How Gay Marriage Skews Statistics

gay, marriage, homophobia, homosexual, tradition, dna, duncan, voice, prop 8
During today's Voice of a Nation, the guest, William C. Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Foundation (was it really necessary for me to listen to the program to know what he said?) said that the reason the "traditional marriage" crowd is "losing" in New England is because "marriage is weakest there."

Oh, really?

Perhaps Mr. Duncan simply equates "allowing gays to marry" with "weak marriage", but let's take a look at some dumdumdum statistics. (Ya know, science!)

According to the CDC's website, the rate of divorce (obviously the weakest point of a marriage) in New England is (as of 2004):

Connecticut* 2.4 (per thousand)
Maine 4.3
Massachusetts * 2.2
New Hampshire 3.9
Vermont 3.9

Now let's compare those rates to some other places in the United States.

Arizona** 4.2
Tennessee** 4.9
Arkansas** 6.1
Idaho** 5.0
Kentucky** 4.9
Utah** 4.1
Wyoming 5.2
Alabama 4.9

Clearly, gay marriage does skew marriage statistics***- toward stronger marriage and less divorce.

*allows gay marriage
**bans gay marriage
***yeahyeahyeah correlation does not equal causation, but there is definitely something going on there.