Ruth Institute Blog

You may recall that the U.S. Census Bureau was proposing to remove five marriage-related questions from one of its surveys, and was soliciting feedback about the removal. Dr. Morse urged Ruth Institute fans and supporters to write to Jennifer Jessup at the Bureau to urge Ms. Jessup to not remove the questions (see Dr. Morse’s posts here). We have an update to this endeavor. The Washington Times reported on Dec 30:

The Census Bureau has gotten at least 800 written comments about its proposal to drop five marriage questions from its annual survey.

A bureau official declined Tuesday to say whether most of the comments were in opposition to the proposal, but leading family research groups have been unanimously against cutting the questions from the American Community Survey (ACS).

Scholars from the Brookings Institution and researchers from National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio were among those who also protested the removal of the questions, according to the article. We also know that many of our fans and supporters sent emails to Ms. Jessup because of Dr. Morse’s request.

The article also reports that  there will likely be a second round of comments solicited before the final decision is reached. If you are on our newsletter list, you’ll receive an update about that when it becomes available. If you are not on our newsletter list and would like to stay updated about this and other topics, go here to signup: RuthNewsletter.org.

We appreciate all our fans and supporters who wrote to Ms. Jessup. Thank you!

The Ruth Institute inspires and equips the Survivors of the Sexual Revolution to recover from their negative experiences and reach out to help the young. We move people from being Victims to Survivors to Advocates for positive change.

Yesterday, I posted a story about the Census Bureau dropping questions about marriage, as well as a sample email you can send to object to this development.  I also posted this background information, in case you want more information before you send an email.

You may wonder then, why the Ruth Institute cares about the questions the Census Bureau asks about marital status.

Three reasons.

First, I want to call to your attention this fact: the Sexual Revolution has been victimizing people for 50 years or so. How is this possible? By suppressing the harms caused by sexual license. Each person believes their own personal story is unique, and that any sadness, loneliness, loss or grief they experience is unique to them, and perhaps even, their own fault. Connecting the dots between the pain and the Sexual Revolution would be the beginning of the end of this destructive ideology.

Second and closely related: failing to ask the right questions can be a method of suppressing information. Conversely, asking the right questions is crucial to getting the right answers.

I do not really know the intentions of the individuals in the Census Bureau who are contemplating the removal of questions about change in marital status.

I can tell you these facts:

• Women are more likely to be murdered by their cohabiting boyfriends than by their husbands.
• Children are at significantly greater risk for fatal child abuse from their mother’s cohabiting boyfriend, than from their biological parents married to each other.
• Second marriages are more likely to end in divorce than first marriages.
• Most divorces do not involve domestic violence.

We only know this information because someone asked the questions. And typically the “someone” who asked, was NOT the government. Researchers quite often have to piece the information together from multiple sources. I can hardly believe this is entirely an accident. I say this, without meaning any disrespect or without meaning to cast aspersions on the motives of everyone involved in data collection within our various levels of government.

Finally, I am a nerd at heart. Data is important to me. I cut my teeth on social science research, specifically in economics. I love the stuff. In my heart, I want us to get the facts right, and respect the integrity of the data.

Dropping important questions from the Census simply cannot be a good thing. Send a note to Jennifer Jessup and tell her your concerns.   But don’t delay. Comments close on December 30, 2014 .

 

Dear Ms. Jessup

I am concerned that the Census is considering removing the questions about changes in marital status in future American Community Surveys. Marriage is different from other relationships. The recent trends in marriage show that the institution is in decline. If you quit asking the questions, you will not be able to detect such trends.

As a taxpaying citizen, I insist that you continue to monitor the state of marriage by asking questions 21a-21c and questions 22 and 23. If the Census has the time and resources to ask people about their plumbing and their internet use, you can certainly ask a few questions about change in marital status.

Removing these questions is symbolic of the government’s attack on the institution of marriage. I deeply resent the idea that the federal government does not consider these questions worthy of attention. I hope you will continue to include these questions.

