Ruth Institute Blog

Part One of this series is located here.

How savvy are you about step-families? Do you understand the structural similarity between step-families and same-sex marriage? Take the Step-Family Quiz to test your knowledge. I created this quiz as an engaging way to help defenders of marriage understand the cultural blind-spot that we have about step-families. Of course anybody is welcome to take it. But it is geared towards those who believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman. By the end it should become apparent why I have focused on marriage defenders. There are five questions and their answers, plus a bonus question at the end.

1. Which group was the first to claim there is “no difference” between the intact family founded on natural marriage and other family structures?

• a. Heterosexuals
• b. Homosexuals

2. When was that claim first made, and what form did it take?

Read more…

I am pleased to see that the community of natural marriage defenders is taking notice of kids in gay households:

Dear Gay Community: Your Kids Are Hurting

Wonderful! But what if I told you that it’s only a start?

Consider this: kids in gay households are often there due to a prior divorce and later remarriage, or a prior divorce and later cohabitation. These structural issues are not being adequately addressed within the larger context of same-sex marriage, and this has created a logical gap in our arguments.

Filling this gap is our opportunity to reach the younger generation.

Largely, the younger generation favors same-sex marriage. But if we addressed the family structure problems first created by heterosexuals, this may help us persuade the younger generation:

• that we care about their family structure inequalities and the pain caused by them
• that gay marriage adds to the structural inequalities children face
• that we are being fair in our assessments–we’re targeting all adults who are the impetus of structural inequalities for children under their care.

Here is why I am hopeful about this line of thought. The author of the above post retracted her support of same-sex marriage because she realized something important: Read more…

The new inequality: childrens’ needs vs. adults’ desires

I was talking to Dr. Morse yesterday, and asked her to think back to when she was a young girl in school. “How many kids were from divorced families?” I asked her. She said she could think of one. The rest lived with their married biological parents. Before the Sexual Revolution, there used to be an important and unrecognized equality among children: nearly every child lived with his/her married parents.

Let’s think for a moment about what the Sexual Revolution has done to equality from the child’s point of view. In the name of adult sexual liberation, we now have a tremendous amount of family/structural inequality among children. Some kids live with their married parents, and many do not:

• Nearly 40% of births are out of wedlock
• A majority of teens don’t live in intact families
• One in three children live in single parent homes

Read more…

Why should we stand for the family, or for marriage, or for life or for any of the culturally-conservative issues?

Ordinary People Standing for the Family in Utah

Living in California during the Proposition 8 debates, I had a front row seat watching the “elites” mangle the meaning of marriage. The judicial elites have handed down a disastrous series of federal court decisions, solidifying governmental commitment to the ideology of the sexual revolution. The entertainment elites seem to celebrate every family form except the natural family of a loving father and mother
married faithfully to one another and raising their own children together. The media elites continue their shameless manipulation of public opinion. The economic elites pour money into political and propaganda campaigns designed to prop up the structure of the sexual revolution. Academic elites continue behind-the-scenes scribbling, advocating for recreating marriage, the family, and even the human body, in their own image. Read more…

Did you hear about the two young guys in New Zealand who got married to enter a contest to win rugby tickets? I wrote about them the other day. The contest was open to married couples. The two guys are not gay, but have been buddies since they were 6 years old.  They got married to be eligible to enter the contest.

Now some gay activists were indignant about this marriage. They claimed that it trivialized marriage itself and made a mockery of the efforts of gay activists to win marriage equality.  I agree with them, except for this point: removing the gender requirement already trivialized

BFF! Let’s get married! Why Not?

marriage.

But I will not press that point here. I want to ask a different question.

Q: Do you or I care whether these two rugby buddies stay married for a lifetime or divorce next year?  Does the public have any interest whatsoever in the success or failure of this particular friendship?

A: The public has no conceivable interest in what two men do together. Whether they are rugby buddies or golfing buddies or sodomy partners, the public couldn’t care less. (As a matter of fact, I don’t really want to know!)

