On its new anti-Civil Union webpage, the Maxim Institute would have us believe that Norwegian and Swedish registered partnerships have high divorce rates. However, what about fundamentalists themselves? According to the evangelical US Barna Research Group, which interviewed 3854 adults across the forty-eight contiguous United States, divorce rates for conservative Protestant (fundamentalist) Christians are much higher than for other Christian denominational groups. Barna observed that "born-again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce..." and "many of them feel that their community of faith provides rejection..." and that their results "...raise questions about the effectiveness of how churches minister to families." Moreover, high US fundamentalist divorce rates "challenge the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support." Barna's research found that nondenominational and Baptist Christians (34%: 29%) had higher divorce rates than mainline Protestants (25%), Mormons (24%), Catholics and Lutherans (21% each). Americans for Divorce Reform had a slightly lower figure for fundamentalists and evangelicals (27%), which were still well in front of other faith and denominational groups, apart from Jews (30%). Worse still for fundamentalist proponents of the sanctity of marriage, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma led the stats for divorce, all of which are heavily fundamentalist states, according to data from the US Census Bureau and National Center for Health. Right. Pot. Kettle. Black. So, should fundamentalist Christians be excluded from solemnising their marriages? No, of course not. But if their high divorce rate doesn't exclude them from spousal status, rights and responsibilities, then should Norway and Sweden's allegedly high "gay divorcee" rates? And look where Maxim's data came from- the so-called "Marriage Law Project" and its MarriageDebate.Com website, which is also on record as questioning Barna's ideologically inconvenient stats about fundamentalists and their high rates of divorce. Whatever happened to "judge not," Bruce and co? Recommended Reading: http://www.marriagedebate.com/home_includes/SSdivorcerisk.pdf [Source material for the Maxim Institute's claims about divorce rates and same-sex registered partnerships in Norway and Sweden. Note that the Marriage Law Project is the co-ordinator of this webpage and is opposed to legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships]. Information: Fundamentalist Christians and Divorce: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm [Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance cited the Barna Research Group's data, as well as Americans for Divorce Reform stats and US Census Bureau and the National Center for Health] http://www.barna.org "Christians More Likely to Experience Divorce than Non-Christians" http://www.divorcereform.org/results.html Americans for Divorce Reform: Religion and Divorce (US) http://www.maxim.org.nz Maxim Institute Craig Young - 15th June 2004