Republican Adventures in Social Engineering or What Steven Thayn Isn't Telling You

State Representative Steven Thayn of Emmett is not shy about painting a nostalgic picture of how he thinks families in Idaho ought to work—think "Leave It to Beaver" on steroids.  Thayn is also not shy about sharing his views on how that should be achieved—mandating it through legislation.  But there are a couple of things he has been shy about revealing.

For one, he hasn't told the truth about domestic violence, a crime Thayn suggests is caused by a breakdown in the traditional family structure.  In fact reports show that approximately one in every two incidents of intimate partner violence in Idaho are committed by a spouse.

For another, he hasn't revealed information showing that his family, held up as a paragon of family virtue, is not exactly what he has portrayed it to be.  Earlier this year, his own son was arrested for domestic violence against his wife.  In fact the arrest came just about the time Thayn was being named to head the Idaho Legislature's Family Task Force.

The fifty-three-year-old Republican was appointed by House Speaker Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale) to head the Family Task Force interim committee whose charge is, "To study the magnitude of the decline of the family since 1950; the effects the decline has had on state social policies; the reasons for the decline, and ways to strengthen the family."

Never mind that the six member committee composed of five Republicans and one Democrat averages just 49 years of age, with just two members who are likely old enough to have any concrete memories of the fifties.  The others' memories of the decade are largely those of diaper-clad toddlers or are gleaned from other sources.  And never mind that the nostalgic family of the fifties was elusive even then.

But why stop at the fifties?  Surely the "erosion of the family" began long before poodle skirts, bobby socks and peddle pushers went out of fashion. Why not return Idaho to the pre-WWII era, before women were encouraged to "free a man to fight," got a taste of independence and never went back to the kitchen.  Heck while we're at it, why not return to the era before women were allowed to sully themselves with messy things like politics and voting.  Perhaps the late 1800s would be ideal, when the "rule of thumb" was still legal; a man could "discipline" his wife provided the stick used was no bigger around than his thumb.

But for now, it's off to the fifties.  So to which part of the fifties would they like to return?  To a time when, according to a Gallup poll, 62 percent of Americans considered it unacceptable—not inappropriate or unadvised—unacceptable for a girl to phone a boy, 50 percent supported Joseph McCarthy even as the Senate was condemning him, 94 percent of white Americans opposed interracial marriage and a large percentage suggested that a top field of study for aspiring women was home economics. 

Maybe they'd like to return to the time when that tiny little bit of a scandal was rocking Idaho and the nation.  Or how about the family friendly "good old days" when domestic violence was considered a private matter and wives couldn't even take out a restraining order on an abusive husband.  That wouldn't change until over 20 years later.

Based on obviously idealized, romanticized and largely fictionalized accounts of the fifties, the task force was assigned to study returning Idaho society to this perceived golden-age for families.  As the Idaho Statesman recently reported, Thayn's proposals include "repealing no-fault divorce laws and finding ways to encourage mothers to stay home with their children," hoping to reverse, as Thayn sees it, "the breakdown of the traditional family structure" which he claims is "the root of societal ills such as drug abuse, crime and domestic violence."

What Thayn isn't telling you about domestic violence, because either he doesn't know or he doesn't want you to know, is that in Idaho most domestic violence crimes are committed by a spouse.  The Idaho State Police Statistical Analysis Center did a study on Intimate Partner Violence from 1998-2005.  A chart from that report is shown below [click to enlarge].

Averaging the percentages over the eight years studied shows that 44.5 percent of these crimes are committed by a spouse, 36.6 percent by a boy/girlfriend, 11.6 percent by a common-law spouse, 6.4 percent by an ex-spouse and 0.5 percent by a same-sex partner.  [Actually if the task force was really interested in reducing domestic violence, it appears that encouraging same-sex relationships would be beneficial, but I digress.] 

