Fornication Laws II

Earlier I posted a map of now defunct laws banning premarital sex or cohabitation from 1996.  Today I'm offering you a look at when the 16 states who had these laws in 1996 enacted them.  We have a big range here:  from colonial times in Massachusetts (1692) to Arizona as late as 1977.

Fornication

When I asked various friends and family members to list the Ten Commandments -the alleged cornerstone of the American legal system and the biggest no-nos in Judeo-Christian theology-, I found most people could not name all ten.  Instead, many confused other behaviors viewed as sins as part of the Ten Commandments. Fornication -or premarital sex- was a common erroneous entry in the Big 10.

This next set of maps focuses on issues of sex.

Today I start with laws criminalizing premarital sex...or good ol' fornication.  These fornication statutes are distinct from adultery laws I've discussed earlier.  In 1996 sixteen states retained laws criminalizing sex outside of marriage.  In three -Arizona, New Mexico and North Dakota- premarital sex itself was not illegal but a couple living together outside of marriage was prohibited.

A number of these laws are still on the books, but they have rarely been enforced in the late 20th century. The 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision by the US Supreme Court struck down the last remaining consensual sodomy laws specifically.  The decision also firmly removed the government from the bedrooms of American citizens, and it is thought to have made fornication laws unenforceable.

Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee Any Graven Image

Idolatry in the ancient Torah was squarely aimed at reminding early Jews to not stray into worshipping other deities.  As with the commandment about not putting another deity before Yahweh, theologians view this commandment as originally focusing on forbidding the worship of images of other gods and goddesses.

Theologians since the time of St. Augustine, however, have grappled with what this commandment means to modern Jews and Christians.  Many theologians argue that idolatry today means putting anything ahead of respect for God.

So just how does one quantify this for a blog post?

I decided I'd turn to Google.  Most of the world's major religious and spiritual philosophies started in just four regions now in the countries of India (Hinduism and Buddhism), Israel (Judaism and Christianity), China (Daoism and Confucianism), and Saudi Arabia (Islam).  So, in these four countries -plus the United States- how often do people use Google to search for the term "God"?

It turns out there is quite some variation.  Americans search for this term considerably more than people in the other four countries.  India comes a close second with occasional spikes in searches for this term.  At one point around 10% of Indian Google searches were for "God".

I also looked into what terms are the most searched for terms in these countries on Google.  In all of these countries except China, the most common search term is "Facebook".  In China the most common Google search term is "Shanghai".

Thou Shalt Not Covet

Coveting is rather difficult to quantify, but cars are big ticket items that are likely coveted by covetous neighbors.  So, for this sin in my rundown of the Ten Commandments, I thought I would look at motor vehicle thefts in 2012.  According to the FBI data, California, Nevada, and Washington are hotspots for auto theft.  The District of Columbia again has the highest auto theft rate, but I have excluded it.  As with thefts in general, the northern tier of the country reports fewer auto thefts.

Thou Shalt Not Steal

So, where are you most likely to be robbed? It turns out to be South Carolina for the year 2012.  The Palmetto State had the highest theft rate per 100,000 population of any state in 2012 according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting data.  Actually, the tiny urban enclave of the District of Columbia had a higher theft rate in 2012, but DC isn't a state.  DC also more closely resembles large US cities so I have excluded it to create this map.

Theft is in fact more common across the southern tier of the US all the way to Arizona and Utah.  Interestingly, the theft rate is lowest in Idaho and New Jersey.

I should add one caveat:  thefts reported to the FBI involve the victim first reporting the crime to the local authorities and then the authorities reporting to the FBI.  So, I should say the reported theft rate.

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

I looked for statistics on perjury convictions by state but was unable to find any.  So, I'm a bit stumped about how to quantify bearing false witness.  So, instead, I'm offering you a map looking at the overall violent crime rate for 2012.  Violent crimes include reported murders, rapes, and aggravated assaults.  Again, I've excluded DC -which again has the highest violent crime rate- because its crime rates are more indicative of a city than a state.

The southern tier of states overall have higher violent crime rates -as does Alaska.  Let's look a bit deeper into specific types of violent crimes.

Murder rates are highest in Louisiana and Mississippi and lowest in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The pattern is different for rapes with the Plains states and Alaska having higher rape rates compared to the lower rates along the East Coast and California.

Finally, let's look at aggravated assault.  This crime focuses on intentional bodily attacks on another person. In all states, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon brings greater penalties than simple assault.  The central South stands out here with Tennessee having a much higher crime rate for assault in 2012.

