MSNBC had this complete joke of an article yesterday stating that teen birth rates are higher in more religious states.  Problem is I don’t think it says any such thing.  We have Jeanne Bryner for this travesty of journalism,

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

Hmm, ok, let’s look at the data.  Census data here and here.

State Teen Birth Rate Religiousness % NAM, 2007 % Poor
.Mississippi 1 1 39.73% 18.1%
.New Mexico 2 22 55.45% 19.3%
.Texas 3 12 47.96% 15.9%
.Arkansas 4 7 22.28% 15.3%
.Arizona 5 33 37.38% 18.0%
.Oklahoma 6 10 25.77% 13.6%
.Nevada 7 34 33.99% 10.8%
.Tennessee 8 4 20.92% 15.0%
.Kentucky 9 9 10.45% 17.1%
.Georgia 10 11 37.92% 15.5%
.Louisiana 11 5 35.52% 18.2%
.Alabama 12 2 29.85% 14.3%
.South Carolina 13 3 33.18% 14.0%
.North Carolina 14 8 29.93% 13.9%
.District of Columbia 15 * 64.61% 16.5%
.Wyoming 16 * 10.90% 10.1%
.Missouri 17 16 15.68% 13.3%
.Florida 18 23 36.05% 13.1%
.West Virginia 19 13 5.15% 14.5%
.Alaska 20 46 27.54% 8.2%
.Colorado 21 41 24.98% 11.0%
.Indiana 22 17 14.54% 14.3%
.Kansas 23 15 16.36% 12.7%
.Delaware 24 27 27.90% 9.6%
.Hawaii 25 18 19.77% 9.9%
.South Dakota 26 21 12.40% 13.1%
.Ohio 27 26 15.30% 13.7%
.California 28 37 43.26% 14.6%
.Montana 29 20 10.36% 12.9%
.Illinois 30 31 30.13% 12.3%
.Idaho 31 14 12.04% 12.2%
.Oregon 32 38 14.59% 10.6%
.Virginia 33 19 26.89% 10.3%
.Utah 34 6 14.53% 7.6%
.Michigan 35 29 19.59% 13.0%
.Maryland 36 25 36.07% 8.7%
.Nebraska 37 24 13.16% 10.6%
.Washington 38 35 15.55% 10.4%
.Iowa 39 32 7.19% 9.5%
.Pennsylvania 40 28 15.28% 11.0%
.Wisconsin 41 40 12.04% 9.8%
.Minnesota 42 36 10.14% 9.9%
.Rhode Island 43 43 17.29% 12.7%
.North Dakota 44 30 8.56% 11.8%
.Maine 45 47 3.05% 12.0%
.New York 46 42 32.12% 14.2%
.New Jersey 47 39 29.53% 9.2%
.Connecticut 48 44 21.45% 8.0%
.Massachusetts 49 45 14.70% 11.3%
.Vermont 50 49 2.98% 9.0%
.New Hampshire 51 48 4.06% 7.0%
Correlation = 0.72 -0.55 -0.71

Just throwing this out there for guys like OneSTDV. It’s been a while since I’ve done any statistical analysis, so I’m sure I could be making some errors. I would have preferred to see the hard data on the ‘religiousness’ as opposed to using the rank as I think that skews the results.   As I recall from my college sociology course there is no such thing as a bible belt in the United States, but there is an un-bible belt so to speak. If these ‘researchers’ didn’t control for NAM and/or poverty, I can’t see as how their date really means anything. Other than to put it out there for the white secular liberals to feel good about themselves.

UPDATE:  As I mention in the comments with OneSTDV, using live births per 1000 women ages 15-19 found here, the correlation coefficient between religiousness and teen births is basically unchanged at 0.71, but the correlation between poverty and teenage births increases to 0.74.  I’m still looking for church attendance data so if anyone has it broken down by state, send me the link.

UPDATE 2:  Adding in the percentage fo the population at 125% and 135% of the official poverty level and the correlations are 0.77 and 0.76 respectively.

UPDATE 3:  Looking at the correlation between unmarried births all ages and religiousness the coefficient is 0.31, pretty weak.  Looking at the correlation between unmarried births and poverty the coefficient is 0.69.