A shade of doubt about a true blue state
Is Massachusetts -- John Kerry's home, haven for Unitarian Universalists, and home of the nation's only same-sex marriage law -- a closet red state when it comes to spiritual values?
Two recent reports dangle the tantalizing possibility that there's more crimson to the Commonwealth, politically a very blue state, than just Harvard.
Exit polls, you'll recall, suggested that many voters picked President Bush because of ''moral values." Conventional wisdom, buttressed by voter comments and the adoption of bans on same-sex marriage in nine red states, says that evangelical voters who supported Bush were concerned with traditional values in matters such as marriage.
The stereotype of red states is also that their moral values don't include such social virtues as programs aiding the poor.
Talk aside, the two reports suggest that many Bay State residents act like stereotypical red-staters when it comes to marriage and charity.
In its annual ''Generosity Index," the Massachusetts-based Catalogue for Philanthropy ranked its home state as stingier than all but New Hampshire in charitable giving, even though Bay State is one of the more affluent.
Bible Belt states and Mormon Utah, by contrast, scored high, with Mississippi, a poor state, the most generous.
But if we're tight with a buck, we're more faithful to our spouses than some in the Bible Belt. Last year, Massachusetts had the nation's lowest divorce rate, according to federal statistics. Rounded off, there were fewer than six divorces per 1,000 married people; Mississippi, by contrast, had 11 per 1,000.
''There's a challenge to live what we say, not just to talk about it," said the Rev. Richard Brondyke, pastor of Fort Square Presbyterian Church in Quincy, who finds the high divorce rates in the South, filled with fellow Protestants, ''certainly troubling."
There seems to be a research consensus explaining the divorce statistics. ''Massachusetts does have a very highly educated population" that is consequently relatively affluent, and the more money a household has, the less likely that financial strains will derail the marriage, said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of Amherst, who codirects Rutgers University's National Marriage Project.
Other regions of the country have a larger percentage of African-Americans, who typically have higher divorce rates, said Whitehead. There may also be a cultural brake on marital breakups in Massachusetts because of the dominant Roman Catholic Church, an outspoken opponent of divorce, she added.
The notion that Massachusetts is full of grinches is trickier.
The Generosity Index has its shortcomings, acknowledged George McCully, board president of the Catalogue for Philanthropy. The index compares states' adjusted gross incomes and their taxpayers' itemized donations as reported on federal tax returns; it does not take into account nonitemized giving and volunteerism. Comparing people who itemize necessarily involves comparisons between select groups rather than entire populations.
Paul G. Schervish, director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, disagrees with the Catalogue's methodology, but agrees with McCully on one thing. To the extent that the index reveals anything, it is that evangelical Protestants have a tradition of giving money to their churches that is not shared by Massachusetts's dominant Catholicism.
''What you have in Mississippi is tithing Baptists," Schervish said. ''The tithing Baptists that no longer remain members of the Baptist church become tithing Episcopalians."
A tithe is a regular donation, traditionally one-tenth of a person's income, to their church.
''If I were to give an overall view of what this is spiritually," he added, ''you have in the Catholic ethic the notion that there isn't a priority to church giving. . . . There isn't the orientation that you're going to give $1,000 or $2,000 to your church."
Rather, some Catholics accept the old adage that charity begins at home. ''Generosity can also be that I'm going to sacrifice by putting my kids in a parochial school," paying both tuition and the taxes that support public schools, Schervish said.
In short, Massachusetts isn't stingy, Schervish argues; we just define generosity differently. (Schervish also notes that while our incomes are higher than Southerners', so is our cost of living, an impediment to charity.) His research suggests that three factors determine giving: being able to identify with the fate of others, gratitude for one's own blessings, and a desire ''to shape the world around you." Notably, these reasons can lead both religious and nonreligious people to open their hearts and wallets.
Perhaps the moral of this story is that we need to fumigate the air of noxious stereotypes.
''You do have to look below the surface," said Brondyke. ''We're a conservative congregation, and the typical comment made about conservative congregations is they have very strong positions on family values and so forth, but they don't in fact do much for the poor. . . . That's not true," given that his church runs a clothing ministry and other programs for the poor. The divorce figures show conservative demonizing of liberals is no more accurate, he said. ''Anytime we stereotype people, we certainly can be aiming at the wrong target."
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