Even when looking at the numbers as a percentage of the population, these statistics do not show that marriage is a factor in reducing domestic violence or that divorce is a contributing factor in its increase.  Married couple families in Idaho comprise about 56 percent of the population over the age of 15 according to 2006 estimated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau.  In 2005, 51.8 percent of the intimate partner violent crimes were committed by a spouse or common-law spouse (we have combined the two since census data does not distinguish common law from licensed marriages), a number approximately equal to their percentage of the population. 

These numbers are a good indication that being married does not lessen the incidence of intimate partner violence and encouraging couples to marry or stay married isn't going to solve it.  In fact encouraging these couples to remain married, whether by eliminating no-fault divorce or other means, can be potentially dangerous or even deadly.  Society has spent decades trying to convince battered women (and men) to leave their violent spouses.  Some of the task force's proposals will only hinder that effort.

The other thing Steven Thayn isn't telling you about domestic violence is that his plan to combat it doesn't work.  His assertions that crimes like domestic violence could be prevented if families would just follow his "traditional family" example—moms staying home with the kids and preferably home-schooling them—doesn't make sense when you learn that Thayn's own son, who was home-schooled for a time, was arrested on a domestic violence charge earlier this year.

Damon Mathias Thayn, the then-twenty-eight-year-old son of Steven Thayn, was arrested by Boise police and booked into the Ada County Jail on April 4, 2007, charged with domestic battery against his wife.  Court documents show that he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, paid court costs and a fine and attended anger management classes.

This information and Steven Thayn's unwillingness to disclose it calls into question his competency to make judgments about the parenting abilities of others.  In spite of that, the issue isn't whether or not you agree with him and the Family Task Force on what constitutes an ideal Idaho family.  The issue is whether a government ought to be in the business of elevating the status of some above the status of others based solely on whether or not they fit into a predetermined family model.

Our government, founded on the principles of equality and self-determination, has a duty to intrude on the rights of individuals as infrequently as possible.  This includes allowing individuals the free-agency to determine what is in their own best interests, not subjecting them to the whims of legislators wishing to enforce a state-mandated "best" family model.

Comments

[Sisyphus]

Damn sure glad you're on the side of truth and justice. Well done. More to come.

[Bill Sali Fan]

You socialists will probably also complain about one of Congressman Bill Sali's campaign chairmen having a brother who's a suspected child molester. ( http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2007/11/12/krichert/salis_support )
This incident only shows why the Task Force shouldn't have gone back to the 1800s, as you suggest, but more towards 1650. With arranged marriages, you never hear about "domestic abuse".

[Adam Graham]

Actually, if MGR were on the side of truth she'd mention that from 2000-2003, 58% of Idaho households were made up of Married Couples, and cohabiting couples (same as common law spouse) made up 4.5% of the Couples in Idaho. Married couples during that four year period accounted for 44.7% of Domestic Violence while the cohabitators accounted for 11.9%. Thus domestic violence is far more likely with cohabitating couples.

And in order to say that the majority of cases of domestic violence cases are done by spouses, she's defines people who haven't got married as spouses.

And by the way in most cases, they aren't actually married under actual Common Law Marriage as the state of Idaho recognizes no Common Law Marriages unless they were created before January 1, 1996:

http://marriage.about.com/cs/commonlaw/ht/commonlaw.htm

[MountainGoat]

Yeah, whatever it takes Adam; keep it up baby.

[Adam Graham]

Yeah, that's a good response when you're caught distorting reality.

[Sara]

The fact that domestic abuse is seen in significant numbers amongst couples who are married and couples who are not married shows us that marriage does not cause or prevent domestic violence.

[Adam Graham]

That 58% of the state's adult population that's married only accounts for 44% of the state's Domestic violence would indicate that it's less likely to occur and Sara that's the key: it's better one way than another.

Married people are less likely than cohabitating people to have domestic violence occur. And if good premarital counselling and education are added in, that makes the odds even better.

[MountainGoat]

Adam, I suggest you check yourself. The statistics I quote are backed by data and frankly your desperation speaks volumes.

[Adam Graham]

Yeah, and I've got statistics to. The Stats I used for the percentage of nonmarried couples living together and married couples in Idaho comes from the US Census.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/fertility/slideshow/table03.xls

Now you can call me desperate, crazy and insane or you can address the spreadsheet.

