A great deal has been made of religious "values voters" who are more concerned about public morality and religious values than they are about their own economic circumstances. The problem is that the apparent behavior of these "values voters" doesn't really match their rhetoric.

Editor & Publisher reports:

[T]he states with the three highest divorce rates are all red (Nevada, Arkansas, Wyoming), while Massachusetts has the lowest rate.

Top three states for readership of Playboy magazine? Again, all red (Iowa, Wyoming, North Dakota), and they all top heathen New York by 2-1 margins.

Suicide rate? Once again, all red (New Mexico, Montana, Nevada), with the lowest rates all-blue (New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts).

Murder rate? Again, reds in the lead, with two of the three the worst (Mississippi, Maryland, Louisiana). Blues hold two of the three with lowest rates (New Hampshire, Maine, South Dakota).

As I understand it, there is something much more interesting about the murder rate than the fact that it is higher in red states: murder in blue states is far more likely to occur in the process of some other crime (rape, robbery) but in the red states it's more likely to occur in small towns and as a crime of "passion" (someone feels insulted, so goes out to kill the person).

How is any of this consistent with the popular perception of "red" states being the repository of values, morality, and religion in America? Oh — blue states have higher abortion rates. I guess that makes all the difference.

According to The New York Times:

In interviews, representatives of the four big broadcast networks as well as Hollywood production studios said the nightly television ratings bore little relation to the message apparently sent by a significant percentage of voters. The choices of viewers, whether in Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, New York or Birmingham, Ala., are remarkably similar. ... [I]f it is true that the public's electoral choices are a cry for more morally driven programming, the network executives ask, why are so many people, even in the markets surrounding the Bush bastions Atlanta and Salt Lake City, watching a sex-drenched television drama?

"Desperate Housewives" on ABC is the big new hit of the television season, ranked second over all in the country, behind only "C.S.I." on CBS. This satire of suburbia and modern relationships features, among other morally challenged characters, a married woman in her 30's having an affair with a high-school-age gardener, and has prompted several advertisers, including Lowe's, to pull their advertisements. In the greater Atlanta market, reaching more than two million households, "Desperate Housewives" is the top-rated show. Nearly 58 percent of the voters in those counties voted for President Bush.

Somehow, I rather doubt that the ratings for shows like this are due entirely to Kerry-voters, with pious Bush-voters spending their time praying and reading the Bible instead.

"We say one thing and do another," said Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment. "People compartmentalize about their lives and their entertainment choices."

They do compartmentalize — it would also be fair to say that they "rationalize" and, to be frank, are hypocrites. People want their smut in private but they want to be seen in public complaining about smut and trying to ensure that smut isn't available, even in private. Such "values voting," then, could be seen as a form of public theater. One way or another, those with the most social power are always able to obtain the smut they want, even as they work to ensure that others can't get smut as well. After all, it might "harm" others — but it surely won't "harm" those of great moral virtue, right?

The divide between what people accept as proper in public and what they choose to enjoy in their private lives is, unsurprisingly, nothing new in the history of the world or this country. "When the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock left behind writing, it was William Bradford's, and you can clearly see what they believed in and what their values were," said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, referring to the colony's first governor. "Then you look at the court records and you see all kinds of fornication, adultery and bestiality."

People say publicly that they consider certain behavior sinful, or at least very bad, but rather than work to control themselves or encourage others to exert some self-control they work hard to eliminate the temptations (i.e., the existence of "bad" television shows). Is it really very moral, though, to successfully avoid sin when one isn't even faced with temptation? Not really, no — not even within the framework of Christian theology. It might be argued, then, that these public moralizers don't consider themselves or others to be capable of being moral people who make the right choices.

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