posted
The only part that shocks me is that he resigned. It seems that lately the politicians try to wait out the controversey.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I'm shocked. He's not gay.
This made me laugh.
It does make me wonder though.... There are what... 435 House and 100 Senate seats right now. Almost every month we hear of another affair. Kind of makes you wonder just how many are fooling around.
At least now we know why they don't get much done Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
Ah, but he didn't resign because of his affair.
"In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted, for political gain. I am resigning rather than to put my family through that painful, drawn-out process."
Clearly it was all Washington's fault.
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posted
Well, in a way. I mean, washington doesn't *have* to hold him accountable for his stated opinions and supposed beliefs.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
To be fair, "Washington" doesn't really care about his hypocrisy. They would make a big deal out it, not because they care all that much, but because it works to their advantage to do so. Except for the other "Washington" who would try to downplay it and protect him - again, not because they care, but because it serves their interests.
Somewhere in all of this, I think it sort of gets lost. It's a really bad thing to cheat on your spouse. Not because it gets you in trouble, which seems to be the takeaway that most people seem to get from it. And not just for the negative aspects of betraying your spouse or breaking commitments that you swore to, but for the positive aspects that you were apparently missing in your marriage.
It seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I really do believe that a lot of the problems we have with our government come about in large part because most of them are the sort of people who will cheat on their spouses. Government should be entrusted to people who are honorable and trustworthy. And people who are in good, supportive marriages where they are putting in the needed effort are (all other things being equal) better off than people who aren't and are more likely to use this strong foundation for the good. These may sound like quaint ideas, but dammit, there are people out there who have these qualities. It really bugs me that so few people seem to care about them.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: These may sound like quaint ideas, but dammit, there are people out there who have these qualities. It really bugs me that so few people seem to care about them.
I think, in general, we vote for these kind of people because that's all we're presented. The men and women out there that are truly family/spouse-oriented may be less likely to run for office.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
It might make some sense to examine why monogamy is so difficult. Does it really work for everyone? Should it be the ideal?
This does not in any way excuse promise-breaking or dishonesty or hypocrisy, but when so many people have trouble with this, despite enormous and heartbreaking consequences, it makes sense to look at the question.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:It might make some sense to examine why monogamy is so difficult.
One thing which helps monogamy get so difficult is when social conservatives try to sustain outdated and unrealistic social models such as abstinence before marriage, which is one of the reasons why red states have significantly more family instability and fewer successful marriages than blue-staters.
High-level conservative diehards acting as sort of a demonstration of that helps. The whole self-loathing self-criminalizing gay conservative is weirder situation entirely though. haha.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:why red states have significantly more family instability and fewer successful marriages than blue-staters.
Or, because abortion is more acceptable in blue states.
Abortion is a factor but in no scenario does it cause the prior reasons to vanish, so you can't look at the argument and conclude with leaving abortion as the overriding factor that makes blue-state marriage better.
It's sociopolitical: in traditional red states which promote abstinence and traditional family values, you end up with people marrying at younger ages, not getting college educations sometimes on account of that fact, and having children early. The lack of education hampers the ability for the husband to find a job that pays enough for the wife to stay at home to raise their children. These marriages are more likely to dissolve.
In blue states, people wait and marry later, after completing college, and have children when they are older. Women in these states have more access to contraception as well as abortion. Both men and women are more likely to complete college and have more financial stability.
However straightforward this revelation is, this is not going to stop proponents of the outmoded social models from tripping over themselves to take studies like those published in the 'Red Families v. Blue Families' book and try to discredit them with simplistic counter-analyses.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: , and it is stuff like that that
quote:It might make some sense to examine why monogamy is so difficult.
One thing which helps monogamy get so difficult is when social conservatives try to sustain outdated and unrealistic social models such as abstinence before marriage, which is one of the reasons why red states have significantly more family instability and fewer successful marriages than blue-staters.
High-level conservative diehards acting as sort of a demonstration of that helps. The whole self-loathing self-criminalizing gay conservative is weirder situation entirely though. haha.
I'm sorry Samp but the data simply does not support your conclusions. People who attend church regularly, regardless of denomination, are 35% less likely to get divorced than people who don't.
Those who abstain from sex before marriage are less likely to divorce, not more likely.
