Ruth Institute Blog

By Austin Nimocks

The following is edited from testimony delivered before the United States Senate.

As debates rage about budget deficits, debt ceilings, and jobs, I am pleased that the Senate is discussing what are arguably the two most important jobs in our society – the jobs of mothers and fathers. The Defense of Marriage Act gives us a chance to think about the roles of each in our society, and to consider a question often overlooked in these debates: why is government in the marriage business? Read more…

By Michelle Bauman

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 31, 2011 (CNA) — Marriage advocates are warning that a repeal of the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act could have disastrous consequences for the nation, including the further erosion of religious liberty and a continued effort to legalize multiple-partner relationships. Read more…

Repeal of DOMA Hearing Rescheduled to Nov. 10th

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, Catholics for the Common Good episcopal adviser and Chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Promotion and Defense of Marriage Subcommittee, wrote a powerful appeal to the members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to reject efforts to repeal DOMA. It is a must read. Read more…

by Bill May

Repeal of DOMA Hearing Set for Nov. 3 Threatens Marriage Nationally
Call or Write U.S. Senate Committee Members

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has called a hearing for November 3 on California Senator Diane Feinstein’s bill to repeal the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act. It is important to understand the consequences of this bill and its impact on marriage across the country. Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

Policies of the federal government under the Obama administration have ignited a blaze of concerns about fundamental religious liberties in America.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the US bishops conference, wrote a letter to the president recently. Read more…

Congress, represented by former solicitor general Paul Clement, has filed two briefs in one of the cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act in a federal court in New York. One is a memorandum providing legal reasons the court should deny the ACLU’s motion for summary judgment. The second is a memorandum with reasons the court should grant the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group’s motion to dismiss. Both are excellent, and I particularly appreciate the way the second brief explains the state’s interests related to procreation. Read more…

by Mark Hamblett

Congress has fired back in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

In a motion to dismiss in the Southern District, former solicitor general Paul D. Clement and his legal team argue that the act, 1 U.S.C. §7, is entitled to a presumption of constitutionality, and that U.S. Supreme Court precedent holds that an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage does not offend the equal protection clause. Read more…

by Maggie Gallagher

The First Amendment is more than a legal guarantee. It is a culture — a key American value — which holds that in a decent and free society, law-abiding citizens should not face reprisals for speaking up with civility for the moral good as they see it. Read more…

U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on S.568 July 20, 2011. Statement of Austin R. Nimocks, Senior Legal Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund

As debates rage these days regarding budget deficits, debt ceilings, I am pleased that this body is taking time to discuss the jobs of mother and father arguably the two most important jobs in our society.  This particular legislation gives us the opportunity to examine the roles of mothers and fathers in our society, and also examine a question oftentimes overlooked in these debates–why is government in the marriage business? Read more…

Dr J’s most recent episode of “From the Front Lines of the Culture War” is now up for your listening pleasure.  In it, she interviews Bill Duncan, attorney and president of the Marriage Law Foundation, on a wide range of topics.  Their discussion includes Prop 8, DoMA, de facto parenting, and more.  Check out CatholicRadioOfSanDiego.com for more information on the show.

We also have her interview on Issues, Etc, split into two topical parts.  The first deals with the propensity of the Baby Boom generation to solve marital problems–large and small–preferentially with divorce.  The second–graphically–explains what passed for an extra-curricular sex ed seminar at Texas A&M and how it’s related to the widespread use of pornography.

by Matthew J. Franck

Supporters of same-sex marriage are ready to shut down free speech. Cowardice and lack of integrity are not the way to fight back.

After publishing articles recently in the Washington Post and First Things, both arguing that the defenders of conjugal marriage between a man and a woman should not be tarred as irrational bigots, “haters,” or “theocrats” by the advocates of same-sex marriage, I received e-mail messages from likeminded friends hailing me for my “courage.” Read more…

(May 4, 2011) Dr J and Todd Wilken meet on Issues, Etc to discuss the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government’s refusal to defend it when challenged in court, and the private legal defense that is stepping into the breach.

Listen here.

By Bill Mears, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The private law firm hired by House Speaker John Boehner to represent the government in the federal Defense of Marriage Act has suddenly pulled out of the case.

The chairman of King & Spalding said Monday the firm’s internal vetting for accepting representation was “inadequate.”

As a result, the high-profile lawyer who was to lead the legal fight for House Republicans has resigned immediately from the firm. Paul Clement, who was a top partner at the firm, wrote in a letter, “I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do.” He will now defend the statute for another law firm. Read more…

The House of Representatives hired a private law firm to help them defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, after the Obama administration refused to do its constitutional duty to defend the law. That law firm, King and Spalding, announced today that they will not defend DOMA after all. But, not to worry: the lawyer who was going to do the job, Paul Clement, is resigning from the firm, so that he can defend DOMA with another firm.  As Paul Clement said, “Defending unpopular clients and unpopular causes, is what lawyers do.”

Not surprisingly, the Human Rights Campaign, a large gay rights and largely misnamed gay rights group, applauded the law firm pulling out of the DOMA case.  Gay bloggers were all over the case almost immediately.  I wonder why?  Even gay marriage sympathizers in the legal community disapprove of the King and Spalding’s withdrawal: “I think Clement’s decision is right and honorable, and King & Spalding’s decision strikes me as quite mistaken, said Eugene Volokh, of the Volokh conspiracy blog.

Read it here.

Up on our podcast page is a two-part interview with Bill Duncan; Dr J asks him to bring us up to speed on DoMA and the amicus brief he and NOM recently filed in that case.

Part 1

Part 2

by Sheila Liaugminas

The president may have decided against it, but the defense of traditional marriage is being taken up by assorted other people who wield power. Here are two…

Out of many other notable efforts out there to make the case for the family as society’s foundation and building block, two crossed my path today while doing research and radio interviews. 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.

(January 21, 2011) Up on our podcast page is a two-part interview with Bill Duncan; Dr J asks him to bring us up to speed on DoMA and the amicus brief he and NOM recently filed in that case.

Part 1

Part 2

by Matthew J. Franck

The latest decision from our judicial overlords on same-sex marriage spells trouble for republican constitutionalism and the institution of marriage.

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was grounded on a fear of judges run amok. This past Thursday, federal district court judge Joseph Tauro of Boston justified this fear when he struck down section 3 of the act in two separate cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In the Gill case, Judge Tauro held that the law unjustly denied various federal benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages contracted under Massachusetts law, contrary to the equal protection principle. Meanwhile, in the HHS case, Tauro ruled that the state itself was the victim of an unconstitutional intrusion by the federal government on its reserved powers under the Tenth Amendment. Read more…