Ruth Institute Blog

(July 21, 2010) We’ve already podcasted Dr J’s talk from this rally, “It Takes a lot of Faith to Believe in Same-Sex Marriage.”  She also recorded two of the other speakers.  Bishop Harry Jackson and Pastor Derek McCoy both discussed the importance of the vote in the defense of traditional marriage.

To date, 31 states have voted to define marriage as occurring between one man and one woman.  Maine overturned same-sex marriage by People’s Veto, and all the states that have enacted same-sex marriage have done so through the courts (Vermont used its legislature as well).

Bishop Harry Jackson

Pastor Derek McCoy

(July 20, 2010) We’ve already podcasted Dr J’s talk from this rally, “Why Not Privatize Marriage?“  She also recorded two of the other speakers.  Bishop John Smith, the ninth bishop of Trenton, discussed how marriage compliments the uniqueness of men and women.  Jim White, former Supreme Director of the Knights of Columbus, encouraged civic participation and accountability of government officials.

Bishop John Smith

Jim White

(July 21, 2010) This podcast is a rebroadcast of Family New in Focus’s coverage of NOM’s bus stops in Rhode Island and Annapolis.  The original is available here; listen below or on our podcast page.

NOM Summer Marriage Tour

Father John Codega, priest in the diocese of Providence and advisory board member to Rhode Island’s chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, was also at Providence’s “Summer of Marriage” rally on July 18 with Dr J (see “The Problem(s) with Same-Sex Marriage, Part 2″).  The shouting and chanting you hear are the rainbow protestors, who also attended the rally.  We also have a few other reports of how they tried to disrupt the rally (here, here, here, here & here, here, and here) as well as audio and video (here, here, here, and here).  Much of this is also on our blog.

Father John Codega

Dr J is on NOM’s Summer Marriage Tour for the next several days–she’ll be traveling down the Eastern seaboard, meeting new people, and giving short talks in each city at which the bus stops.  These talks are also available on our podcast page.

In this 10-minute talk (delivered July 15 in Manchester, New Hampshire), Dr J answers the question “Is it true that same-sex marriage affects everyone?”
Click here to listen!

Manchester, New Hampshire

Clinton’s “first concern for Africa is how LGBT persons are treated on the continent. . . it is fortunate that the US does not have an embassy in Mogadishu, because if the word got round that THIS was the African priority for the present US administration, there would be a repetition of Black Hawk Down.” For reals! I think they’d probably just laugh, and be disappointed. “Crazy Americans!” they’d say. Read more…

By JESSE J. HOLLAND (AP)

WASHINGTON — An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group’s “discriminatory practices.” Read more…

by David Schaengold

Another reason the analogy between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage fails.

Recently in Public Discourse, Francis Beckwith argued that the frequently invoked analogy between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage is flawed, and should not be used by advocates for the legal recognition of same-sex unions. As Beckwith wrote, this analogy is freighted with enormous moral and intellectual force, but it does not withstand examination. Bans on interracial marriage are not relevantly similar to current marriage law with respect to homosexuality. Read more…

The case of Christian Legal Society and the Hastings Law School tested whether Christian groups can exclude non-Christians from membership or leadership. Prof Hadley Arkes summarizes the case:

after all of the quick moves, the fact remained that the CLS was deprived of its standing on the campus because it ran afoul of the non-discrimination policy. It was deprived of official standing, not because of the all-comers policy, but because it could not accept a policy that barred all discriminations based on “sexual orientation.”

