Ruth Institute Blog

The Family Research Council has caught up with the Ruth Institute. I shouldn’t gloat, but the big DC-Beltway Think Tank has just discovered the Presumption of Paternity. Out here in San Diego, as far from the Beltway as you can get and still be in the Continental US, we have been saying this stuff, literally, for years:

Same-sex “marriage” is not just an attack on a traditional social institution–it’s an attack on the order of nature itself. That was made clear again this week when an Iowa court ruled that a child whose mother was a lesbian “married” to a woman and whose father was an anonymous sperm donor should have both female “spouses” listed on the child’s birth certificate. The ruling was based on a legal principle called “the presumption of paternity,” which historically has stated that when a child is born to a married woman, her husband is presumed to be the father of that child. In other words, the law “presumed” what was almost always true. But in the wake of the Iowa Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2009, Judge Eliza Ovrom has twisted the “presumption of paternity” into a “presumption of parentage.” So what was once a presumption of something that was nearly always biologically Read more…

Passports in the UK will no longer list Mother and Father on a child’s passport.  Only Parent 1 and Parent 2 will be listed.

Documents seen by the Daily Mail suggest the change was made as a result of lobbying by the gay rights group Stonewall. The Home Office Diversity Strategy’ states: ‘IPS [the Identity and Passport Service] is working with Stonewall in response to an issue about having to name a “mother” and “father” on the passport  application form.’

Stonewall has gotten the government to impose Parent 1 and Parent 2 on the passports, in the oh-so-reasonable attempt to spare people embarrassment at the border.  I want you to think about changing the birth certificates to have Parent 1 and Parent 2.  This would mean that the government would take no notice at all of which person has a biological connection with the child. Not mother and second parent. Nor mother or co-parent.  Just Parent 1 and Parent 2. Biology is out of the equation. We couldn’t have the biological mother being “privileged” over her “partner,” now could we?

This is where the decoupling of sex and reproduction from marriage has led us. No more natural parents, only legal parents. Years ago, the idea was, “every child a wanted child.”  Now we’ve come to the point where “Every child an adopted child,” whether you gave birth to the baby or not.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044491/PC-passport-Goodbye-mother-father-Now-Parent-1-2-appear-form.html#ixzz1fiCgXrPV

by Sheila Liaugminas

In the public schools, parents are losing more rights with more frequency these days.

The California school system has been in the news a lot in recent months for its change in curriculum to make it not only gay-friendly, but featured. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

There was an uproar in New Zealand recently about sex education when a father told the NZ Herald he had pulled his son out of sex education because the teacher had told his class that anal and oral sex were alternatives to intercourse and that it was okay to play with a girl’s private parts as long as she consented. The boy was only 12. His class was also told to lie on the floor and imagine that the whole word way gay. Other parents came up with their own horror stories. Read more…

by Bob Kellogg

Beginning next spring, fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade students in the DC schools will take a 50-question sexual education standardized test. But Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council (FRC) says that is raising some concerns. Read more…

Back in July, the California legislature passed SB 48.  It mandates that all public schools must include positive discussions of the sexual orientations of transgender, bisexual, and gay Americans when teaching their contributions to history.  This includes rewriting text books and using supplemental discussion materials. Read more…

by Sal Gaglio, Jr.

In an era of expanding globalization and international governance, many Americans have espoused serious concerns about various treaties which could be ratified in the near future.  A prime example is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).    Read more…

The Declaration on the Authority of Parents and Guardians in the Education of their Children is a statement drafted by the Catholic Civil Rights League (Canada) and offered to all people of good will who accept the principles it affirms. It does not depend upon particular religious beliefs. Read more…

Note: This post was researched and written by Mr. Austin Muck, second year law student  at SMU, and legal intern for the summer at the Ruth Institute.  Dr J  

Recently the Supreme Court of Ohio appropriately decided a case that protected the constitutional right of parents to determine what is in the best interest of their children.  Subsequently, the Columbus Dispatch published an article putting the decision in negative light.  The article left out key facts of the case in order to portray it as an infringement on parental rights of same-sex partners.  In the case, Mullen decided to have baby, a decision supported by her girlfriend Hobbs.  However, the women split two years after Mullen had the baby.  Immediately after the split, Hobbs, with no biological relation, sought partial custody of the child.   Hobbs claimed Mullen relinquished her sole custody, because several documents— that were later revoked—listed Hobbs as the “co-parent in every way” and because Mullen held her out as a parent.  However, Mullen consistently refused to enter into or sign any formal shared-custody agreement when presented with the opportunity to do so.  This is a fact the article fails to mention.  Read more…

by Bill May

AB 499, the bill which permits 12 year old children to give consent, without their parents’ knowledge, for vaccines or other medication to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, was surprisingly pulled from the Senate floor July 7 and referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. A new hearing has been scheduled for August 15. Read more…