Sincerely

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse

Founder and President, The Ruth Institute

sent to Jennifer Jessup

December 21, 2014

In a previous post, I described the Census Bureau’s proposal to eliminate questions about changes in marital status from future data collections. This post provides you with more detail, so you can examine this issue for yourself.

Go here for more information on the Request for Comments.

Go here for more information about the specific questions they are proposing to drop.

Go here for more information about the census itself. Scroll down to page 97 for their explanation of the questions they propose to omit, starting in 2016.

If you scroll through this document, you will see that this American Community Survey asks questions about these issues. I suggest you choose a few to mention in your letter to Ms. Jessup, as I have done.

•  Whether the person moved in the last year
• Race
• Ancestry
• Plumbing
• Internet use, broadband or DSL?
• Type of computer, laptop or desktop?
• Number of cars in the household
• Type of fuel used to heat the house
• How much people pay for their utilities, insurance and mortgage

In my email to Ms. Jessup, I mentioned plumbing and internet use. You can mix it up a bit in your email.

Thank you for writing this email!!  If we all send an email, and ask 2 friends to do the same, Ms. Jessup may have a surprise in her in-box in a few days!

The US Census Bureau is in the process of removing questions about marriage from its surveys. According to the Washington Examiner:

Members of Congress and agencies rely on demographic data to shape policy. Marriage has been declining, and the presence of single mothers is among the largest factors in the growth of entitlement programs.

But the government soon may have no idea how marriage is changing in America and how it is linked to the well-being of children and adults. The American Community Survey is sent yearly to a small fraction of Americans and goes into more detail than the once-every-ten-years Census, which sticks to basics and to which all Americans must respond.

Removing questions about marriage from the Census is a small step, taken by technocrats inside a relatively innocuous government agency. The totalitarian masters in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 systematically removed words from the language.  Controlling language, controls our thought.

Without the proper words, we will have trouble forming precise concepts in our minds. Marriage matters. A tremendous amount of social science research shows that “marriage” really is more than a piece of paper. If we quit asking people questions about marriage, divorce, remarriage and the like, all sexual coupling will be blurred together under the heading of “intimate partners” or “roommates.” We will not have the information we need to even ask whether marriage matters.

For the past fifty years or so, the Elites of our country have been engaged in a long-term battle to deconstruct the family. They do not wish for the marriage of your mother and father to be the source of your identity, your sustenance and your education. They resent the idea that the particular members of your family should be the object of your gratitude and your loyalty.

In other words, the State wishes to crush the family because the State resents the competition.

Did I mention that the comment period closes on December 30, 2014? They are seriously not expecting you or I to notice what they are about to do, over a holiday.

Shall we surprise them? Write to the Jennifer Jessup, the bureaucrat who is in charge of handling the “requests for comments.” She, no doubt, expects to hear only from her fellow technocrats in other federal agencies about whether they will be inconvenienced by dropping these questions. She probably is not expecting to hear from outraged citizens about the blatant attempt to manipulate reality. Surprise her. Her e-mail is

Go here for more details.

Go here for a sample e-mail that you can send. I just sent Ms. Jessup an email. Join me.

 

In an article on the Republican mega-donor Paul Singer and his attempts to steer the GOP away from the social issues, I am quoted thus:

Dr. Jennifer Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute, agreed that if the Republican Party changes its formal views on marriage, “the millions of ordinary people of all ages, races, and religions who value marriage as a pro-child institution will be politically homeless.”

The Ultimate Argument: we have money and you don’t.

“Resistance to the Sexual Revolution has always been lackluster and half-hearted among the top donors of both political parties,” Morse said. “I fear that [Singer’s] money will be the one and only deciding argument and that the GOP will align itself with the rich and powerful on this issue.”

You can pretty much guess what the thrust of the story was: Mr. Big Money Bags creates secret strategy meeting with the Gay Lobby to plan how to spend His Money to advance Their Agenda. Discussion of impact of said agenda on Ordinary People: not so much.

