Are Red States Bad? Porn, Divorce and Out of Wedlock Births

Vox Nova has a interesting stat and graph post here at Chart of the Day, Red States, Blue States, and Morality.

Let me say that I do think these problems are nation wide problems. Also as to the South I can see how some of this is inflamed a tad by our Scot Irish nature that has been a great curse and blessing at times.

Still Stats can be misleading. The Porn usage stats I think are problematic. Now of course people in the South and the other red states watch porn like their blue states brothers and sisters. That is from a moral perspective a problem.

But I would caution to make much of this study. As I noted in the comments you can tell something is just way off here. For instance look at Utah that is that top. Now Utah is at the top but Idaho that shares many of the same demographics is at the very bottom? States of course have their own personalities and culture and ethos. But they often move as a Unit with their neighboring states as to both elections and social and cultural norms. Here we see another problem. Why is about every state that borders Tennessee (which the stats show has a low porn use) while the rest have high porn usages rates. Again something is off.

Further , many of those red states are still in Internet dial up country in vast areas. I have a hard time imaging rural folks in great numbers are signing up and paying porn fees so they can download movies and pictures at 56,000 baud.

As to the other stats we have much firmer and reliable numbers. It would be interesting to see a county by county map as to these stats which I think would show a tad more complex picture.

However no one can discount the problems of divorce and out of wedlock births is going up in all groups where just a few years ago the problems were centered among certain demographics.