The strongest predictor of divorce, is poverty -- not abstinence.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Okay, both of you are stating things that seem contradictory. I'm rather curious, so if you two could please back up your statements...?
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all.
quote:Religion % have been divorced Jews 30% Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24% Atheists, Agnostics 21%
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'm sorry Samp but the data simply does not support your conclusions.
lol. Which conclusions? How about the part where blue states have longer, happier marriages and greater family stability? The data doesn't support that?
quote:The strongest predictor of divorce, is poverty -- not abstinence.
Interesting! Now, who's saying that abstinence is the strongest predictor of divorce?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Those who abstain from sex before marriage are less likely to divorce, not more likely.
In point of fact, I believe what Samp wrote was that the social model encourages marriage *at an early age*, which causes family instability. Not that lack of getting laid before marriage causes instability. While the two are related- ie, you are more likely to marry young if it is your only chance to have sex, nevertheless early marriage is also part of a culture which may encourage early marriage in lieu of long term cohabitation. That same culture also looks upon marriage as a reason or at least not a discouragement from having children- meaning that a culture that encourages young marriages (for whatever reason) also probably encourages having children at a younger age. Marriage at a young age correlates very strongly with divorce, so what you end up with is more divorces, and more children of divorced parents.
In that case, the couple that waits to get married until their both 30 year old virgins doesn't really factor. They've beaten the odds, the horny old goats.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
There are two big surprises in that story. First he actually resigned and second his affair wasn't with a boy.
Posts: 305 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:People who attend church regularly, regardless of denomination, are 35% less likely to get divorced than people who don't.
I'd think that regular church attendance might be a good indicator of the stability of a marriage, not necessarily the cause of said stability.
quote:atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all.
Which further suggests to me that "attends church regularly" is a proxy for "participates in activities together".
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote: These may sound like quaint ideas, but dammit, there are people out there who have these qualities. It really bugs me that so few people seem to care about them.
I think, in general, we vote for these kind of people because that's all we're presented. The men and women out there that are truly family/spouse-oriented may be less likely to run for office.
I don't think monogamy has ever been as common as we like to think. Politicians have always had mistresses. It's just a lot harder to keep secrets now. The press used to cover for politicians in the past as well. Plus the moralists open themselves to hypocrisy and everyone likes tearing that down.
Posts: 305 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:People who attend church regularly, regardless of denomination, are 35% less likely to get divorced than people who don't.
I'd think that regular church attendance might be a good indicator of the stability of a marriage, not necessarily the cause of said stability.
It's also going to have a lot of overlap with subcultures which are much more stigmatizing of divorce. So you just don't divorce even when the marriage is unhappier. This 'solves' the whole issue of divorce, you just get unhappier marriages in general instead. Oh, and the more people who get married without actually having sex beforehand, the more marriages you get with large degrees of what ultimately counts as sexual incompatibility and dysfunction. Which is why I would hardly be surprised if states like Utah are still the porn and antidepressant capitals of the nation or something.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Which further suggests to me that "attends church regularly" is a proxy for "participates in activities together".
That would be reasonable and consistent with a linked study from that page that notes:
quote:A 1993 study published in Demography showed that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were the least likely of all faith groups to divorce: After five years of marriage, only 13% of LDS couples had divorced. But when a Mormon marries a non-Mormon, the divorce rate was found to have increased more than three-fold to 40%. Similar data for Jews were 27% and 42%. 8
quote:A 1993 study published in Demography showed that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were the least likely of all faith groups to divorce: After five years of marriage, only 13% of LDS couples had divorced. But when a Mormon marries a non-Mormon, the divorce rate was found to have increased more than three-fold to 40%. Similar data for Jews were 27% and 42%.
This is unsurprising. The LDS church is particularly bad about touting the supremacy of relationships between "worthy members". I'm sure it's very encouraging to those who fit the mold, but it's dismaying to those of us in "mixed" marriages. In many cases the LDS half of such marriages believes that they are missing out on something vital which they cannot obtain in their present, inferior marriage.
It's fairly common for a divorce to result from one spouse in a two-member marriage becoming inactive in the church.
posted
MattP: It is also quite common in mixed marriages for the active LDS member to go inactive.
Not trying to criticize your marriage. Just mentioning that it's a phenomenon I've seen many times as well.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:It might make some sense to examine why monogamy is so difficult. Does it really work for everyone? Should it be the ideal?
