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Friday, December 16, 2005

Interesting Statistical Analysis

John Aravosis leavens his outstanding blogging and activism with a little bit of very odd statistical analysis.

Gosh, straight couples have a 50% divorce rate, and religious-right couples divorce at the highest rate of all Christians (this was from a study done a few years back). So the religious right divorces around 50% and gays divorce around 1%.

[snip]

From the VT Times Argus:

But from July 1, 2000, through the end of 2004, according to the Vermont Office of Vital Records, 7,549 couples have filed for civil unions in Vermont and there have been 78 dissolutions.



I'm glad to say that 15098 people who formed civil unions in Vermont are still alive. The correct comparison is with divorce before the end of 2004 of couples married since July 1 2000. I think 1% is still low but not totally different from the straight split rate.

Now I do like Aravosis's effort to come up with a practical application of the discovery. I think the divorce rate would be lower if straight Americans had to fight for millenia for the right to marry. Worth doing ? nah but well worth proposing to see O'Reilly's reaction.

To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw a marriage ending in divorce isn't so bad when you consider the alternative. The sad fact is that half of American marriages are ended by death.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I married, in 1984, my wife and her 2 sisters had all been divorced previously. One of my sisters-in-law-to-be took me aside before the ceremony and told me, "Never think divorce. Think murder first." I never thought she was implying that I should worry about being killed.

Anonymous said...

I suppose I should have added that we are still alive (& married to each other).