Why then, does the public have any interest at all in the relationship called marriage? Read more…

Jennifer Johnson, Director of Outreach

Hi Melanie,

My name is Jennifer Johnson and I am the Director of Outreach at the Ruth Institute. Since you linked to an important document created by my organization in your post called, “Conservatives Can’t Be Pro-Marriage and Oppose Gay Marriage,” I would like to respond to you.

You said that you haven’t found a conservative to “give you a satisfactory answer” as to “how gay marriage tangibly undermines traditional marriage arrangements.” That’s unfortunate, and I’m not very surprised. However, this kind of answer is the kind of answer specialize in here at the Ruth Institute (which is no longer part of NOM, BTW).

Before I answer, let me pose a question, Melanie. Have you researched the precise manner in which gay marriage is implemented into the legal code? I would like to make a prediction: that you have not done this research. Very few have. What I have observed, instead, is that gay marriage supporters make an assumption. Their assumption goes like this: Read more…

I have always tried to argue that there is a very serious civil outcome to redefining marriage, and it has nothing to do with religious liberty or the idea of “sacramental marriage.”

Since marriage is society’s primary way of acknowledging and understanding parenthood, redefining marriage redefines parenthood. Here in California, the affects of “SSM” and redefining parenthood are rapidly making their way through the legislature. Last year, Gov. Brown signed a bill allowing three or more legal parents for children, which was inspired by a “SSM” custody dispute.

Now we have this: AB 1951. This bill will change birth certificates to allow for a gender neutral option for parents. Gay couples will be able to list both of themselves on the child’s birth certificate. California recently did away with the terms “husband” and “wife,” because of “SSM,” and the lead legislator for that measure said that those terms were outdated and biased. I suppose we can infer the same thing for “mother” and “father.”  Read more…

If you’re debating marriage with somebody and they bring up the interracial marriage ban (which was struck down by SCOTUS in a famous decision called Loving v. Virginia), show them this graphic and start talking about what the interracial marriage ban actually DID. 

Note: since “equality” is paramount for “marriage equality” supporters, next time you are discussing the marriage issue with them, point out their unequal arguments and also how “marriage equality” is contributing to children’s inequality. See what their response is.

“Marriage equality” relies on unequal arguments. When it comes to “rights,” “marriage equality” supporters make arguments based on gay rights, but they refuse to accept arguments based on children’s rights. When it comes to “outcomes,” they refuse to argue about the outcomes of gay sexual activity, but will argue about the various studies regarding children’s outcomes under various family structures. Not only do they argue unequally, “marriage equality” is contributing to children being treated unequally under the law. Read more…

Over at The Public Discourse, Professor Emeritus Jameson W. Doig of Princeton began a dialogue with Professor Robert George also of Princeton on the proper definition of marriage today. Professor Doig’s point appears to be that Professor George has not been consistent in his views. My point is not to defend Professor George: he is a big boy and can take care of himself.

My point is that Professor Doig’s entire article avoids some important questions. How will redefining marriage redefine parenthood? Are we happy with that redefinition? And do we really want to change the relationship between the State and the citizen in the way that this redefinition really entails?

The problem begins with Professor Doig’s very first paragraph.

I want to begin with two Vermonters, Ann and Ellen, who have been together as a couple for more than thirty years. They have three children—Bert, who has graduated from college and is now married (to Maria) and working in a small business in Vermont, and Alison and Beth, who are in high school, both doing well in their academic work and excelling in soccer. One of the three is adopted, and Ann is the birth-mother of the other two.

Ripped out of the picture, by design.

Do you see who is missing from this equation?  Without knowing anything else about this family, we know that the father of Ann’s biological children has been safely and legally escorted off the stage. The children will never have the opportunity to have a relationship with their father.

Most children have a legally recognized right to know and be cared for by both of their Read more…