People who think that church attendance and conservative values equals moral behavior and that the opposite equals immorality also tend to believe that conservative (i.e. good) people belong in the Republican Party and that "the Democrat Party" is the party of immoral, liberal, "Godless" people.         Despite the graphs and charts below, which tend to support tnat view of reality, we will show on this page how completely and utterely false and mistaken that view is: [ from http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=240 ]         No one who knows of the "Christian Coalition" will be surprised that it saw nothing but good in the Republican Party, and nothing but evil in the Democratic Party:         Now, there's another side to this coin. Let's turn it over and see what's on the other side.

Don't let homosexuals destroy the institution of marriage.     That's a job for "the Party of Family Values" : Ronald Reagan – divorced the mother of two of his children to marry Nancy, who delivered their daughter only 7 months into the marriage. Gerald Ford – married to Betty (a divorcee). Sen. Bob Dole – divorced the mother of his child, who had nursed him through the long recovery from his war wounds, to marry "Liddy". If you think George H.W. Bush was a model of virtue, check out Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas – divorced & remarried. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, confessed to long term cheating on his wife with his chief of staff's wife. Sen. Larry Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in an airport bathroom homosexual sting operation. Sen. Lauch Faircloth – divorced & remarried. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York – divorced & remarried. Sen. John McCain of Arizona – divorced & remarried. Sen. John Warner of Virginia – twice divorced (once married to Liz Taylor.). Newt Gingrich – divorced the mother of his two daughters, while she was dying of cancer. He then went on to marry again, divorce again, and marry again (and to then abandon his Baptist faith for the faith of his 3rd wife, Catholicism.) Dick Armey – House Majority Leader – divorced & remarried. Republican ex-congressman Bob Barr of Georgia Barr, now in his 50's, has been married three times. Barr had the audacity to author and push the "Defense of Marriage Act." Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho – divorced & remarried. ex-Rep. John Kasich of Ohio – divorced & remarried. Rep. Susan Molinari of New York – Republican National Convention Keynote Speaker – divorced & remarried. Henry Kissinger – divorced & remarried. Gov. Mark Sanford admitted to long-term affair and neglect of his duties. Gov. George Allen of Virginia – divorced & remarried. ex-Gov. John Engler of Michigan – divorced & remarried. ex-Gov. Pete Wilson of California – divorced & remarried. ex-Gov. John Roland of Connecticut – divorced         (imprisoned for corruption after resigning in shame). George Will – divorced & remarried. Rush Limbaugh – Rush (30-pill a day drug addict) and his latest wife, Marta, have six marriages and six divorces between them. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, right wing conservative radio host. Promotes family values, estranged from her mother, opposes birth control, has had her tubes tied, espouses saving oneself for marriage, admits to having had sex before she was married, opposes adultery, has committed adultery while she was married, and has slept with a married man, opposes divorce, is divorced and remarried, has posed for nude photos which are available online. Although Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been an ultra-conservative judgmental Catholic in most respects, he has been uncharacteristically liberal when it came to his own "sacrament of holy matrimony".  Two years after divorcing the mother of his one child, a Catholic woman whom he had married 13 years earlier, he took a second wife - something which conservative Catholics like judge Thomas often condemn, at least for those who don't have the prestige that Thomas enjoys.-

Now, on the other hand, these are the kinds of "godless liberals" that the Democratic Party has produced : Calif. Gov. Pat Brown married 72 years when wife died in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of W. Va. married almost 69 years when wife died in 2006. Sen. & presidential candidate George McGovern married 66 years as of 2009. Folk Music legend and activist Pete Seeger married 66 years as of 2009. Sen. & presidential candidate John Glenn married 66 years as of 2009. Journalist Walter Cronkite married 64 years when wife died in 2005. Famous campaign finance activist "Granny D" Haddock married 64 years when her husbamd died. Pres. Jimmy Carter married 63 years as of 2009. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum married 63 years, when he died in 2008., Former Attorney General & activist Ramsey Clark married 62 years as of 2009. Sargent Shriver married 56 years when wife Eunice Kennedy died in 2009. Former NY governor Mario Cuomo married 55 years as of 2009. Journalist Bill Moyers married 55 years as of 2009. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg married 55 years as of 2009. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. married 54 years when wife died in 1982. Pres. Harry Truman married 53 years when he died in 1972. Sen. & V.P. Walter Mondale married 53 years when wife died in 2008. Journalist Dan Rather married 52 years as of 2009. Actor & Activist Alan Alda married 52 years as of 2009. Billionaire Warren Buffett married 52 years when 1st wife died in 2004. Entertainer & Activist Harry Belafonte married 52 years as of 2009. V.P. Henry Wallace married 51 years when he died in 1965. Sen. Wayne Morse married 50 years when he died in 1974* (see note below). Sen. Harry Reid married 50 years as of 2009. Speaker Nancy Pelosi married 49 years as of 2009. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall married 48 years to 2nd wife when he died in 1993. Actor & Activist Martin Sheen married 48 years as of 2009. Sen. Pat Moynihan married 46 years when he died in 2001. Sen. Patrick Leahy married 46 years as of 2009. Comedian Bob Newhart married 46 years as of 2009. House Leader Charlie Rangel married 45 years as of 2009. Former NY governor Al Smith married 44 years when he and his wife died in 1944. Speaker Dick Gephardt married married 43 years as of 2009. Jody Powell (Jimmy Carter's press secretary) married 43 years when he died at age 65 in 2009. Sen. Hubert Humphrey married 42 years when he died in 1978. Journalist Daniel Schorr married 42 years as of 2009. Comedian Billy Chrystal married 42 years as of 2009. Sen. John D. Rockerfeller married 42 years as of 2009. Sen. Tom Harkin married 41 years as of 2009. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt married 40 years when he died in 1945. Sen. Paul Simon married 40 years when his 1st wife died in 2000. Pres. Lyndon Johnson married 39 years when he died in 1973. Sen. Paul Wellstone married 39 years when he & his wife died tragically in 2002. Sec. Robert Reich married 36 years as of 2009. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. married 36 years to 2nd wife when he died in 2007. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin married 34 years as of 2009. Sen. Al Franken married 32 years as of 2009. Sen. and V.P. candidate Joe Biden 31 years to 2nd wife after his first wife and two daughters were killed in a tragic auto accident. His family is so important to him that all those years in the Senate he had no home in D.C., but spent 4 hours in travel each work day to and from his home in Delaware to D.C. Journalist Tim Russert was married 25 years to his one wife before dying prematurely at age 58. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had been married 18 years when he was killed in 1968, leaving behind 11 children. As of 2009, the Weathermen co-founders, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, had been together for about 38 years. Notes:         Wayne Morse has been rated as one of the most liberal U.S. senators ever. "In high school, he developed his relationship with Mildred "Midge" Downie, whom he had known since third grade, and who was class valedictorian and class vice-president the same year Morse was president." Although a Republican when first elected to the Senate in 1945, he gave the Democrats the majority by joining them in 1955.