This does not in any way excuse promise-breaking or dishonesty or hypocrisy, but when so many people have trouble with this, despite enormous and heartbreaking consequences, it makes sense to look at the question.
It really does sound to me as though there is a contradiction in this post, kmbboots. It's not 'in any way' excused if it's very difficult for 'so many' people, and monogamy might not be the ideal we should be going for? That's sort of excusing language, it sounds to me. Not fully excusing, not simply writing it off, but still, it really does sound like it's there to me.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:It is also quite common in mixed marriages for the active LDS member to go inactive.
Yeah, but that's an effect of marriage on such arrangements, not an effect of those arrangements on marriage.
Regardless, if that's what's necessary to resolve any tensions so that the marriage can succeed, then great. I put my marriage before any external concerns. It let's me have a little silent response in my head to the "Well *we* were married in the temple" people: "Oh yeah, well *my* marriage is more important to me than *God*!"
posted
It may not help that we expect our representatives to look like Us- not the Us with the frighteningly high rates of divorce and infidelity, but the TV-approved version of Us, always immaculately dressed, spouse and children gazing up at Us adoringly as we stand in front of the gently waving flag.
I agree with Mr. Squicky that there might well be something in someone who remains faithful in marriage that would make them similarly faithful to the vows that make them a servant of the people, even when it's similarly difficult to keep those vows (or similarly easy or convenient to break them.) But I also think we might be better off if we could stop stamping so many of our politicians out of the exact same mold and then being surprised when some of them come out with chips and cracks, so to speak. Maybe we could use a few more people who have struggled through their flaws and mistakes and come out wiser and stronger, rather than people who have been pushing an image of perfection for so long that it's all they're really good at (and the strain is starting to make them crack, besides.)
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
In my experience, the believing spouse is asked to change for the non-believer (go inactive) an order of magnitude more than the non-believer attends church with the believer. So really, the believer is putting their marriage before their religion. The non-believer is putting themselves before their spouse.
The best situation I've seen is a solid every-other-week thing, they both do together what the other one would like to do. But it doesn't generally work that way - instead, one person is forced to choose between their spouse and their religion.
posted
I suspect that in many cases, the sort of person driven enough to seek power or fame may also going to be the sort of person arrogant enough to think consequences don't matter. (Here I'm thinking Tiger Woods; don't know the current situation, it might be love for all I know.)
I'm of the opinion that as long as the politician does the best he or she can for his or her constituents, state, country, and party (in that order), I really don't care what they get up to in the evenings. Just don't be hypocritical (and stupid) and become a public figure known for railing against the very thing you'll be caught doing someday.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Well. There's this:
quote:Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all.
quote:Religion % have been divorced Jews 30% Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24%a Atheists, Agnostics 21%
quote:It might make some sense to examine why monogamy is so difficult. Does it really work for everyone? Should it be the ideal?
This does not in any way excuse promise-breaking or dishonesty or hypocrisy, but when so many people have trouble with this, despite enormous and heartbreaking consequences, it makes sense to look at the question.
It really does sound to me as though there is a contradiction in this post, kmbboots. It's not 'in any way' excused if it's very difficult for 'so many' people, and monogamy might not be the ideal we should be going for? That's sort of excusing language, it sounds to me. Not fully excusing, not simply writing it off, but still, it really does sound like it's there to me.
Not really. There is a significant difference - at least to me - between questioning whether or not it is right/smart/realistic/good to expect people to conform to certain societal expectations and to excuse people for lying and cheating once they have promised to do so.
To elaborate, there is no sin in saying, "I love you but monogamy is not something I can do; can we make some other arrangement?" There is sin in lying. As a society, though, we don't make that first option possible. We expect that love means monogamy and I am not at all sure that is true.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Well. There's this:
quote:Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all.
quote:Religion % have been divorced Jews 30% Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24%a Atheists, Agnostics 21%
Those numbers are meaningless for 2 important reasons.
1. They don't take into account the % of people who have ever been married.
2. They report religious affiliation at the time of the study not at the time of the divorce.
OK, Here are some numbers on marriage rates
quote:In addition to finding that four out of every five adults (78%) have been married at least once, the Barna study revealed that an even higher proportion of born again Christians (84%) tie the knot. That eclipses the proportion among people aligned with non-Christian faiths (74%) and among atheists and agnostics (65%).
