States With Highest Divorce Rates

Marriage is still a very popular institution in the United States, although recent statistics show that it is declining. The sad part is that divorce is also popular. Statistics from 2008 showed that 40% of marriages ended in divorce (and 46% of new marriages involved at least one person who had been previously married). CBS News recently posted the states with the highest rate of divorced people. I thought it was interesting so I am re-posting their list here. An interesting side-note here is that most of these states are red states -- states that oppose gay marriage because it would "harm" the holy sacrament of marriage. Make of that what you will. Here they are by gender (and the number is the number of divorced people per 1,000):

MEN
1. Arkansas.....13.5
2. Maine.....13.0
3. Oklahoma.....12.8
4. Alabama.....12.7
5. Kentucky.....12.6
6. Alaska.....12.5
7. Nevada.....12.3
8. Colorado.....11.6
9. Georgia.....11.5
10. Tennessee.....11.4
11. Mississippi.....11.1
12. Louisiana.....11.0
12. Indiana.....11.0
14. W. Virginia.....10.9
14. S. Dakota.....10.9

WOMEN
1. Alaska.....16.2
2. Oklahoma.....14.1
3. Alabama.....13.9
4. Kentucky.....13.5
5. Arkansas.....12.8
6. Mississippi.....12.5
7. Nevada.....12.3
8. Texas.....11.9
8. Arizona.....11.9
10. W. Virginia.....11.8
11. Georgia.....11.7
12. Tennessee.....11.6
13. Vermont.....11.5
14. Oregon.....11.4

Texas AG Files Suit To Stop Same-Sex Divorce

For the second time in the last couple of days, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed a ridiculous lawsuit. This second one is even very likely unconstitutional. First, he panders to his corporate masters by filing suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to try and stop their regulation of greenhouse gases. Then he panders to Texas bigots by filing suit to stop a same sex divorce that was approved by an Austin judge.

In 2005, Texas voted to ban same-sex marriages. Abbott is basing his lawsuit on that ban. He says that because same-sex marriages are banned in Texas, that means same-sex divorces are also banned. There are two possibilities for this action by Abbott. He is either trying to appeal to the bigoted base of the Republican Party in an effort to be re-elected, or he is a totally incompetent attorney (a real possibility).

The voters of Texas banned same-sex marriages -- not same-sex divorces. There is absolutely no proof at all that when Texas voters banned same-sex marriages they also thought they were banning same-sex divorces. In fact, some of those voters may actually be in favor of same-sex divorces (since it would mean less married gays and lesbians in the state). Abbott is trying to stretch the law's meaning to include something it was never meant to cover.

Abbott would like for us to believe that since Texas bans same-sex marriages, the couple getting the divorce were never legally married in Texas. On that count, he is simply wrong. While it is true the couple could not have gotten married in Texas, that does not mean they were not legally married.

The lesbian couple were legally married in Massachusetts in 2004. Since their marriage was legal in Massachusetts, that makes it legal in every state in the union. The marriage cannot be declared to not be legal simply because they moved to Texas. Article IV Section 1 of the United States Constitution guarantees this when it says, "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other state."

This constitutional provision has always included (and was meant to include) legal marriages, and since the constitutional provision does not exclude same-sex marriages, the couple were legally married in Texas. Whether Abbott likes it or not, the U.S. Constitution always trumps state law.

So what we have here are a couple legally married in Texas, and no Texas law that prohibits the divorce of legally married people. How could their divorce not also be considered legal?

But Abbott doesn't care about that. He is just being true to Republican values, and two of the biggest of those "family values" is hatred and bigotry.

California To Ban Divorce ?

Sometimes the right-wing can be amazingly stupid, and I believe this may be one of those cases. A man named James Marcotte has proposed to alter the California constitution to ban divorces in the state. Yesterday, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that Marcotte has 150 days to gather the required signatures to get the initiative on next year's election ballot.

The nut has until March 22 of 2010 to collect 694,354 signatures (or 8% of the total votes cast for governor in the last state election). Here is the initiative as worded by the state attorney general:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings. (09-0026.)

Supposedly, he has suggested the initiative as a way to save the state some money. If you don't have divorce, then you don't need divorce courts and judges. That's ridiculous. There are many other ways to save money or to raise money. This sounds like just another volley in the right-wing fundamentalist war against equal rights for women.

What's going to happen to the thousands of women in the state who must get a divorce because of their physical or psychological abuse (or the abuse of their children)? Is saving the state a little money a good enough reason to abandon these women?

Of course, it won't affect the rich or upper middle-class. These people can just go to another state to get their divorce, because they have the money to establish residency in the new state. But what about poor and working-class women? They will be condemned to live with abuse -- very possibly life-threatening abuse.

This is just a real bad idea. Hopefully, Marcotte will not be able to raise the required number of signatures to get it on the ballot, or it'll be defeated in the next election by Californians. But then I thought the same thing about proposition 8 in the last election.

Are Sarah And Todd Palin Splitting Up ?

A few weeks ago, Sarah Palin announced that she was resigning as governor of Alaska. Her speech at that time, detailing why she was doing it, was almost incoherent. It simply didn't make any sense, and many people thought there was another shoe yet to drop.

If what we're hearing now is true, then it may be starting to make some sense. Alaska Report, The Immoral Minority and Dammit Janet are all reporting that Sarah and Todd Palin are splitting up and will probably divorce. They tell us the marriage has been going downhill since the National Enquirer article detailing their previous affairs was published. For right now, they don't want to make the break-up official for financial reasons.

It seems that Sarah has not been wearing her wedding ring (which she was never seen without during the campaign) for about three weeks now. She supposedly threw it into an Alaskan lake. On the day she officially resigned, she and the kids left after her speech on June 26th (where she officially resigned) without her husband Todd. It is rumored that she has bought some land in Montana and wants to move down there with the kids.

Also lending credence to the story is the fact that Todd told Fox News last week thats he's going back to his job in the Alaskan oilfields. Why would he go back to a job like that after his wife just got an $11 million dollar book deal?

It also looks like Palin was misuseing her position as governor right up until the end. The District Attorney has been delaying the trial of Levi's mother, Sherry Johnston. That's because he wanted to negotiate a plea with her attorney, but Palin was putting pressure on for Ms. Johnston to get the maximum punishment (just one more in a long list of ethics violations). Now the court date has been moved back to August 19 to give the attorneys time to negotiate.

A story is also fixing to break about Todd pulling a gun on Levi Johnston in the summer of 2008. I'm starting to think the Palin family makes Peyton Place look like children's theater.