mexico 0.41
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I could not find data for Argentina, but its neighbors, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile all divorce have rates that are a fraction of the rate in the USA. Perhaps if the Christianists worked to address the REAL threats to marriage in the USA - instead of using anti-gay animus as a fund raising tool - the nation's divorce rate would not be sky high compared to so many other nations.

Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans

Click image to enlarge

Data and statistic whiz Nate Silver has done some research and while divorce has slowed somewhat nationwide - some couples are staying together due to the bad economy and their inability to support two residences - one of the states with by far the largest decline in divorces is Massachusetts. All those tales of gloom and doom vis-a-vis heterosexual marriage have not occurred in the state that has allowed gay marriage for the longest period. Meanwhile, Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin's home state of Alaska has had the largest increase in the divorce rate of any state (+17.2%). I'm sure FRC will ignore this data as it wages its religious war against LGBT citizens. Here are some highlights from Nate's blog to supplement the chart above:

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Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.
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As is somewhat visually apparent, those states which have tended to take more liberal policies toward gay marriage have tended also to have larger declines in their divorce rates. In Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2004, the divorce rate has declined by 21 percent and is the lowest in the country by some margin. It is joined at the top of the list by Rhode Island and New Mexico, which do not perform same-sex marriages but idiosyncratically also have no statute or constitutional provision expressly forbidding them, as well as Maine, whose legislature approved same-sex marriage only to have it overturned (although not banned constitutionally) by its voters.
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On the other hand, the seven states at the bottom of the chart all had constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage in place throughout 2008. The state which experienced the highest increase in its divorce rate over the period (Alaska, at 17.2 percent) also happens to be the first one to have altered its constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, in 1998.
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At the very least, I would be surprised if there were any statistical evidence that interpreting the right of marriage to apply to same-sex couples would be injurious to heterosexual couples in any material way.

It's the Hypocrisy, Stupid!

A reader left a comment on my post earlier today concerning the move by St. John's Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Virginia, to leave the ELCA over the national Church's vote in August to allow partnered gay clergy in monogamous relationships. The reader does a great job at honing in on the intellectual and scriptural dishonesty of the anti-gay Christians who close their eyes to divorce and remarriage - something is specifically condemned in the Gospels by statements attributable to Christ himself - but cite the Bible to condemn gays. Like the reader, it is my view that if anti-gay Bible passages are to be applied literally, then so must everything else. But, of course, instead our Christianist enemies selectively pick and choose what gets applied literally while inconvenient passages like those about divorce are totally ignored. Remember, the HIGHEST DIVORCE rates are in states in Bible Belt. The hypocrisy is staggering. Here are portions of the reader's comment:

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Scripture tells us that many things are sinful. Sexual relations outside of marriage are just ONE of these sins. I emphasize the phrase 'sexual relations outside of marriage' because it is the orthodox view that all sex must be within marriage, so premarital heterosexual relations are just as sinful as homosexual relations. Divorce, except possibly where there has been infidelity, is also prohibited according to scripture; divorce and remarriage are equated with adultery. From a conservative scriptural perspective, homosexuality has to be seen as a lesser sin than divorce or, worse, divorce and remarriage. The fact, though, is that there are probably a lot of divorced or divorced and remarried people in the congregation that you write about. I'll bet the pastor tolerates it. Fundamentalists think they are consistent in their beliefs but they often pick and choose and then take the moral high ground. From a Catholic perspective, divorce and remarriage amount to a state of perpetual adultery. It could be argued that this is worse than an occasional homosexual or heterosexual act. The Catholic can confess and be forgiven unless s/he is divorced and remarried in which case s/he is separated from the Church.
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Divorce is the primary destroyer of families, not homosexuality. It's much easier to pick on gays, though, when there are so many divorced Christians. I don't think that you can expect traditional Christian denominations to change their theology to please gays but you can demand doctrinal consistency by pointing out these facts. Those who live in glass houses really should not throw stones.

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Interestingly enough, one ELCA congregation does not want to be counted among the gay haters and wants the congregation's name removed from the list of parishes joint the anti-gay Lutheran CORE organization. Urland Lutheran Church in Cannon Falls, Minnesota says that it never wanted to be part of the group. The Advocate has more details on that story here.

The Marriage-Go-Round

Andrew Cherlin has a new book out entitled "The Marriage-Go-Round" that looks at the state of marriage and the family in America today and in the process explodes the myths put out by the Christianists and anti-gay marriage crowd. What is particularly humorous is that many of the European countries so frequently derided by the far right in fact have much more stability than in the USA. Likewise, the turbulence in straight marriages has NOTHING to do with same-sex marriage. Common sense would tell us many of these things, but it is nice to have yet another researched effort that further delineate the lies of those who spread the myth that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation." On marriage, like so much else, our foes are lying and disseminating false information. Here are some high lights of an interview with Cherlin:

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I had the sense that American marriage and family life differed fundamentally from the other Western countries—Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand . . . . We have more marriages and remarriages, more divorces, and more short-term cohabiting (living together) relationships than the other countries. Put them together and you have more turnover, more movement in and out of relationships than anywhere else. As a result, Americans have more spouses and live-in partners over the course of their lives than do people in any other Western country. We step on and off the carousel of marriages and partnerships faster than anywhere else.

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One statistic that stunned me: take two children, one growing up with married parents in the United States, and one growing up with unmarried parents in Sweden—which child has the higher likelihood of seeing his parents’ relationship break up? Answer: the American kid, because children living with married parents in the United States have a higher probability of experiencing a break-up than do children living with unmarried parents in Sweden. That’s how high our break-up rates are.

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American children face much more movement of parents and parent-figures in and out of their households than do children anywhere else. Take children who see three different fathers, stepfathers, and/or mother’s boyfriends in their homes by the time they are fifteen. The percentage of American children who live with that many partners is 8 percent, which is three times as high as the next highest country (Sweden at 2.6 percent). In Canada and many European countries, less than 1 percent of children experience that much family turnover.

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[C]hildren living with remarried parents do not have a higher level of well-being than do children in single-parent families, despite the presence of a second adult.

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Same-sex marriage has been more of a battleground in the United States than in most other countries because marriage is more important to Americans than to people in other countries. . . . . In some European countries, gay and lesbian activists are asking instead: why, at this late date, should we buy into the oppressive, archaic institution of marriage?

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And as I have pointed out a number of times in the past, who pray tell has the highest divorce rate in the USA? You guessed it: the evangelical Christians who so vehemently oppose legal rights for LGBT couples. It seems Maggie Gallagher needs to be focusing her efforts somewhere other than on gay marriage if she truly cares about "preserving" marriage.

Evangelicals and Obesity

Not only do evangelicals have the highest divorce rate of any Christian group (Baptists lead the way in divorce), but they seem to win for being the most obese as well. Baptists again win as the most over weight, followed by fundamentalist Protestant congregations -- Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assembly of God, and Church of God. This map pretty much tracts obesity rates with where evangelicals reside in the largest numbers in the USA. Perhaps if they focused less on disparaging gays and spreading intolerance, they could spend more time dealing with their own serious problems. Just a thought.