Combining the two sets of numbers I get that percent of 32% of atheists who have ever been married, have been divorced and 32% of Born Again Christians who have ever been married have been divorced.
It appears that difference in divorce rates between Born Again Christians and Atheists can be explain entirely by differences in the marriage rates.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... Combining the two sets of numbers ...
Technically, you can't just combine the numbers. The study I linked to is from 1999. Yours appears to be this from 2008.
The newer study still shows a 2% increase when going from non-religious to born-again (30% vs. 32%) or 3% when going to the general population (30% vs. 33%), although they argue that that is within error.
posted
(Interestingly, their "Training" and "Store" pages reveal a profoundly pro-Christian bias as do their founders page, which makes that counter-intuitive result all the more amusing)
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: In my experience, the believing spouse is asked to change for the non-believer (go inactive) an order of magnitude more than the non-believer attends church with the believer. So really, the believer is putting their marriage before their religion. The non-believer is putting themselves before their spouse.
:snort: Yeah, that's a reasonable way of looking at it.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It is, in fact. It isn't the only way, but when one person strongly believes and the other doesn't, the one that doesn't demanding the other give it up rather than working out a half-time compromise seems really selfish.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:In my experience, the believing spouse is asked to change for the non-believer (go inactive) an order of magnitude more than the non-believer attends church with the believer. So really, the believer is putting their marriage before their religion. The non-believer is putting themselves before their spouse.
Do you literally mean the non-believing spouse asks the churchgoing one to quit going to church? That is surprising. How many times have you seen this happen?
If this does indeed happen it seems pretty selfish as you have said. I'm not a fan of trying to control the spouse's behavior when it goes beyond a basic expectation of living up to marriage vows and contributing to the family's well being.
It wouldn't surprise me if it happened this way: the nonbeliever says "No, I'm not going to church." And the believing one is too embarrassed or whatever to go alone. (It makes obvious that the marriage is inferior from the orthodox perspective.)
In that case it's quite a bit less skewed.
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posted
"I am not going to go to church and I resent you spending Sunday away from me. I know there are things I could do to support you in your wish to be active, but I'm not going to because I'd be happy if you gave it up."
I've definitely, definitely seen that, quite a lot. And yeah, I think it's pretty selfish. Lots of things in a marriage are compromise and I most definitely do not blame the believing spouse for choosing their marriage over their faith or covenants. I even think that that's the Lord would have them do. But I do blame the non-believing spouse for not supporting the believer's attempts to live their religion.
I have also seen mixed faith marriages where it really works and only one spouse is active. It looks to me like the difference is the behavior of the non-believing spouse.
-----
This doesn't come from nothing. My parents were a mixed religiousity for a while, and I'll always respect the one who didn't want to go to church for doing everything s/he could to support the one who did want to go.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... Combining the two sets of numbers ...
Technically, you can't just combine the numbers. The study I linked to is from 1999. Yours appears to be this from 2008.
The newer study still shows a 2% increase when going from non-religious to born-again (30% vs. 32%) or 3% when going to the general population (30% vs. 33%), although they argue that that is within error.
Also, asians FTW
Mucus, Look at the numbers of people interviewed before you start to gloat. They only interviewed 128 Asians. They only interviewed 269 atheists. Applying some simple counting statistics, none of the groups they studies have a divorce rate that differs statistically significantly from the average. Most of them aren't even more than one standard deviation apart.
Based on the results of this study, we can conclude that religion and ethnicity have little impact on divorce rates.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:In my experience, the believing spouse is asked to change for the non-believer (go inactive) an order of magnitude more than the non-believer attends church with the believer. So really, the believer is putting their marriage before their religion. The non-believer is putting themselves before their spouse.
My experience is quite the opposite - in every case where I personally know of a couple where one spouse is LDS and the other is atheist/agnostic/"not religious", the LDS member has more or less maintained the same activity level they had when they got married. Obviously well get nowhere with battling anecdotes, though, so it's probably not going to be profitable to continue on this line.
That's sort of beside the point though, as I was attempting to explain why such a high percentage of mixed marriages with one LDS spouse fail compared to other religions. Which spouse is forced to compromise and in what manner is different issue from what causes the stress in the first place - the preferential status given to marriages of the proper configuration and the repeated refrains about the superiority of this configuration.