Read the whole sickening article here.

If you are fed up with being taken for granted by the Elites of both political parties, join our crusade to Inspire the Survivors of the Sexual Revolution. Consider becoming a  of the Ruth Institute. 

 

About ten years ago, maybe longer, my kids started using the word “random” in a new way. At first it sounded very strange to my ears. They seemed to be using “random” as a synonym for “spontaneous,” or perhaps “weird.” All of the kids I knew used it this way. After a while I got used to it.

This change to the language occurred randomly (haha), ie, spontaneously, but wouldn’t it be strange to have political weight behind a change like that? Does “gender neutrality” amount to political pressure to change language? I think it does. I came across an example of this today and thought it was interesting. Written by a pro family activist who lives in Hong Kong and translates news stories from English into Chinese.

As a translator I can smell that the whole LGBT agenda is in fact an imperial expansion, especially when you look at language. I once doubted my translating skills, as whenever I translate LGBT-related news, I have never found a good way to translate the English words “couple” and “parent(s)” into Chinese. But when I read some very good articles pointing to the cultural imperialism of the LGBT lobby, I realized my difficulty was in fact due to my cultural inheritance, not skills. The Chinese language seriously do not have a word for “couple” or “parent(s)”. What we have for “couple” is actually a joint word “husbandwife”, and what we have for “parents” is actually a joint word “fathermother”! I find I simply can’t translate “couple” or “parent(s)” to fit the gay agenda, UNLESS we change our culture and the Chinese way of looking at family!

This is a very clear example of how language must change in order to accommodate “gay rights” and gender neutrality. The full post is located here.

I guess the big question is this: are these changes to language organic and natural, like the way my kids adopted “random,” or are they enforced due to what some consider to be “LGBT imperialism”?

H/T Bobby Lopez at English Manif.

Join us as we inspire the survivors of the sexual revolution! Click here to download our free booklet, Improve Your Marriage, by signing up for our newsletter.

 

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

 

Read more…

Quick: what are the legitimate activities of government, according to libertarians?

Usually, libertarians will mention a short like including things like national defense, criminal justice, protection of property rights. Some, such as Murray Rothbard, are anarcho-capitalists and believe even these traditional functions of government could and should be handled by the private sector.

Where, then were the libertarians when the United States supported efforts to impose the “Reproductive Health Bill” on the Republic of the Philippines?

This bill mandates that all school children receive Age- and Development-Appropriate Reproductive Health Education. – Read more…

As I have said many times in my speeches (available at the Ruth Institute podcast page), the Sexual Revolution is irrational and its goals are impossible.  Therefore, those committed to the Sexual Revolution must also commit themselves to a steady stream of propaganda to over-write the basic facts of reality. This sometimes includes the subtle or not-so-subtle rewriting of history.

Today’s exhibit in understanding Revolutionary Propaganda comes to us from the Religion News Service, which describes itself this way.

The Religion News Service aims to be the largest single source of news about religion, spirituality and ideas. We strive to inform, illuminate and inspire public discourse on matters relating to belief and convictions.

So I find it odd, to say the least, to find an organization with this mission, taking for granted the arguments of Sexual Revolutionaries in an article, described as an “analysis.”

Let me confine myself to one particularly noticeable re-writing of history.

Written by Kevin Eckstrom, the Editor in Chief of the Religion News Service, the article claims in the section called, “A problem of overreach:”

Conservative groups resisted moves to compromise on a half-measure like civil unions; (Tony) Perkins’ organization (Family Research Council) calls civil unions nothing more than “a slow-motion surrender.” And that, said veteran gay marriage proponent Jonathan Rauch, was a critical mistake.

The author provides no context for cultural conservative Perkins’ comment, and he gives pro-gay Jonathan Rauch the last word. By doing this, the author suggests that Perkins’ assessment is incorrect, without actually taking responsibility for proving this, or even stating that his assessment is incorrect. Read more…