Ruth Institute Blog

I am flattered by the attention from Daily Kos blogger, Dante Atkins. Sadly, this post is short on substance, and long on ad hominem attacks and innuendo. I will leave aside for now, his silly attack on our logo, of all things. I will ignore his mangling of the Biblical story of Ruth, except to note one thing: I chose Ruth because she is a unifying figure, loved by all the major faith groups. Catholics love her; Jews love her; Evangelicals love her; Mormons love her. Everybody loves Ruth, it seems, except for leftist bloggers. I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine how leftists like Dante expect to build a coalition when they alienate every major faith tradition in America. Read more…

Over at NRO, David French reports a favorable ruling on the case of Julea Ward, a Eastern Michigan University graduate student in counseling. She was expelled from her graduate program because she felt she could not counsel a person with same sex attraction regarding relationship difficulties. She referred this individual to another counselor, in accordance with professional norms. She is now suing the school and the professors who expelled her. And winning.

The facts are extraordinary: Read more…

I would imagine that the Duke University Department of Literature had a big problem with this.  You see, the Duke University Women’s Center went and just killed satire.  Those professors who taught satirical works as part of their curricula are likely out of a job.

To wit:

DURHAM, N.C., March 29, 2010—Duke University’s Women’s Center has canceled an event about motherhood because the sponsor was engaging in pro-life expression elsewhere on campus. A Women’s Center representative told Duke Students for Life (DSFL) that “we have a problem” and an ideological “conflict” with the event, Read more…

People sometimes ask me why I founded the Ruth Institute. I always reply that young people who want lifelong married love need and deserve accurate information and adult support. People sometimes have a hard time believing me when I try to convey just how crazy campus life can be. But now, I don’t need to say anything. Yale University is proving my point for me. Yale (where I taught economics from 1980-85) sets aside the week surrounding Valentines Day to be Sex Week at Yale. Minneapolis Star Tribune Columnist Kathy Kersten tells us about it:

This being Yale, the week started with a veneer of academic respectability: Read more…

Social critic Lee Harris scores great points in his analysis of the Tea Party movement. Though his analysis is indirect: he is critiquing David Brooks’ analysis. But, Harris leaves no doubt where he stands.

Here we come to the most puzzling aspect of David Brooks’s column. Why did he feel the need to make his derisive and gratuitous reference to Wal-Mart shoppers? The answer appears to be that Brooks is engaged in a sly argumentum ad hominem. He is attacking the Tea Party movement by pointing out that those who sympathize with it are likely to shop at Wal-Mart. Now, as a sociological observation, there may be an element of truth in this contention. But it is also possible to take the remark as a not terribly subtle appeal to his reader’s latent (or not so latent) snobbery. After all, what could be more déclassé than shopping at Wal-Mart? It is a bit as if David Brooks had winked at his sophisticated Read more…

One of my facebook buddies (actually one of our Ruth Institute alumni) is going back and forth about my post on the Washington Archdiocese from a couple of days ago. I posted a reply to them, but thought regular ruth readers might be interested in this issue.
Here is the quote from my original post:

“According to the Washington Post, at the end of civil marriage ceremonies judges will say ‘I now pronounce you legally married,’ Read more…

I have blogged about this Quebec Policy Against Homophobia when the document first appeared. I pointed out that the Quebec government has written itself a blank check: they plan to wipe out homophobia and heterosexism. Now, heterosexism is the view that heterosexuality is normal. News flash: heterosexuality is normal for our species. It is simply not possible to wipe out this view and all its manifestations. Hence, my claim that the Provincial govt has given itself permission to intervene in every aspect of civil society.
I was beginning to think that I was the only person who noticed or cared about this massive state power grab. But, now, I have discovered this hard-hitting essay by Prof Douglas Farrow of McGill University.

The Québec policy against homophobia was released in December with introductory fanfare Read more…

has an intelligent and down to earth analysis of Joe Stack, the suicide flyer who flew his plane into a federal building. Lee Harris points out that the chattering classes have rushed to try to pin Mr. Stack on their ideological enemies. But Harris observes that this just betrays their own biases. Ordinary Americans by and large, do not think in ideological terms. And the best way to understand Joe Stack is as a visceral response, not an ideological response.

The blind spot of the political class is that they systematically tend to overrate the importance of their own stock in trade—namely, ideas and ideologies. Read more…

I decided to break this very long post up into three parts. this is part 3 analyzing this interview with Lisa Miller, and the significance of the Miller Jenkins case for whether we really ought to go careening over the cliff and redefine marriage. See Part 1 and Part 2.