Of note are the similar patterns for violent crime overall, murder, and aggravated assault.  Rape rates, however, stand out as a different pattern to crime.

Honour Thy Father and Mother

I found statistics on elder abuse by state difficult to find.  I eventually turned to the CDC's WISQARS database on violent deaths.  The above map shows the crude violent intentional death rate per 100,000 population of seniors in 2010.  In other words, this maps shows the crude rate for suicides and homicides of seniors by state for 2010.  I did not only map the homicides because there were too few numbers for most states to compute a rate.

The above map looks at the mean rate of violent senior deaths and then looks at states' whose rate is unusually high or low -by several standard deviations.  As you can see, Nevada has an unusually high senior violent death rate.  Massachusetts has a relatively low rate.  While I did not map the violent homicide rate for seniors, I did look at it.  For the states with enough killings to compute a rate, Nevada again had the worst (highest) rate of murders of its seniors.  In general, seniors are more likely to die from violence in the West and least likely to die of intentional violence in the North/Midwest.  The South is about in the middle.

Remember the Sabbath Day

Nevermind that the Jewish Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday, most Christians view Sunday as the Sabbath.  Various state blue laws restrict commerce on Sunday -especially in the area of liquor sales.  Today's map shows the 12 states (red) that retain such laws.  In a number of these 12 states, beer and wine sales are allowed after church gets out (i.e. after 12pm or 1pm).

Curiously, Texas also requires car dealerships to close either Saturday or Sunday each weekend.

Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of God in Vain: Blasphemy Laws

As part of my Ten Commandments series, it has been rather difficult finding laws dealing with blasphemy. Unlike a number of countries such as Sweden, Saudi Arabia, etc., the United States specifically is a secular nation with a Constitution banning the government from establishing a specific religion.  Thus, it is challenging at best to have a secular law banning blasphemy.  Yet, six states in 2009 had statutes mentioning blasphemy. I was able to find a New York Times article mentioning blasphemy statutes tied to a Pennsylvania court case that eventually overturned that state's blasphemy law.  Moral of the story:  if your government doesn't have an official deity, it's hard to blaspheme against Him/Her/It/Them.

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me: Religious License Plates

The first commandment in Exodus focuses on having no other gods before Yahweh/Jehovah/God.  Some theologians argue this commandment does not dictate monotheism but commands the supremacy of Jehovah above other deities.  Some archaeological evidence even points to early Israelites worshipping a consort or wife to Yahweh named Ashera.

Nevertheless, the US is a secular country without a state religion.  So, our Federal, state, and local governments are hands-off theological questions, but I did find an issue to map:  religious license plates!

As of 2013, 21 states offer some type of religious license plates either with the "In God We Trust" motto or "God Bless America."  Six states (AL, GA, SC, FL, KY, and IN) offer these plates withe the word "God" on them at no extra cost over regular license plates.  In the other states, the Godly plates cost extra and usually benefit some charitable group.

Georgia is something of a special case.  It issues standard license plates without the "In God We Trust" motto but allows motorists to put a free sticker issued by the Georgia DMV on their plates with the motto.

Do such plates violate the Constitutional separation of church and state?  A lawsuit in Indiana led to an Indiana Court of Appeals decision upholding the state's "In God We Trust" no-cost alternative license plate.  Perhaps because of the slippery legal grounds for such plates, no state currently uses the word "God" on its standard plate.

Death Penalty Abolition

Since the US Supreme Court's 1976 rulings allowed the resumption of executions, 8 states have abolished their death penalties either through legislative or state court rulings.  

Where You Would Be Most Likely to Face the Death Penalty?

If convicted of a capital crime, where would you be most likely to face the death penalty?  The answer is an easy one:  Texas!  The Lone Star State accounts for more than a third of all people executed in the United States since 1976.  Of the 1,352 people executed since 1976, 506 of these executions have been in Texas.

In fact, half of all executions occur in just three states:  Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma.  Of the big three executor states, though, Oklahoma -with a population of under 4 million- has the most executions per capita.  Oklahoma has 36,000 people per 1 execution compared to the much larger states of Texas and Virginia with 51,500 people per one execution and 74,400 people per one execution respectively.

A handy cartogram shows how the states with the most executions out of total executions.

Execution Methods

While the majority of states have a death penalty, methods of execution vary.  The Danish company which made the drugs used by most lethal injection method states recently was barred by Danish law from exporting these drugs to countries with a death penalty -including the United States.  This has left states scrambling to find new, deadly execution drugs.

Most states with a death penalty include lethal injection as an execution option.  Most also allow some other type of method ranging from electrocution to the gas chamber to firing squad.

The Death Penalty

Source:  2012, Gallup

The majority of Americans support the death penalty, but in most states it is rarely used.  Let's look a bit deeper into the issue of death penalties as part of my 10 Commandments posts on killings and the "culture of life."

As of 2011, 18 states have abolished their death penalties.  

Polls: Moral v. Legal

Yesterday I blogged a bit about Gallup's annual morals poll:

As I mentioned yesterday, what Americans believe is moral does not always align with what they feel should be legal.  Abortion polling reflects this differentiation in the American electorate.  

Source:  2013, Gallup

Fully 78% of Americans support legalized abortion in some or all circumstances.  The minority opposing abortion in all circumstances has remained fairly static at between 12% and 23% since Gallup began tracking this question in 1975.

Graph courtesy of 2013, Gallup

So, that must mean only 1 in 5 Americans view themselves as pro-life, right?  Think again.  While 78% of Americans support some form of legalized abortion, 48% of Americans view themselves as pro-life.  What Americans feel is moral -for themselves or perhaps even for others- does not always align with how they would vote in terms of the legality of an issue.  

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Most theologians interpret this commandment to deal with murder rather than other forms of killing. Wikipedia has a handy entry outlining the history and interpretation of this verse.

Jews and Christians alike -as well as every state and the Federal government- prohibit murder.  (There isn't much to map in terms which states have legalized murder or not. <wink>)

Among Christians, the broader context of issues of life and death vary with different denominations and branches holding contrasting views.  The Catholic Church has one of the most logically elegant approaches by opposing a range of actions viewed as ending or preventing life:

• opposing contraceptives
• opposing abortion
• opposing the death penalty
• opposing euthanasia  

The later Protestant denominations which broke off from the Catholic Church in past 500-600 years take a variety of approaches.  Some more conservative churches oppose abortion but support the death penalty.  Some more liberal ones oppose the death penalty but leave abortion up to parishioners as a matter of individual conscience.  Quaker Christians are pacifists.  Other Christians serve in the military.  So while I've had Christian friends explain these differences by arguing their Christianity is the correct one and that the other Christian approaches are misinterpretations, it is clear there is no single Christian viewpoint on these issues.

What Do Americans Believe Is Morally Acceptable?

Source:  2012, Gallup

Gallup has an interesting poll from 2012 looking at various issues in terms of whether respondents believe they are morally acceptable.  Keep in mind, these numbers reflect what people feel regarding the morality of an issue -not whether they should be legal or not.  

The majority of Americans -including American Catholics- believes using birth control involving contraceptives is morally acceptable.  The majority also supports the use of the death penalty.

While only 38% of Americans view abortion as morally acceptable, 58% of Americans still support using stem cells harvested from human embryos in research.  Cloning -whether of animals or humans- is decidedly unpopular.  

The data on suicide as a morally acceptable choice also shows some mixed feelings.  Only 14% of Americans believe suicide is morally acceptable, but those numbers jump to almost a majority -45%- when asked about doctors assisting patients to commit suicide.  Perhaps respondents view doctor-assisted suicide as ending pain for a terminally ill person and view suicide as more a choice driven by depression or life circumstances that can be changed?  I can hypothesize, but I do not actually know from this one poll.

Adultery Laws: Takes Two to Tango?

My mother always liked to comment on infidelity by pointing out that it "takes two to tango" and thus assign fault to both partners in an affair.  Do the country's most defunct adultery laws though take the same path and punish both partners in an extramarital affair equally?  The answer is:  it depends...depended...upon the state.

A plurality (orange/tan states) of those states with adultery laws in 1996 punished only the married partner.  Many of these states did not criminalize adultery per se but allowed adultery to be used as grounds for a divorce.  Another large chunk of states (green states) have statutes punishing both partners.  Delaware, Minnesota and the District of Columbia stand out as unusual exceptions.

• Delaware's statute is written almost as if the writers did not envision a woman having an affair.  This state's law speaks only to punishing a cheating husband.
• DC's statute punishes both the man and woman if both are married.  If the woman is married and the man is not, both are again punished.  BUT, if the woman is unmarried and the man is married, then only the man is punished.
• Minnesota's statute is almost the reverse of DC's law. If you are a married MN man and cheat with a married woman:  punished!  If you are a married MN woman and cheat with an unmarried man:  punished!  But if you are a philandering married MN man who cavorts with an unmarried woman:  not a crime!

Adultery Laws

As yesterday's post highlighted, marital infidelity is common.

All the Abrahamic religions -Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha'ism- however prohibit adultery.  Judaism and Christianity enshrine the sin of adultery in the Ten Commandments to emphasize adultery's seriousness.  Ironically then perhaps, however, adultery in contemporary America is not a major political issue among social conservatives.  From a legal and social viewpoint, adultery has been largely relegated to a private affair between a married couple and -mostly- now outside the purview of court system.

In the past, however, every state had a law outlawing adultery in some way.  Before all states instituted no fault divorce in the 1970s, adultery was often the only grounds for a divorce, and each state had a law outlining adultery as cause for a legal divorce.  

The most recent comprehensive listing of adultery laws I could find come from A Guide to America's Sex Laws published in 1996.  While apparently 23 states still have adultery laws on their books, most legal scholars believe the US Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision upholding a constitutional right to private, consensual sex pretty much invalidates the remaining adultery laws.  

By 1996 most of the Western states had eliminated their adultery statutes.  A number of others retained adultery only as a legal grounds for divorce or grounds for barring an adulterous spouse from legal right to property.  

For most states criminalizing adultery, the statute defined the crime as a misdemeanor.  Five states, however, defined adultery as a felony in 1996:  Idaho, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Massachusetts.  Three Deep South states -Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina- have statutes which appear to make adultery a crime only if the adulterous pair are actually cohabitating.  The laws from Massachusetts and Michigan mirror each other including a caveat that if a couple divorces but then live together, then they can be charged with adultery.

The Scarlet Letter and Polling America

Majority: 

Morally Approve of:

• interracial marriage

• divorce

• sex between unmarried partners ("fornication")

• having a child out of wedlock

• same-sex marriage

Morally Disapprove of:

• adultery

• polygamy

American laws regarding sexual behaviors have changed considerably over the past half century.  Fifty years ago, American public opinion and the associated legal landscape looked very different from today:

• Divorce:  the vast majority of states allowed divorce only for "fault" -adultery, cruelty, etc.
• Adultery -an extramarital affair:  illegal 
• Fornication -sex outside marriage:  illegal
• Interracial Marriage:  illegal in most states
• Sex and Even Affectionate Intimacy Between Same-sex Partners: illegal
• Having a Child Out of Wedlock:  shamed to the point of charities operating homes for unwed mothers to "hide" from society while pregnant

As Gallup polling data from circa 2001 to 2013 shows, the majority of Americans now morally approve of:

• interracial marriage
• divorce
• sex between unmarried partners ("fornication")
• having a child out of wedlock
• same-sex marriage

Even for polygamy -being married to multiple partners at the same time- the percentage of Americans morally approving has doubled in the past 12 years.

Noticeably unchanged, however, is moral approval for extramarital sex.  Adultery polls only at 6-7% in moral approval.  Infidelity remains morally unacceptable to most Americans.  Interestingly -and I cannot find the study where I read this- moral disapproval of infidelity drops as the age of the respondent increases.  Perhaps because they have lived through their own infidelities as cheater or betrayed, the older an American becomes the more likely he or she is to be forgiving towards a marital infidelity.  The most disapproving of Americans by age are in turn the youngest respondents on polls of adults.  

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

Majority:  

• Have been married by age 49

• Want to get married if they have not been

• Morally approve of interracial marriage

• Probably will have an extramarital affair in their lifetime

The first of the Ten Commandments I am going to examine is the prohibition against adultery.  While sociologist Andrew Cherlin projects that 85-90% of Americans will marry by the time they turn 49, marital infidelity is common.  The prevalence of infidelity among married heterosexuals covers quite a range in scientific studies.  Early sexologist Alfred Kinsey found that a third of men and a quarter of women reported having an affair on their spouse.  A meta-analysis of infidelity studies also finds a wide range of estimates, but these studies show 40-70% of married heterosexuals have an extramarital affair at some point in their lives.

In other words, adultery is common and possibly a behavior practiced at least once by the majority of married Americans.  Holy Moses indeed!

Gallup polling finds the majority -72%- of Americans polled in 2013 have been married.  Among those who have never married, 78% would like to marry someday.  One in four Americans, however, report to Gallup they have been divorced.

American attitudes towards sex in general and marriage continue to change.  From Gallup's polling on marriage, one can see big sea changes in Americans' attitudes:

Perhaps the biggest change -and longest tracked by Gallup- involves interracial marriage.  In 55 years the percentage of Americans approving of marriage between blacks and whites has jumped 83%.

Tune in tomorrow for more polling data!