Straight Alaskans divorce more, despite gay ban to protect marriage

Divorce rates are dropping in states that allow same sex marriages and rising in states with gay marriage bans, according to a new study - and Alaska ranks dead last on both counts, with the fastest rising divorce rate in the country and the first gay marriage ban.

The study compared divorce rates between 2003 and 2008 to the gay relationship laws in forty-three states and the years the laws were passed. The author explains the findings: (my emphasis)

Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.

As is somewhat visually apparent, those states which have tended to take more liberal policies toward gay marriage have tended also to have larger declines in their divorce rates. In Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2004, the divorce rate has declined by 21 percent and is the lowest in the country by some margin...

On the other hand, the seven states at the bottom of the chart all had constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage in place throughout 2008. The state which experienced the highest increase in its divorce rate over the period (Alaska, at 17.2 percent) also happens to be the first one to have altered its constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, in 1998.

The differences are highly statistically significant. Nevertheless, they do not necessarily imply causation. The decision to ban same-sex marriage does not occur randomly throughout the states, but instead is strongly correlated with other factors, such as religiosity and political ideology, which we have made no attempt to account for. Nor do we know in which way the causal arrow might point. It could be that voters who have more marital problems of their own are more inclined to deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples.

Interesting point. Alaska banned same sex marriage in 1998, claiming the ban would protect "the sanctity of marriage." But Alaska's heterosexuals are divorcing more than ever, and the state has high rates of domestic violence, rape and incest.

Maybe it wasn't about the sanctity of marriage after all.