by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Ruth Institute Founder

Many commentators read Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate as if it were a think tank white paper, and ask whether he endorses their particular policy preferences. It is a mistake to read the encyclical in this way. A close look at the document’s introduction makes plain that Benedict is not a man of the Left or of the Right: He is a non-ideological man of God. Read more…

By William C. Duncan, Esq.

Director of the Marriage Law Foundation and
Academic Advisory Board Member of the Ruth Institute

This article is from National Review Online.

In his 1988 book Silent Revolution, Herbert Jacob described how one of the most significant changes to family law in the 20th century, no-fault divorce, began in California and spread through the states with very little public debate or controversy. This remarkable transformation was presented, and largely accepted, as routine policymaking in the domain of legal experts.

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by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Many commentators read Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate as if it were a think tank white paper, and ask whether he endorses their particular policy preferences. It is a mistake to read the encyclical in this way. A close look at the document’s introduction makes plain that Benedict is not a man of the Left or of the Right: He is a non-ideological man of God.

Read more…

by Jennifer Roback Morse

The screen version of Jodi Picoult’s novel poses the question: how much are we entitled to use each other?
The use and misuse of artificial reproductive technology (ART) is a subject that deserves more attention than it commonly gets. My Sister’s Keeper is a thought-provoking dramatization of one of the most troubling ethical issues of the ART industry: the creation of “savior siblings”. Read more…

by Helen Alvaré, J.D.,
Senior Fellow in Law
and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

Several columns ago, I addressed the worry that our country’s nearly 40% out of wedlock birthrate might represent some sort of tipping point for marriage, for children’s well-being and for our society’s shared future. I reviewed in-depth interviews with single moms which revealed nearly bottomless wells of mistrust regarding the men who fathered their children. The men’s behavior did not seem to merit better. Read more…

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse

Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate is his contribution to the course of Catholic Social Teaching. Many commentators seem to read this document as if it were a think tank white paper, and ask whether the Popes endorse their particular policy preferences. I must say that I surprised myself by not reflexively reading it in this way. After all, I spent many years teaching free market economics. I distinctly remember reading Centesimus Annus for the first time, and mentally checking to see if I agreed with it. Read more…

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

All friends of democracy should be troubled that the same court whose decision to nullify a law passed by the state legislature that was overruled by a majority of California voters in the last election is now being asked to override the decision of the people. Gay rights activists are asking the state’s Supreme Court to overturn voter-approved Proposition 8 that limited marriage to one man and one woman on a technicality. Read more…

By by Helen Alvaré, J.D.
Senior Fellow in Law and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

In my last column, I concluded that while public and private actors have taken many different and sometimes logical approaches to reducing out of wedlock pregnancies, they have also missed a crucial aspect of the problem: the difficulties men and women are experiencing in their relationships with one another, as evidenced by their unwillingness to commit to one another, even after a baby is conceived. Read more…

By by Helen Alvaré, J.D.
Senior Fellow in Law and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member
The recent news of the nearly 40% out of wedlock birth rate in the United States should pretty much rock our world as citizens and as Catholics. According to the Centers for Disease Control report, this means 1.7 million children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007, a figure 250% greater than the number reported in 1980. The implications for our society loom large. Read more…

by Jennifer Roback Morse

Government indifference to responsible fatherhood is what made the tragedy of OctoMom possible.  What are we to make of the case of Nadya Suleman, the California woman who gave birth to octuplets through IVF? The case has inspired lots of internet chatter and water cooler talk. Read more…

By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.

From an upcoming issue of the National Catholic Register.

By now, everyone knows that the Supreme Court of Iowa has imposed same-sex “marriage” on the heartland of America, a mere 10 years after the people of that state had expressly voted against it. What very few people know is exactly how unfair this fight really was. Not only was the lineup within the courtroom imbalanced, but the trial court refused to hear relevant evidence. When the case made its way to the Iowa Supreme Court, they didn’t behave much better. Read more…

Cohabitation Fast Facts

by Jennifer Roback Morse

Research shows that cohabitation is correlated with unhappiness and domestic violence. Cohabiting couples report lower levels of satisfaction in the relationship than married couples. Women are more likely to be abused by a cohabiting boyfriend than a husband. Children are more likely to abused by their mothers’ boyfriends than by her husband, even if the boyfriend is their biological father. If a cohabiting couple ultimately marries, they have a higher propensity to divorce. Read more…

by Jennifer Roback Morse

Is the Bible hate speech? Or is Bradley Lashawn Fowler a troubled man with a nuisance law suit? Here’s a look at the trends behind this disturbing case. Bradley Lashawn Fowler, a gay man, claims that Christian publishing powerhouses, Zondervan Publishing and Thomas Nelson Publishing infringed his constitutional rights. Read more…

by Dr Jennifer Roback Morse

Britain and Canada are well ahead in the race to make fatherhood completely redundant.

Last fall, I debated same-sex marriage at a university in Florida. I argued that treating same-sex unions identically with marriage would lead to marginalizing fathers from the family even more than they already are. At the time, I viewed that as a long-term prediction. I did not realize I would be proven correct in less than a year. Read more…

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Barack Obama promised us “change we can believe in.” He promised to move beyond all the tired ideologies and culture wars of the past. How strange then, that on his watch, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi should propose the implementation of one of the most outdated and laughable ideologies of all. I call that ideology “condom-ism.” Read more…

Do countries with sub-replacement fertility need
more government support, or less?

First Published June 6, 2008 at MercatorNet.com.

“It Takes a Village to Raise a Child,” was Hillary Clinton’s Big Idea in the 1990s. Hillary’s supporters and detractors alike regard that slogan as a thinly-veiled code for increasing the government’s responsibility for the care of children. The demographic decline of Europe illustrates what would happen if we took this Village-Raising-Children image seriously.

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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
and Ruth Institute Academic Advisory Board Member

One of the most respected American sociologists, Andrew Cherlin, has recently published The Marriage-Go-Round: the State of Marriage and the Family in America. True to his role at Johns Hopkins University, he proposes in his new work, not only a sociologically based characterization of the American family, but also a public policy response The book is as important and revealing as it is overwhelming and discouraging to supporters of children’s welfare and the overall strength of marriage and families.  Read more…

By L. Hansen Ph.D

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. Children need the love of both.

Proponents of same-sex marriage believe the only thing children really need is love. Based on that supposition, they conclude it’s just as good for children to be raised by loving parents of the same sex, as it is to be raised by loving parents of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, that basic assumption—and all that flows from it—is false. Because love isn’t enough! Read more…

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Secularism was to be the wave of the future. Leading secular theorists such as Peter Berger taught that secularism would be the inevitable result of the inexorable march of progress and that its many advantages would simply drive out religion in all of its forms. No serious discussion was possible or necessary. Religion would be deposited unceremoniously on the dustbin of history. Read more…

by BRADFORD WILCOX

For millions of children across the U.S., this Sunday will not be a cause for celebration. Because of dramatic increases in divorce and nonmarital childbearing, about 28% of our nation’s children — more than 20 million kids — now live in a household without their father, up from 10 million kids (14%) in 1970, according to a recent Census Bureau report. Moreover, because most of these boys and girls see their dads infrequently (once a month or less), Father’s Day will offer cold comfort to many of these children. Read more…