TROPE 1: Conservatives value the nuclear family and the stability it brings to civilization, unlike liberals, who live under questionable moral codes. Let’s look at family values by the usual issues that come under scrutiny: out-of-wedlock births and divorce rates. If you analyze state-by-state childbirth statistics, you find that nearly half of all babies born in the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and South Carolina are born to unmarried women.8 Yet each of these states voted red in every general election