It's demeaning to have people express pity to you for your unfortunate circumstances when, from your own perspective, you have an ideal relationship.
This is the only strongly negative experience I have with the LDS church and the only thing that would make me prefer that my wife didn't attend. The fact that she has a different existential philosophy is not a problem. The fact that said philosophy requires regular attendance at an institution where our relationship is demeaned is.
Given that, I think this is unfair, or at least incomplete:
quote:So really, the believer is putting their marriage before their religion. The non-believer is putting themselves before their spouse.
If I were to try to change my wife's behavior it would not be because I was choosing myself before my spouse, but because I feared the church was a threat to my marriage. Both sides of that equation would be "put marriage before religion."
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:what causes the stress in the first place - the preferential status given to marriages of the proper configuration and the repeated refrains about the superiority of this configuration
I don't buy this at all. The stress in a mixed marriage is definitely not all because some rude people act smug. People act smug about all sorts of crap all the time - you can't blame stress in a relationship on other people who generally aren't even related. Even when they are, unless they live in the same house, there's no way that's the main or even primary reason.
If someone is looking for an excuse, there is always someone acting tacky and human to blame. And this is coming from someone who not only didn't married in the temple, I'm not married at ALL. Sure there are rude people - my sister-in-law has no idea many times she's escaped being clobbered - but that's not a good reason to leave my religion or for someone to ask me to.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:People act smug about all sorts of crap all the time - you can't blame stress in a relationship on other people who generally aren't even related.
It's not the smug idiots that's the problem. It's the institutional reinforcement of those attitudes. Just a couple weeks ago someone read out of a lesson manual in Sunday School that a successful marriage was only possible through faith in Christ. (paraphrasing)
If you have your own theory for why mixed LDS marriages are uniquely poised to fail?
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
Uniquely? As opposed to temple marriages, or as opposed to the general population?
Because I think the big exception is not that mixed marriages fail more, but that temple marriages fail much less.
But in both cases, in my personal opinion, it seems that while opposite attract, similiar people stay together. The more you have in common with your spouse, the more ties there are. For temple marriages, you have to have, at least if both are being honest (they aren't, always), a whole lot in common off the bat.
quote:Just a couple weeks ago someone read out of a lesson manual in Sunday School that a successful marriage was only possible through faith in Christ.
David O'McKay said that no earthly success compensates for failure in the home. Considering my life consists solely of earthly success, that could really hurt.
I am not talking about your marriage in particularly - I don't know you. I do know that while everyone from my father to random strangers have expressed an opinion on me not being married - especially since I've been engaged three times, it isn't for lack of opportunity - the only opinion that matters is the Lord's. Since none of them were right for me, my life is pleasing to him. That's all that matters. (As a side note, I figure that if the Lord really wants me to get married, he can send someone that I can marry that won't make me cry and will make me happy. Since that hasn't happened, it can't be that important to him. )
I also think that a real sealing consists of the physical ceremony and the sealing by the Holy Spirit. Just like there can be temple ceremonies that are spiritually empty, there are can be families sealed by the spirit that are missing the ceremony.
In my total personal opinion, that kind of family includes supporting each other's personal beliefs and helping the other to live up to them.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:I don't buy this at all. The stress in a mixed marriage is definitely not all because some rude people act smug.
I don't think smugness is required at all. The doctrine is pretty clear that if you aren't married in the temple, you won't get to have exalted life as a family unit. In other words, doctrinally, a "mixed" marriage is worse than a sealed one. I can understand why the unbelieving spouse would be concerned about this teaching - from his/her point of view, their marriage is as good as anyone's, and the implicit denigration of their union is a factor that could convince their spouse otherwise.
I don't think it's a good enough reason to get divorced, but it certainly is a factor that could come into play, even if the judgment of others is completely ignored.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:People act smug about all sorts of crap all the time - you can't blame stress in a relationship on other people who generally aren't even related.
It's not the smug idiots that's the problem. It's the institutional reinforcement of those attitudes. Just a couple weeks ago someone read out of a lesson manual in Sunday School that a successful marriage was only possible through faith in Christ. (paraphrasing)
That's an interesting point Matt. I need to chew on that one for awhile.
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