[lbo-talk] National Journal: Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families?

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] This assumes that the "family values" politicians really have some
public interest in mind instead wanting to get elected by fear mongering and
stirring up controversies.  I doubt that this assumption is true.  As I see
it, these politicians- and US politicians in general - will do anything,
even fuck their own mothers in public, if it gets them elected.

Wojtek

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 4:13 AM, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:


> "Can it be? One of the oddest paradoxes of modern cultural politics may at
> last be resolved.
>
> "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.)
>
> "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.
>
> "Naomi Cahn and June Carbone -- family law professors at George Washington
> University and the University of Missouri (Kansas City), respectively --
> suggest that the apparent paradox is no paradox at all. Rather, it is the
> natural consequence of a cultural divide that has opened wide over the past
> few decades and shows no sign of closing. To define the divide in a
> sentence: *In red America, families form adults; in blue America, adults
> form families.*"
> http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/socialstudies.php
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
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