A Good Word for the Bay State

Quick...Which US state has the lowest divorce rate among the fifty states?

Such a place would seem to have strong family values, ones that include a commitment to marriage.

According to Kevin Baker in the May, 2005 issue of American Heritage magazine, it's Massachusetts.

Yeah, that Massachusetts. Irredeemably liberal, tax and spend, not-really-a-part-of-America Massachusetts.

In an amusing, mostly good-natured piece, Baker writes to defend his home state, especially the little corner of it in which he was raised. He deems it unfair that the name of his state was used as something of a curse word in the 2004 presidential race (and earlier, in the 1988 election).

Notes Baker:

The charge that [John] Kerry was from Massachusetts was repeated again and again throughout the election, the implication being that simply hailing from such a bizarre, addled, liberal place ought to be enough to disqualify anyone from the Presidency.

And he closes with these good words:

I never like it when people call the South "redneck country," or when news commentators flippantly refer to our great industrial heartland as "the rust belt." I think if we really are to pull together as a nation, we need to restore at least a basic respect for how we all live and where we come from. An apology would be a good start, but I'm not holding my breath. As an old New Englander I know the worth of the place I come from and that its values and its character will endure long after the noise of another campaign has receded.

Massachusetts has had, as Baker points out, four consecutive Republican governors. The current chief executive, Mitt Romney, is a pretty conservative fellow. Although Massachusetts has produced a few Kennedys and others of the more liberal stripe and done some things that the rest of the country might consider a bit looney, none these facts warrants making the state a byword for flakiness. I like having Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, as part of the Union.