[Sara]

Adam, putting two numbers together doesn't make them causally related. You can continue disingenuously pushing a non-solution to a real problem (which is vanishingly unlikely to actually affect you), but only if you'd like to explain to a married victim of domestic violence how correlation equals causation.

[Adam Graham]

I think there's more than enough evidence to back up this conclusion, not just from here but from other sources. Pre-marital education does help, but suggesting that when actual rates of domestic abuse by cohabitating couples are 3 times what it is for married couple, that the idea that marriage is better than cohabitation is untrue is fallacious at best.

[Mark]

The whole point here is that a REPUBLICAN wants BIG GOVERNMENT to tell AMERICAN citizens how to live is willing to legislate second class status upon women.

[Mark]

Ooops, the post should read:

The whole point here is that a REPUBLICAN wants BIG GOVERNMENT to tell AMERICAN citizens how to live and is willing to legislate second class status upon women.

Note to self, preview,preview,preview!

[Ralph Maughan]

Wherever there is someone militantly espousing "family values," my observation based on what I've seen in the news over the last decade is that we should look around.

There is a good chance scandal lies just below the surface.

[MountainGoat]

Adam, you are hilarious. Clicking on your link takes me to a chart that lists "Fertility Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin."

Now I call you *really* desperate.

[MountainGoat]

But to seriously address Adam's concerns:

1) The numbers I used to arrive at the population of married couples in Idaho being 56% come from U.S. Census data for 2006. You can get there through the link above or by clicking my name. It lists population data by social characteristics. The table relevant to this discussion is Households By Type which lists data for the following types:

Married-couple families
Male householder, no wife present
Female householder, no husband present
Nonfamily households

Using the data from Married-couple families and the total population over age 15, I calculated that married couples make up 56% of the Idaho population over age 15. The ISP study distinguishes common-law from licensed spouses but as you can see the census data does not and, given the other choices, the only logical category for common-law marriages is the Married-couple category. So I combined the ISP study data for the two to arrive at the 51.8% figure.

2) A common-law marriage and co-habiting are not the same thing. People who are legally common-law married consider themselves married, and would say as much if asked, whether on a census questionnaire or otherwise.

3) The interesting thing from the ISP study is that the most significant factors in whether a person is at risk for domestic violence is a person's age and their gender, not whether they are married or not. Being married doesn't make a person more or less likely to be a victim and that was the main point in quoting the data.

[Sisyphus]

Even beyond that Adam, and speaking of fallacies, how the hell is doing away with no fault divorce going to help? If anything it will force these figures to go up as people search for "fault" in order to get out of a bad marriage. Its simply ludicrous to believe that forcing couples to remain married by providing legal hurdles is going to solve social ills like domestic violence. My guess is that the incidences of married couple violence is under-reported in any event but you'll see a spike if its a way to become unmarried. In fact you'll get many more provoked and false claims. That should be healthy for the kids in that relationship. Just why do you think no fault divorce spread to almost every jurisdiction in the country so rapidly?

[Sara]

Adam, the point is that domestic violence breaks up marriages, and it prevents them from occurring. Marriage describes the living situation, it is not a force that affects the behavior of an abuser toward their victim. You're making the argument that what an unmarried victim needs to do to prevent being abused at the hand of their partner is to marry them. Well, it didn't work for Mrs. Thayn. If all you want to get across is that living with an abusive partner is dangerous, I'd have no argument. But it's dangerous and insulting to argue that a victim marrying their abuser will somehow protect them from abuse.

[Adam Graham]

http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/fertility/slideshow/table02.xls

Sorry, wrong link.

As I stated before, Idaho does not recognize Common Law Marriages that were formed after 1995. Now, if you believe that more than 10.5% of the people in the State are living in Common Law Marriages origniated before 1995 than I'm going to have to disagree.

Regardless, common law marriages are not traditional marriages. There's been no community support network, no premarital counselling, no real public committment. To lump that in with traditional to prove traditional marriage doesn't work is utter absurdity.

