Ruth Institute Blog

from SPIEGEL ONLINE

More women and girls living in Germany are being forced into marriage under the threat of violence than previously thought, according to a new study released by the German government on Wednesday. Read more…

One has to wonder sometimes if Western Civilization is even going to bother showing up for the the future of the world.

Well, not the way things are going in America lately, at least not according to recent government data as reported in the LA Times:

LA Times:
The maternity business has experienced a recession, too, it appears. Births fell 4% from 2007 to 2009, the biggest drop for any two-year period since the mid-1970s, according to federal government data released Thursday.

Meanwhile across the pond, our British cousins are procreating, but not bothering to get married. Consider a few items published recently by their Office for National Statistics: Read more…

from WinnipegFreePress.com:
The last time Canadians had a debate about the definition of marriage, it was over whether gays and lesbians had a constitutional right to marry.

In the end, the courts decided they did.

Now, as a British Columbia judge weighs whether polygamy should be decriminalized, advocates on both sides of the debate are pointing to the legalization of same-sex marriage to bolster their claims.

Keep reading…

LGBTweekly.com:
The Irish edition of tabloid news magazine The Sun recently covered the story of Penny Lawrence, a 28-year-old woman suffering from Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA) who is now pregnant with her father’s child.

If you seriously don’t think there are folks waiting in the wings for same-sex ‘marriage’ to set the legal precedent they need to make what is described above legal – along with absolutely anything else you could imagine – then check out a website called Full Marriage Equality. (They refer to this father and daughter’s relationship as “consanguinarmory”.)

Today CatholicVote.org published an article that covers a lecture Dr J gave in early February. In fact we already have a thread about it. (Pro-Family Speaker Challenges Students) But apparently people are still writing about her talk, it is a presentation well worth revisiting, and the author of the article very succinctly sums up what I consider be one of the greatest dangers – if not the very greatest danger – of same-sex ‘marriage’. (See the second quote box below.) Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

The Obama administration made the incoherent declaration last week that it will no longer defend in court a federal law it must enforce. And thus the Justice Department signaled the likelihood that injustices may lie on the landscape for a host of issues.

Starting with religious liberty and marriage law.

Robert P. George, perhaps the nation’s top Catholic scholar on marriage, described [U.S. Attorney General Eric] Holder’s defense of the administration’s position as “extremely worrying.” Read more…

From the FRC article:

As the president of the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization that has filed amicus briefs defending both Proposition 8 and DoMA, I am troubled by the lightning-fast integration of concepts and actual language from the Attorney General Letter into the Motion to Vacate Stay. Let me repeat: the Motion was filed within two-and-one-half hours of Attorney General’s press conference. Consequently, I am deeply concerned that officials at the Department of Justice were collaborating with the litigants in the Proposition 8 case. Even the appearance of collusion between the Department of Justice and litigants is highly damaging to the rule of law in America.

Philosopher Francis Beckwith has posted a short, but incisive, comment on patheos.com concerning the legal implications of the ‘reasoning’ undergirding the Obama administration’s refusal to continue to defend DOMA.

This is the core of his argument: Read more…

When the so-called ‘justices’ of the California Supreme Court, in their ruling overturning Proposition 22, commanded the State to recognize same-sex ‘marriages’ immediately – in the face of warnings that those ‘marriages’ would be be the source of enormous legal confusion when Proposition 8 passed – it was a case of the judiciary attempting to deny the people their right to self-rule (Proposition 22 passed by 61%) and it was a very transparent attempt to influence the outcome of Proposition 8, and it was an obvious attempt to make the will of the people utterly irrelevant anyway by making same-sex so-called ‘marriage’ a fait accompli irrespective of any constitutional requirements. Read more…

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

If a court decides or parliament decides that polygamy is legal, then the whole face of our Canadian society will change.

by By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told priests Saturday to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding. Read more…

In this day of US Courts following European Courts, here comes an interesting story from the European Court of Human Rights:
“The European Court of Human Rights has refused permission to appeal in a challenge to the ban on gay marriage in Austria. The effect of the decision is to make the court’s rejection of the same-sex couple’s claim final.”

(Me: The European Court of Human Rights is unwilling to impose same sex marriage upon reluctant member states of the EU. Will the Ninth Circuit show the same courtesy to U.S. States?)
Read more…

One of the most favored tactics of the enemies of marriage is to point out some exceptions to the principle that marriage is fundamentally about procreation.  “What about infertile couples?” they ask, thinking they’ve made a brilliant point.

(We had one exceptionally brilliant commentator who accused NOM of advocating a ban on marriage between infertile and aged couples).

So, let me see if I can explain this in a way that even the aforementioned geniuses can understand it. Read more…

From the New York Times:

The United States crossed an important marital threshold in 2009, with the number of young adults who have never married surpassing, for the first time in more than a century, the number who were married.

The New York Times attributes the decline to the economy.  Undoubtedly the economy has an effect.  (Dumb policies such as no fault divorce, the legalized pillaging of men’s income via divorce court and having the government monkey around with the education loan system also probably has an effect as well.

But this I wonder:  Does the fact that our society is trying to turn marriage into a meaningless registry of friendships via redefinition have any effect on people’s attitude towards marriage?  Any effect at all?  Naaw.  Impossible.

We, the good guys, may be fighting off our backs.  But we must fight on.

Fred Reed writes some provocative stuff.  I often disagree with him, but he’s smart as a whip and always interesting.  In this article, he takes on hooking up.

I see where women, or college girls anyway, are honking and blowing most fierce about how they don’t like the way sex works nowadays. Yeah. It seems that the hook-up is in flower. Read more…

Over at Dante Atkins’ Daily Kos post, some commenters have said that no-fault divorce is necessary; without it, women would be stuck in abusive marriages, unable to prove fault.  Everyone admits that there are some reasons why a woman (or man) might need to leave a marriage.  These include situations like:

• spousal abuse
• child abuse
• substance abuse
• addictive behaviors (addiction to gambling, pornography, spending, etc.)
• infidelity

But what I am wondering is this—how many divorces are the result of these situations?  And how many divorces are sought for much less threatening reasons?  Reasons such as these:  Read more…

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse had a very productive, though snowy, trip to New York last week. One surprise was a FOX NEWS Strategy Room interview along with Chuck Stetson, organizer of National Marriage Week. Click here to watch.

Also, you can listen to a podcast of Dr. J’s debate with Prof. Katherine Franke called “Is Marriage Equality Possible?”  Click the POD icon.

George Skelton of the LA Times opines that “the notion that baby-making is the principal purpose of marriage in 21st century America is plain absurd. Let’s just say that upfront.”  Well that’s nice. How does he say that with such confidence? Read more…

The Quebec Policy Against Homophobia gives itself these missions and permissions:

On Page 20, the State gives itself the power to intervene in all parts of civil society, including the most private and intimate.

“awareness-raising and educational activities must publicize the various forms of homophobia, including the most insidious. It is important to target the various locations in which homophobic attitudes and behavior patterns, as well as heterosexist stereotypes, are found– in the family or workplace, at school, in sports activities, Read more…