When it comes to states with the highest vs. the lowest Divorce Rates ( i.e. per 1,000 for the year 2001 )
All ten states with the highest Divorce rates are considered "CONSERVATIVE" : Nevada   6.8 Arkansas   6.6 Wyoming   6.1 Idaho   5.6 Kentucky   5.5 Florida   5.4 Mississippi   5.4 Alabama   5.3 Tennessee   5.2 West Virginia   5.2	Of the eleven states with the lowest Divorce rates, seven are considered "LIBERAL" : Wisconsin   3.2 Pennsylvania   3.2 Kansas   3.2 (conservative) Iowa   3.2 (conservative) Illinois   3.2 New York   3.3 Maryland   3.0 Connecticut   2.9 North Dakota   2.7 (conservative) Montana   2.6 (conservative) Massachusetts   2.4
Sources:       Table designed by Ray Dubuque, using data extracted from U.S Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract, 2003, Table No. 126

Teen Pregnancy Rates by state :
Of the ten states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy, all but one are considered "CONSERVATIVE" :	Nevada 113 Arizona 104 New Mexico 103 Mississippi 103 Texas 101 Florida  97 California  96 Georgia  95 N. Carolina  95 Arkansas  93	Conservative Conservative Conservative Conservative Conservative Conservative Liberal Conservative Conservative Conservative
.  .  .
Four of the five states with the lowest rates are considered "LIBERAL" :	Maine 52 Minnesota 50 New Hampshire 47 Vermont 44 North Dakota 42	Liberal Liberal Liberal Liberal Conservative
Sources:       Table designed by Ray Dubuque, using data extracted from Teen pregnancy rates, ages 15-19, The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
Here's a more recent graph covering some of the same ground from the New York Times ( June 27, 2009 ):

"Looking at what might normally be considered "moral issues," the January 2005 issue of The American Prospect reported some startling comparative statistics on human behavior in red states and blue.         In red states in 2001, there were 572,000 divorces; in blue states, only 340,000.         That same year, in the red states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, 46.3 percent of all births were to unwed mothers; in blue states, the average was 31.7 percent. The per capita rate of violent crime today in red states is 421 per 100,000; in blue states, it's 372 per 100,000. As of 2000, the five states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse were red states. The five states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse among twelve- to seventeen-year-olds were also red states. In 2002, the per capita rate of gonorrhea in red states was 140 per 100,000; in blue states, it was 99 per 100,000. [ from Bill Press's outstanding book, How the Republicans Stole Religion, pp. 2-3 ]

Once born, kids are on their own!         In August of 2009, the conservative Heritage foundation deplored the "Prevention and Deterrence of Crimes Against Children Act of 2009, which was introduced on July 31,by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) to increase criminal penalties for child pornography, child sex trafficking and prostitution, child rape and sex crimes, and sex tourism, as an instance of what it sees as a trend in Congress to use the criminal law to "solve" every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives.         See http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/200908120001 ,         A former employee of the private contractor that the Bush administration employed more than all the rest, "Blackwater", which is headed by a "devout conservative Christian" named Erik Prince, describes Blackwater as “having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.” They add even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he “failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men.”         One of the statements also charges that “Prince’s North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring, which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince’s top executives.”         http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/07/blackwater-provided-child-prostitutes/         Do you hear even a peep of disgust from any conservative "Christian" Republicans?