And to take a study and use it to prove something it didn't argue is specious, particular when other studies have shown the same correlation:

http://www.familyfacts.org/findingdetail.cfm?finding=6827

I'm not suggesting a woman marry her abuser. However, what often happens in the course of a marriage being performed does improve odds. First of all, many couples go through pre-marital counselling which can lead to a couple deciding not to get married. If not that, some instruction is given in regards to how to manage conflict, which is often lacking. An official marital relationship is more likely to bring family support, stability, and the presence of different folks who are not going to invest themselves in supporting a relationship that could break up at any minute.

Ending no-fault divorce won't solve the problem of domestic violence but coupled with increased support for programs that provide marital counselling (which no one wants to talk about.), it will give couples an incentive to work it out one way or antoher.

Domestic violence is going to be helped through improved pre-marital counselling efforts which is also addressed in this bill.

[MountainGoat]

Exactly Sara.

Adam, The important thing to remember here is that my argument isn't over what type of family is "best" or whether marriage "works" or not. As said in this post, my arguments are these:

1) Domestic violence is a serious issue and by trying to address the problem through legislation encouraging marriage and discouraging divorce, the task force isn't going to solve it. As many have pointed out, it may in fact make the problem worse. Being married doesn't immunize anyone from domestic violence and Steven Thayn of all people should have known that.

2) Anytime a governing body talks about intruding on the rights of individuals to make decisions for themselves it ought to make everyone nervous.

I have no problem with non-governmental groups, such as religious or other non-profits, encouraging marriage counseling and promoting whatever other programs they wish. It just shouldn't be something a government gets involved in.

I haven't yet looked at your link but I will and then follow up if needed.

[MountainGoat]

Okay I looked at your link. Here are my thoughts:

1) We're talking apples/oranges here. The statistics you cite are percentages of coupled households not percentages of the entire population.

2) The problem we both face in trying to make sense of the ISP study data in relation to the census data is that the categories studied are not equivalent, requiring some assumptions to be made.

3) I maintain that for census purposes many common-law spouses would report their status as married whether they actually have a piece of paper saying so or not.

[Editor's note: Looked at your data again Adam and have to correct this earlier comment. The percentages listed in your link are of the total population even though the title on the table suggests that it's just coupled households.]

[Adam Graham]

Part of the problem we're running into as well, MGR, is that you're using the data in a way that wasn't really intended.

With common law spouses, you never get a piece of paper from the government, anyhow

[MountainGoat]

Hmmm, I don't agree that I'm using the data in a way it wasn't intended. I'll remind you again that my argument was not an attempt to make a judgment, good or bad, about marriage. My argument was that domestic violence is not bound by marital status. The data is there and it does not show what Thayn and others have tried to claim: that domestic violence is caused by what they call a breakdown in the traditional family structure. You have to admit that a 44.5% incidence among married couples is troubling whether or not you agree with my methodology in calculating the population percentage. The data show that domestic violence occurs in all segments of society with gender and age being more significant determining factors than marital status. This fallacious argument that encouraging marriage and discouraging divorce is somehow going to convince an abuser to stop is dangerous. If you haven't yet, you really should read the full ISP report.

(btw, to suggest that I'm lying or attempting to mislead anyone when my post clearly pointed out what calculations I made to arrive at the figures I used is insulting. As I said you can disagree with my methodology and I'm open to discussion about that but resorting to those kinds of accusations doesn't help your cause.)

[untamedshrew]

MG - Really really great work here. I'm very impressed.

I'm grateful for The Mountaingoat Report this morning! You got it all going on girl.

[Sisyphus]

"increased support for programs that provide marital counselling" Actually Adam I think we may have consensus on this issue. How you're going to implement it? It also seems very odd and suspect that Republicans want to increase government sponsored social programs. Particularly Thayn whose website advocates dismantling government sponsored education which he labels as a form of child abuse.

Sara you very eloquently made the point. Adam, government policies have supported committed monogamous realtionships for decades. Why is it Republicans won't allow gay couples access to the benefits of those same policies?