Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Bend the Numbers and Make Up Stuff About Marriage!

Recently, an AFP release told us that "the number of traditional households with married couples at their core stood at slightly more than 55.2 million, or 49.8 percent of the total."

Not really. Not even close.

Perhaps you'll be surprised to learn that AFP seems to have an agenda?

The Census Bureau's document reveals there are only about 6 million unmarried couples living together in the United States not 36 million. Compared to these 6 million unmarried couple households, there are 30 million households with one person living alone and 55 million married couple households. There are an additional 19 million households headed by a single parent.

By the way, of those 6 million "unmarrieds," only 775,000 are homosexual couples.

The AFP story uses the study to make an argument that the Bush Administration's domestic policy promoting traditional family values and marriage is failing. It's not clear how 55 million married households compared to 6 million unmarried couple households supports that contention.

It's not clear how 55 million married households compared to 6 million unmarried couple households supports that contention. This is especially true when one looks at this page (here) of the Census Bureau's study which shows that out of 227 million adults over 15 years of age, 121 million are married now, and of the rest only 63 million have never been married.

Complete story with links is found on Misteramericano.

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