"Looking at what might normally be considered "moral issues," the January 2005 issue of The American Prospect reported some startling comparative statistics on human behavior in red vs. blue states. In red states in 2001, there were 572,000 divorces; in blue states, only 340,000. That same year, in the red states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, 46.3 percent of all births were to unwed mothers; in blue states, the average was 31.7 percent. The per capita rate of violent crime today in red states is 421 per 100,000; in blue states, it's 372 per 100,000. As of 2000, the five states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse were red states. The five states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse among twelve- to seventeen-year-olds were also red states. In 2002, the per capita rate of gonorrhea in red states was 140 per 100,000; in blue states, it was 99 per 100,000. The Federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour was just fine ( from 1996 through 2006 elections ) in "compassionate conservative" "Christian", "family value" Republican states like : Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming Fed. Min. Florida $6.40 Alaska, where the cost of living is much higher than in any other state : $7.15 Even before the 2006 elections, the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour was not good enough in "godless, secular" liberal Democratic states like : New Hampshire, Fed. Min. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin $5.70 Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii between $6.15 & $6.75 District of Columbia, Michigan, Rhode Island about $7.00 Vermont, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington between $7.25 & $7.63

For those who need graphics of the tables above, we have created: BlueMinWage.jpg vs . RedMinWage.jpg.  As of October, 2006 (prior to the 2006 elections, in which several progressive initiatives improved the situation in several of the red states above, only two of the 33 conservative states had seen fit to require minimum wage workers be paid more than the disgraceful 1997 national minimum wage, while ALL but ONE of the 17 liberal states had adopted higher minimum wages within their own borders than was mandated nationally.       Contrary to the claim by opponents to raises in the minimum wage that such increases result in job losses, states which have increased the minimum wage have seen job increases. Oregon likes minimum wage increase, claims job growth States with minimum wage increase have faster small business growth, Fiscal Policy Institute. (if this paper should cease to be available at this link, email me if you would like me to send you a copy.) Policy Matters Ohio, minimum wage increase, job growth New Mexico study: Minimum wage law hasn't hurt job growth       And contrary to unsupported claims that most minimum wage workers are teen-agers, the majority of such workers – according to official statistics – are over 20, and many have children to support. From an AP news item:                 In last 2006, the House agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year to $165,200 after defeating an effort to roll it back.         "It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."         Federal minimum wage has been $5.15 since 1997. Loss of purchasing power: About 19.4%.         In 1997, Congressional salaries were $133,600. The congressmen have raised their salaries a whopping $31,600 since 1997, or 23.7%, but have failed to provide any adjustment of even one penny to enable the working poor to cope with the tremendous increase in the cost of living since 1997.

Sources:       Table designed by Ray Dubuque, using data extracted from Murder Rates: FBI Uniform Crime Statistics for 2003.

On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children under age 18, who commit serious crimes such as murder, may not be executed, and stated that execution of children constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. It should be noted that more than half of the countries in the world have entirely eliminated the death penalty, and that there are four international human rights treaties that exclude child offenders from the death penalty. In a worldwide study of the execution of children between 1994 and 2002, two-thirds of the executions of children occurred in the United States.         While it has been said that Bush was elected by the "values voters", I have previously found that the states that voted for Bush in the November, 2004 election had higher divorce rates, higher murder rates, and higher teen pregnancy rates. So, when I heard that there were 19 states that had allowed execution of children, I wondered if the "values voters" states – those who voted for Bush – were more or less likely to allow the execution of children. Following is the list of states that allowed execution of children prior to the Supreme Court ruling, and how they voted in the recent presidential election.

Conservative States that believe in executing children : Alabama                Arizona              Arkansas                 Florida Georgia                   Idaho              Kentucky              Louisiana North Carolina          Utah                Mississippi             Nevada South Carolina         Texas               Oklahoma               Virginia

Liberal States that believe in executing children : Delaware             New Hampshire             Pennsylvania

Of the 19 states that did allow execution of children, sixteen are considered "conservative".

For comparable information and graphs on other important "family values" issues, see our graphs.html page, where we highlight the following: Of the 21 states with the highest Murder rates, all but four are "conservative" : Of the states with the highest Suicide rates, All eight of the states with the highest Suicide rates are considered "conservative, while all eight of the states with the lowest Suicide rates are "liberal" For some great graphs comparing economic conditions under Democratic vs. Republican presidents, see my LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/busheconomy.html. When people think of political corruption, they are probably aware of a few scandals involving Democrats. But ask them to point to significant scandals involving contemporary liberal Democrats, as opposed to scandals dating back decades, when the Democratic Party was dominated by conservative Southerners.  They won't be able to come up with anything near the corruption that has dominated the Republican Party in recent years (i.e. since its take-over by the "Bible Belt" conservatives), as I lay bare at JesusNoRepublican.Org/about/gopcorruption.html.             Get the 2008 book on the way the secular U.S. media was duped into believing the myth of the overwhelming power of the "Religious Right" :

Contact   Ray@LiberalsLikeChrist.Org There is much more where this came from at and/or