For Justice Ginsburg that was the point that finally carried. After all the grand distractions, the simple point was that a Christian group could not accept a policy that barred them from insisting that the only rightful form of sex was the coupling of a man and woman within the frame and commitments of marriage. Read more…

Might as well post this as well.

by Sheila Liaugminas

Sometimes, the Proposition 8 battle seems surreal. But then, so do other serious, emotional and intense conflicts playing out in the nation’s courts and city halls and classrooms and media, over what we knew not long ago as core Judeo-Christian traditional values. Read more…

By Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse|Published Date: April 04, 2010 at The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

Equal, but…

“Kids Do as Well with Same Sex Parents,” the headlines screamed. I crossed swords with Judith Stacey, one of the authors of this most recent study, at a debate at Bowling Green State a few years ago. I asked her point blank if she believed men and women were completely interchangeable as parents. In front of that very friendly audience, she said absolutely: the gender of parents doesn’t matter. And so she says now, in this new article the media loved. But midway through the article, her argument shifts from a “no difference” argument to my favorite definition of feminism: men and women are identical, except women are better. Her article ends with an intimation that I believe tells strongly against same sex marriage. Redefining marriage will create a cultural climate that will drive men out of the family, and lead to the belief that the only good man is a gay man. Read more…

Carolyn Moynihan

Right on cue for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride month” the journal of the American Academy of pediatrics has published a study purporting to show that the children of lesbian couples “do better than their peers” on some measures. Read more…

Here’s something that came to my email from American Family Association (AFA). Read the article then tell me, do you think things would have been different if the rolls were reversed? That is, if the bus driver were the one speaking negatively against gays? My guess would be instant termination. Yours? 

School refuses to take any action to protect students

Watch the video as a school bus driver in Indiana lectures a little girl on gay rights, calling the student a “stupid little bigot” and saying that she would “eat the girl alive.” Read more…

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse. Originally pubished at National Catholic Register, March 22,2010.

“Domestic partnerships make us second-class citizens. We want marriage, just like everyone else.”

This is the constant refrain of the marriage-redefinition advocates. Drawing a legal distinction, any legal distinction, between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples is unfair and amounts to ill treatment of the same-sex couples. But does this argument really hold up? Read more…

I wonder if ACLU members have lawsuit quotas. Maybe they each have a bar graph on a white board to keep track of their filings. Perhaps the winner at the end of each month gets a plaque, the good parking spot, and an ice cream sunday.

Allie Martin and Jody Brown – OneNewsNow -

An attorney says a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against a North Mississippi school district is an attempt to try and keep officials there from recognizing traditional morality. Read more…

California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) is being pressured heavily to change its nuetral stance on gay marriage. So far they are holding steady where other organizations have already caved. Stay strong, CAMFT! Be an example to others not to be bullied!

By Kathleen Gilbert

SAN DIEGO, California, March 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abandoning its long-held neutrality on the marriage debate, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) has slowly come to disavow pro-family views and sexual orientation therapy as “homophobic.” Instead it now warmly supports homosexuality as a “normal and positive” variant of sexuality – all thanks to pressure by gay activists who have openly vowed to transform the organization from within. Read more…

Yesterday, I posted about the impact of redefining marriage on the District of Columbia. Some of the comments about my post and others on this topic around the web, seem to say that if only the Catholic Church would stop being so stubborn and get with the program, they wouldn’t have these problems. These are the new values of society, and the Church needs to give up its beliefs.

Wait a minute: How do you know these are the new values? Every time we ask the voters what they think, Read more…

Here’s something relating to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse’s big article, also on this blog.

The Case Against Ted Olson [Maggie Gallagher]

In the NYT, Ed Meese strikes back hard against the idea there’s anything conservative about using the federal courts to overturn the free and fair election that produced Prop 8. Read more…

By Jennifer Roback Morse

Two high-profile lawyers are challenging California’s constitutional ban on gay marriage.

California’s high-profile federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, which begins in court on January 11, appears to be about creating a federal case for same sex marriage. But in fact, much more is at stake. Lurking in the shadows of this case is a breathtaking expansion of judicial interference with perfectly valid elections. Whatever your views about Proposition 8, we surely should be able to agree that special interest groups can’t go into court to overturn elections they don’t like. Read more…

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -

As Washington, DC’s city council moves closer to legalizing homosexual “marriage,” a Christian organization is raising a warning flag.

The DC Election Board has refused an initiative to put the marriage issue before voters. Alan Wisdom of the Institute on Religion & Democracy tells OneNewsNow the city council was offered amendments to protect religious groups, but opted to reject them. Read more…