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…

Jennifer Roback Morse on the mess we’re in

by Susan E. Wills

This article was first posted on aleteia.org on February 23, 2015.

Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD is the founder of the Ruth Institute, an inter-faith organization that addresses the lies of the Sexual Revolution. She has authored or co-authored four books and spoken around the globe on marriage, family and human sexuality. In this interview with Aleteia, she talked about her newest book, “The Sexual Revolution and Its Victims,” and what the future may hold.

How did a nice economist like you transition to being a culture critic? Was there a defining moment or trigger event? Read more…

by JENNIFER ROBACK MORSE

This article was first published at National Catholic Register on January 14, 2015.

Jody Bottum’s new essay at The Weekly Standard explores the way religious themes are emerging in some of the most radically secularized movements of our time. He observes that “white privilege” has become the modern equivalent of original sin. Political correctness includes the “shunning” of sinners, akin to that practice by sects such as the Amish and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He notices that book burning has returned. The apocalyptic nature of radical environmentalism allows its advocates to abandon the practices that are part of normal life, in favor of taking radical measures to deal with the impeding end of the world as we know it.

This is all very interesting, and no doubt, mostly correct. I feel called to add to Bottum’s point, however. I take as my starting point, the unapologetic position that Christianity is true, and that the Church is not just another political or social institution. Accordingly, I believe that each and every person has a desire for God, implanted into their hearts by God. The desire for Truth, Goodness and Beauty are all manifestations of that desire.

This is why the attempt to create Christianity without Christ has failed. It is why the further attempt to eliminate all vestiges of Christianity has not worked either. Even its enemies cannot resist using Christian tools. Almost in spite of itself, the modern world smuggles Christian concepts back into society.

Even more pointedly, Bottum asserts that the modern world uses these Christian concepts but without the coherence and systematizing of Christianity. So for example, the secular version of the public shunning of sinners does not include any 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

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…

Did you hear about the controversy brewing on Twitter? A congressional candidate and “left wing liberal” named Mike Dickinson has created a bounty of “100k” for nude pictures and/or sex tapes of Kendall Jones. You may recognize Kendall’s beautiful face from Facebook or elsewhere. She’s the cheerleader who is an accomplished hunter. Dickinson’s Twitter stream has many, many requests like this: Read more…

Allow me to point out a pattern in the promotion of the Sexual Revolution:

• All we want to do is lower the cost of divorce to the handful of people whose marriages have irretrievably broken down.
• All we want to do is allow abortion for cases of rape and incest.
• All we want to do is allow married couples to use contraception for serious health reasons.
• All we want to do is provide sexual education for children whose parents might not be responsible enough to do it themselves.
• All we want to do is allow underage girls to get abortions and contraception without their parents knowing, because some parents might abuse the girl.

Never mentioned in any of these historical episodes, is the fact that the purveyors of these lines are simply lying. They want more, much more, than they are admitting. They know exactly what they are planning to do. They have other, much more extensive purposes than they will admit in public.

They know perfectly well that the public would not accept their larger purpose. They know perfectly well that once the principle is Read more…

Brendan Eich has just resigned as CEO of Mozilla, maker of one of the most popular web browsers. He made a $1,000 donation to Proposition 8, back in 2008, an insubstantial sum really, to a campaign that is 6 years old. The Gay Lobby, the current shock troops of the Sexual Revolution,  demanded his resignation, or a show trial in which he repudiates his actions, or preferably, both. 

Listen to this short statement from one of the principals in the dispute, Geoffrey MacDougall, the Head of Development for Mozilla.  He pitches this as a conflict of rights, without taking sides as to which right should predominate. Read more…

 

by Jennifer Kabbany

This article was first published February 24, 2014 at thecollegefix.com.

CARLSBAD – For decades, the Sexual Revolution has promoted the guilt-free, do-whatever-feels-right culture, telling men and women to put their desires above all else – children, marriage vows, Godly principles and the like.

The social movement has left a devastating path of destruction in the form of broken hearts, broken families and broken lives. Read more…