“Child marriage is happening at an alarming rate across the U.S., but available marriage-license data show more parents, judges and clerks in red states than in blue states seem comfortable with this human-rights abuse,” said Fraidy Reiss, founder of
Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that fights child marriage.
Divorce rates show a similar pattern: They tend to be higher in red states than in blue states, with Arkansas highest of all. “Individual religious conservatism is positively related to individual divorce risk,” according to
a 50-state study reported in the American Journal of Sociology.
Then there’s adultery and prostitution. One large international survey found that the largest group of customers on Ashley Madison, the dating website for married people, were evangelical Christians. And
a major 2013 studyfound that men in the Houston and Kansas City metro areas were the most likely to call sex ads, while men in San Francisco and Baltimore were the least likely to.
Yet it’s complicated, and there is one religious group that is extremely good at living conservative family values: Mormons. Utah stands out for low teen birthrates, low divorce rates and low abortion rates, and it
has the highest rate of teenagers living with married, biological parents.