The political question of divorce — oh, and strippers (for ratings)

My Denver Post column today comments on the “morality” question some Republican candidates will be wrestling with as they vie for the immeasurably important Evangelical vote. I spoke with a public policy expert at Focus on the Family. A gracious and super intelligent guy, who, in his own soothing way, condemned me to burn in Hades.

Perhaps I deserve it for lines like: “If you haven’t lost a couple of days to alcohol-induced blackouts, a stripper and an empty wallet, you simply haven’t lived.” But do those who have been part of a divorce or engaged in some legal hobby like, say, visiting a strip club, deserve the same fate?

“It’s part of his character, obviously. People who sit in judgment of others have a duty to be above reproach,” explains Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family - rather unsurprisingly.

If there is anyone above reproach, I believe He probably took earthly leave of us approximately 2,000 years ago.

What took me by surprise was just how immoral Focus folks view divorce. Jesus apparently, when asked if he allowed “divorce for any cause,” claimed that he ”who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:3). A debate about how to properly apply this statement in the Baptist and Evangelical community was discussed in detail by David Instone-Brewer in Wall Street Journal a couple of months back.

One may wonder how Evangelicals explain the high divorce rates in their own community? Well, step one is to dismiss it. Here is a Focus piece on “Divorce and Cohabitation,” which works hard to reject statistics claiming that divorce rates among people who identified themselves as Christian in Southern Bible Belt states had higher divorce rates than people with no religious affiliation.

A Russell Sage Foundation study also found that evangelicals “who attend religious services weekly,” do pretty well when compared with average Americans when it comes to divorce and cohabitation. But those who are only nominally Protestant in the Bible Belt – most — do no better than the craven immoral horde in Blue States.

In a diverse nation like our, putting your finger on divorce rates is tough on many levels. Here is list of state by state divorce rates from the CDC. The stats all over the place, with little concern for geography. The District of Columbia, for instance, has a very low 2.4 divorce rate. This is likely to do more with a very low 5.1 percent marriage rate than any religious affiliation — or lack of one.

Having indulged in cohabitation I can’t say I’m very sorry or that I feel particularly immoral. As a son of divorced parents, I don’t believe mom and dad have sinned. Yet, in certain places, the divorce question will be an immense problem for a serial husband like Rudy to overcome.

(Cross-posted at Huffington Post)