3.  Of all the appalling things in this appalling case, the malpractice of the therapists is probably the worst.  Lisa Miller had a couple of therapists suggest to her that she was a lesbian. When she was hospitalized after her suicide attempt:

So, it was when I was in the psych ward – you get put through evaluations, group therapy, individual therapy and it was through this process of them trying to figure out what was wrong with me that they said, “Well, we don’t really know but we really think that you are probably a lesbian and you are having problems with coming out issues.”  Read more…

I decided to break this very long post up into three parts. this is part 2 analyzing this interview with Lisa Miller, and the significance of the Miller Jenkins case for whether we really ought to go careening over the cliff and redefine marriage. See Part 1 and Part 3.

2. This case is particularly relevant to the question we considered a couple of days ago on this blog: who counts as a lesbian? In this case, Lisa Miller comes across as a confused person, a deeply unhappy person, but not a lesbian. Read more…

One of the commercials from the Prop 8 campaign has been shown to several witnesses. It is instructive to see their responses.

For those of you from outside CA, this was the commercial that showed that parents from MA were upset by what their second grader was being taught about homosexuality without their permission.  On the first day, there was this report of the response to this ad from one of the plaintiffs. This report comes from the Oakland Tribune, on-line edition.

Plaintiff Paul Katami ….grew visibly upset when asked about the Proposition 8 campaign and its reliance on the slogan, “Protect our Children.” He called the campaign insulting. “If you put my nieces and nephews on the stand right now, I’d be the cool uncle,” he said, chuckling. 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…

The news from Quebec is not encouraging for those who love liberty. In their new Quebec Policy Against Homophobia: Moving Together toward social equality,  Provincial government of Quebec just gave itself permission to take all necessary steps to wipe out, not just “homophobia,” but also “heterosexism.”  In the opening message from the minister of Justice, and minister responsible for the fight against homophobia,  Kathleen Weil states:

“Over the last thirty years, Quebec has introduced a range of legislative measures leading to recognition for the legal equality of the sexual minorities. Despite this fact, full social acceptance for sexual diversity has yet to be achieved…. Read more…

The Prop 8 Trial and the New Theory of Politics

“They reject the political determination of will by the people… the idea that the act of voting is an act of national will is decisively rejected.  The plebiscite is to express and enforce the concordance between the objective will of the people embodied in the (leader) and the subjective convictions of the people. The plebiscite is a declaration of loyalty…, not an announcement of an individual’s will.”  From The New Science of Politics, by Eric Voegelin.

 Since the beginning of my involvement in the same sex marriage debate, I have tried to explain the wider ramifications of removing gender from marriage. Ted Read more…

Way to go Lithuania! Stick it to The Man. Stand up for what’s right when so few others are.

Bryan P. Bradley, Mercatornet.com

Sidestepping critics, Baltic nation strengthens family-friendly law on public information.

Lithuania lawmakers ended their year by amending a law on the protection of minors that had been condemned as “homophobic” by the European Parliament and other international bodies. But they did so in a way that strengthens and clarifies legal restrictions on public information which is out of synch with human dignity and family values. The small Baltic nation thus once again stands out for boldness among European states, such as Ireland and Italy, which are resisting the imposition of secularist policies by European Union bodies.

“Lithuania is a European state that holds to traditional ethical values which it has no intention of abandoning.” ~ Irena Degutiene, chair of Lithuanian parliament

Continue reading.

Ed Whelan is sounding the alarm against the outrageous plan of Judge Vaughn Walker to televise the Prop 8 case.  Bench Memos on National Review Online.

Ed Whelan is all over the Federal Court case against Prop 8 and the legal shennanigans to televise the trial. This case is fast turning into a the worst sort of Soviet-style show trial, designed more to make an example out of dissenters from the regime, than to administer justice.

Any intelligent and fair-minded judge would recognize that the obvious candidates for a pilot program would be low-profile cases that present no apparent risk of intimidation or abuse of trial participants and in which all parties consent to televised coverage. Only an idiot or a hardened ideological advocate for same-sex marriage — and (presiding Judge) Walker is no idiot — would imagine that the Proposition 8 case is a good candidate for the program. Read more…

This is not diversity. This is an excuse for the state to regulate and indoctrinate, and generally stick itself into the minds of small children.

George Leef reviews a book on the always irritating problem of political correctness. Personally, I am very grateful to: 1. My husband for getting me out of academics and supporting me while I raised our kids and 2. the Ruth Institute supporters who allow me to do out-of-the-box thinking, to search for other intellectuals who do the same, and to bring our counter-cultural pro-marriage message to college students.  We literally could not do this on an ordinary university campus.  The campus pressures to conform both socially and intellectually, are simply enormous.