Child Homelessness Is Higher In States With Gay Marriage Bans
The exquisite FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver writes today, in, “Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans,” that,
“…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.”
Indeed.
He continues,
“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.”
All true. All compelling.
But wait. There’s more!
Back in June, I wrote, “2.9 Million Orphans, Happy Father’s Day.” In it I did my own share of number-crunching and found that, “States Offering Full Marriage Equality Have Lowest Rates Of Child Homelessness.” Well, well, well.
As I wrote, and sadly, right now,
“There are 2.9 million children in America living with no parents – and 1.6 million American children are homeless. 2.9 million is almost 1 percent of the entire U.S. population – and that figure is five years old. Half a million U.S. children live with foster parents.”
“While there might be no direct correlation, right now, the states that offer full marriage equality are also among the states that rank lowest in child homelessness. Connecticut (#1), New Hampshire (#2), Massachusetts (#8), Maine (#9), Vermont (#10), and Iowa (#11). Hawaii, with a long-standing domestic partnership history, ranks #3. Utah, by comparison, which ranks #38, prohibits adoption by “a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage.†Coincidence?”
So, let’s take a look at Utah. On our list, Utah is the thirteenth-worst when it comes to child homelessness. On Silver’s list, Utah ranks fifth-worst in divorce rate. One cannot help but mention Utah, the “Beehive State,” is known as a religious epicenter.
As I wrote earlier, “Is it possible that the states that truly care about children and families are the states that care about all children and all families?”
Here’s the data, again, via FiveThirtyEight: