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.

Americans and Alcohol

Do you drink?  Are you in the majority or minority?

Well, according to a poll Gallup does annually, the majority of Americans adults -60% in fact- say they drink some type of alcoholic beverage.  Most drinkers say they have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage in the past week with beverage choices evenly split between beer and wine.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts a survey of typical high school students nationally every two years.  This Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) finds that in 2011 71% of high school students reported they had consumed at least one alcoholic drink and one in five reports binge drinking (5 or more alcoholic beverages in a row).

The CDC conducts a similar survey of health behaviors among adults called the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS).  The 2012 BRFSS finds that 55% of American adults have consumed an alcoholic drink in the past 30 days.   Seventeen percent (17%) of adults report binge drinking, and 6% report being heavy drinkers (2 alcoholic beverages a day for men and 1 alcoholic beverage a day for women).

Wet, Moist, and Dry Counties

Map courtesy of Wikipedia.

Thanks to the good volunteers over at Wikipedia, today's map of US counties shows the current status of liquor laws at the county level.  The majority of American counties (blue) are Wet counties allowing alcohol to be sold.  The red counties on the other hand are Dry counties where local laws ban alcohol sales.  The bulk of these dry counties are in Kentucky, Virginia, and Arkansas.  Finally, the yellow counties are the less well known category of Moist counties.  Moist counties represent an area with both wet and dry areas.  These usually are dry counties with a wet town or other wet business such as a golf course.

Who Sells the Booze?

As a teenager I grew up in North Carolina where all liquor had to be bought at a state-owned ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) store.  For years I thought this was true in every state and just assumed the liquor stores on TV were also ABC stores.  Most states, however, allow privately owned but state licensed stores to sell beer, wine, and distilled spirits (liquor).  In 16 of the 18 states operating ABC stores, private stores and licensed grocery stores can sell wine and beer but not liquor.  Alabama and Utah restrict all alcoholic beverage sales -including beer, wine, and liquor- to state owned and operated stores.  Maryland has a mix of both ABC stores in some counties and private liquor stores in others.

Alcohol laws in the US are holdovers from the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.  The alcohol laws in various states vary considerably.  For instance, in North Carolina you must buy liquor at an ABC store, but you can buy beer and wine at the grocery store.  In Kentucky, liquor laws dating to the 1930s allow grocery stores to sell beer but require a separate license AND separate entrance/store to sell liquor and wine.  Recently there has been a push to allow grocery stores to sell wine in the actual grocery store -a move against which some liquor stores are lobbying.  In Utah you cannot technically order a double shot of alcohol, but you can order two single shots in two separate glasses.  And while New Hampshire requires all liquor sales go through state-owned ABC stores, the state kindly advertises its ABC stores with those giant, green, metal signs on NH interstates.

What's Up with Knoxville and Turkeys?

Google Trends offers hours of bizarre fun.  With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I decided to see what trends pop up for the word "turkey".  And what interesting trends emerge:




First, you can see the cyclic nature of searches for "turkey".  As Thanksgiving rolls around each year, more people search for "turkey."




But it turns out more people from Tennessee search for "turkey" than any other state.  Hmmm...




And it turns out that all those turkey searches are coming more from Knoxville than other parts of the state.



Gobble, gobble indeed.

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.

Migration Between States: Interactive Graphic

Interstate Migration

My friend Mark shared this fantastic interactive graph with me.  It shows Chris Walker's visualization of migration between the states.  By moving your cursor over a state, you can see the flows between that state and others.  If you move your cursor over the flow line, you can see the actual figures for the direction and number of people moving each way.

Check Chris' Graphic Out:  
Interstate Migration

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.

And Lo, the First Shall Be...16th

Hawai'i became the 16th state (plus DC) to legalize the recognition of marriage between same-sex couples. It is somewhat ironic that 15 other states and DC beat Hawaii to the finish line on gay marriage.  In the 1990s many thought Hawai'i would be the frontrunner on expanding marriage to same-sex couples.  In a court case running from 1991 to 1999, a HI judge -using directions from the HI Supreme Court- ruled in 1996 that denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional.  The HI Supreme Court, however, waited to decide the case until a ballot measure passed a 1998 constitutional amendment specifically giving the legislature the power to regulate same-sex marriage.  The Hawai'i legislature promptly then banned same-sex marriage until it changed its mind this month in a special session. As a result, the HI Supreme Court in 1999 upheld the new constitutional amendment banning marriage.

While Vermont became the first state to legalize civil unions granting most of the benefits of civil marriage to same-sex couples in 2000, Hawai'i did not successfully pass a civil union law until 2011 -after the state's then Governor, Linda Lingle (R), vetoed an earlier civil union bill in 2010.

Adding to the oddness of Hawai'i's approach is the unprecedented deluge of 1000s of individual citizens allowed to speak their opinions about same-sex marriage before the HI House.  Many of these opinions were talking points by opponents that reiterated what other citizens had already said.  On top of this, the first openly gay legislator to vote AGAINST civil rights for LGBT people, Rep. Jo Jordan (D), voted against same-sex marriage. Oddly, she voted for civil unions in 2011 and says she supports same-sex marriage -just not the bill that passed.

So, the excitement of Hawai'i's legal decisions in 1996 took 17 years to finally result in upholding the court opinion that denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional.  While better late than never as the saying goes, Hawai'i's nearly two decades of foot-dragging makes this week's vote somewhat bittersweet.

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.

More on the Typical American

The majority of American adults are unmarried, but most American adults will marry sometime during their lives.  A plurality of American households, however, consists of married couples.


Earlier I introduced Jennifer, our Average American.  I thought today we would flesh out Jennifer's family and thus the average American household.  Let's first address the question of whether the average American is married.  

Is Jennifer married?  Most Americans do marry by the age of 40.  A 2011 Pew Trust poll found that barely half (51%) of American adults were married; a record low. Gallup polling in 2013 similarly finds that 72% of American adults of Americans polled have been married.  One in four Americans, however, report to Gallup they have been divorced.

So, Jennifer is married, right?  Well, here we run up against the inherent problems of creating a composite person.  Yes, most American adults will marry by age 40.  The majority in 2013 -and thus our Jennifer- have been married.  But, in the past decade the number of Americans living in households consisting of married couples has dipped below 50%.  

Source:  US Census

So, it appears Jennifer lives in a household without a husband.  Right?

Source:  US Census

Here we run into the issue of majority versus plurality.  A majority is more than half (50%+) of a population.  When there is not a majority, the plurality is the most common minority grouping.  So, while married households are no longer the majority, they are the plurality.  Moreover, the mode for household type would also be a married household.  So, while the majority of American households no longer consist of married households, we are going to say Jennifer is married because that is the mode and largest plurality among Census household categories.

However, you may ask, dear reader, about where certain household configurations fall in the graph of the Census data shown above.  Well, first of all you should know the US Census collects its data at the household level rather than the individual level.  When someone in your household completed the 2010 Census form, they did it for your entire household and listed how each person relates (spouse, child, roommate, etc.) to the head of household.  The exceptions are the 8 million people living in group quarters such as orphanages, military bases, etc. who are not included in the household data discussed in this post.

The US Census then categorizes households as either Family or Non-Family households.  

Living alone?  You are a Non-Family household.

Living with a roommate to whom you are not biologically or legally related?  Then you are in the Non-Family households represented in the graph under "Living with a Non-relative".

Cohabitating with your sweetie without being married (AKA "living in sin" as some say or "shacked up" as my mama would say)?  Then you are also a Non-Family household "Living with a Non-Relative".

What about if you are a single mom living with your three daughters?  Then you are a Family household and listed in the "Relatives Living Together".

But what if you are a married, same-sex couple?  Well, then you run into some controversy.  In 2010 DOMA, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, was still the law.  So even if a same-sex couple are legally married in a state recognizing same-sex marriage, the US Census lumped same-sex married and unmarried couples together in the Non-Family category.  The Census Bureau reports that -among only those households consisting of couples- about 1% reported they are a same-sex couple.

Adultery Laws: When Enacted

Today's post looks at when adultery laws were enacted.  Based on A Guide to America's Sex Laws published in 1996, Louisiana was the last state to enact an adultery law.  More precisely, Louisiana defined that adultery was grounds for a divorce in 1990.  I suspect this legal change decriminalized adultery but kept it as grounds for divorce.

In more recent adultery law news, Colorado repealed its adultery law in 2012.

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!

Illinois Becomes the 15th State to Legalize Same-sex Marriages

Today the Illinois legislature legalized same-sex marriages in that state.  The IL governor supports the change and is expected to sign the bill into law today or tomorrow.  Illinois becomes the 15th state to legalize same sex marriage (plus DC).  Over a third (37%) of the US population as well as the country's three largest cities (NYC, LA, and Chicago) all have legal marriage between same-sex spouses.

Hawai'i's legislature is debating legalizing same-sex marriage this week also.

When and which red state will be the first to legalize same-sex marriage?  Virginia?

ENDA Passes the US Senate

With ENDA passing the US Senate, I thought this post could use a re-posting:

Majority:  Most registered American voters support a Federal law banning employment discrimination because of a person's sexual orientation.

While recent media attention focuses on same-sex civil marriage, it remains legal to discriminate against a person because of her or his sexual orientation in most states.  Ironically, earlier and a recent poll find most Americans believe such discrimination is already illegal.  Thus, some Americans believe attempts at a gay rights law banning employment discrimination is instead some attempt at 'special rights'.  Such laws fall within the system of civil rights laws already existing in the US and thus cover heterosexuals as well as homosexuals and bisexual orientations.

A September 2013 national poll by Republican pollster Alex Lundry with TargetPoint Consulting finds that 80% of Americans incorrectly believe it is already illegal to fire, refuse to hire, demote, or otherwise discriminate in employment against a person because of her/his sexual orientation. A law to ban such discrimination currently is gaining steam before Congress.  ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, would ban discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation and gender identity in the area of private and public employment.  The bill exempts religious organizations and private clubs as well as only applies to businesses with 15 or more employees.(1)

Supporters have tried to get ENDA passed since 1994.  A similar bill had been introduced to Congress for decades starting in 1974.(1)

Lundry's polling finds 68% of his sample of registered voters support a Federal law protecting against sexual orientation discrimination in employment.  3 out of 5 registered voters believe sexual orientation discrimination is a problem in the US -with 31% believing such bias is a major problem.

Lundry also calculated that a majority of voters in all 50 states support such legislation.

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!

The Ten Commandments

Social issues remain hot button political divides among American voters.  Political polling finds that many socially conservative Christians point to the Bible as their guide to social issues.  With the Ten Commandments often upheld as the cornerstone of American law by conservatives, this week I begin a series of maps looking at the legal and behavioral landscape defined by the Big 10.

Exodus 20 in the Old Testament (Parashat Yitro in the original Torah) lays out the 10 Commandments. Interestingly, I asked about a half dozen friends to name the 10 and none of them could.  Several threw in gluttony, sloth, and the Catholic Church's list of the 7 Deadly Sins.  Others were sure "Thou shalt not fornicate" had made the Top 10.  

Can you name the Ten Commandments?

In case you are a bit fuzzy on them, here they are (King James Version courtesy of BibleGateway.com):

Exodus 20

King James Version (KJV)

20 And God spake all these words, saying,

² I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
³ Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
⁴ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
⁵ Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
⁶ And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
⁷ Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
⁸ Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
¹² Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
¹³ Thou shalt not kill.
¹⁴ Thou shalt not commit adultery.
¹⁵ Thou shalt not steal.
¹⁶ Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
¹⁷ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

The Typical American

The "Typical American"

One way I like to get my head around the "typical American" is to create a composite person based on the average/mean, median, and modal data from the US Census and other sources.  This blog post is one I will update occasionally with more information on our Typical American.  As a composite person, a number of these characteristics are unlikely to combine in an actual person, but they are helpful in comparing yourself to the average or typical American.

Some Basic Statistical Terms:

• mean:  is the fancier term for the average of a set of numbers.  
• median:  is the middle occurrence in a list of numbers.
• mode:  is the most common occurrence.  

Sex:  There are more females than males in the US.  So, that means our mode is female, and thus our Typical American is a woman.

Age:  Along with sex, age is one of the demographics collected on every US Census since the first in 1790.  According to the 2010 US Census, the median age is 37.2 years.  So, our lady is 37.2 years old.  Thus, she would have been born in late 1972.

Name:  Our Typical American even has a name: Jennifer.  Using data collected by the Social Security Administration, the Washington Post created this nifty animated GIF of the most popular girls' name nationally and by state.  In 1972 and 1973 the most popular name for American girls was Jennifer.

Via the Washington Post