I haven’t seen many details on the Delaware case I posted the other day.  But one fact is clear: the non-mother in same sex couple did not do a second party adoption. If she had done an adoption, she would have the same parental rights as the woman who went to Kazakhstan to adopt the child in the first place.  With a second party adoption, there would be no case here at all. According to the story, “Delaware does allow such adoptions, and Guest intended to file those papers later.”  

She “intended” to file for adoption, but never did.  We can only speculate as to why.

1. Maybe she just didn’t get around to it, and there was no other reason.

2. Maybe she didn’t really want to.  Maybe she only wanted to after the sexual relationship broke up, and she wanted to be vindictive.  Dissolving sexual relationships can bring out the worst in people.

3. Maybe the adoptive mother decided, all things considered, that she didn’t want to allow her child to be adopted by someone else. 

To those of you who are defending this Delaware law, I have a couple of questions.

1. Does it make any difference to you, which of these reasons accounts for Guest’s failure to file the adoption papers?

2. Does it make any difference to you, whether Guest had a sexual relationship with Smith or not?  And if it does, explain why Guest’s sexual involvement with an adoptive mother should make her automatically a priveleged candidate for adopting her child?

Some German parents continue to be jailed for protecting their children’s Christian beliefs.

Five sets of parents in a German town have been punished for refusing to allow their elementary school-aged children to participate in school sex-education programs (see earlier article). “[The children are] being put through an interactive sex-education play which teaches them that if something feels good, then you should do it,” explains Roger Kiska with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). Read more…

This is kind of nuts. I’m glad I live in the U.S.

by Carolyn Moynihan

A German mother is in prison as a result of resisting state measures to force objectionable “sexual education” on her children. Her husband has already served his 43-day sentence. The couple bring the number of Christian parents imprisoned for this reason to 10. Read more…

This is the kind of stuff that concerns me. It’s the stuff that will be pushed more and more if SSM is legalized everywhere. I think this goes beyond merely pushing equality and anti-bullying (somewhat understandable there) but gives unspoken encouragement to the gay lifestyle. Is that really necessary? I think the idea is to cause less confusion, not more.

Bill Bumpas – OneNewsNow

Brian Camenker, president of MassResistance!, tells OneNewsNow a concerned mother first alerted his group of the panel discussion that took place at Concord-Carlisle High School in late October during which seven teachers shared their “coming out” stories and encouraged the reported standing-only audience to do the same. Read more…

Still traveling with the NOM Summer Marriage Tour, this July 17 talk by Dr. J comes from Albany.  (You can also listen to it on our podcast page.)  This time around she addresses some of the problems with same-sex marriage and the dissolution of the biological basis of the family.  Midway through her address, a group of rainbow protesters approached and surrounded the Marriage Tour assembly (Dr J refers to them in her speech around 7:35).

Click here to listen!

Albany, New York

Two more disputed lesbian custody cases are coming in Ohio. both these cases have the following features:
1. a biological mother does not want her former lesbian partner to have parental rights over her child.
2. the former partner and the mother dispute many details of their relationship to each other and their agreement regarding the child.
3. no second party adoption was done, although in one case, “But before the child was born, Mullen (the biological mother) signed legal documents naming Hobbs (her lesbian partner) as Lucy’s co-parent. After the couple broke up, Mullen voided that agreement.”

Without knowing what this agreement actually said, it is hard to know what is going on here. But what is clear, is that adoption is the traditional way the law has attached parental rights to people who are not biologically related to the child. With that in mind, listen to this chilling statement:

Camilla Taylor, a senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal, an advocacy group for gays, said Ohio law recognizes the parental rights of people who have no biological relationship with a child. Read more…

I can hardly believe this story. Homeschooling in Sweden is legal. Why has the state removed this child from his parents? Failure to vaccinate? Is this really the Swedish liberal utopia?

The HSLDA documented that the child was removed “without a warrant or reasonable cause to believe that he was being harmed.

“Their reasoning? Dominic was being homeschooled, which is permitted by Swedish law, and his parents had also legally opted out of giving him standard vaccinations,” the group said.

Further, in December, “after being kept in state custody for several months with minimal visitation from his parents, a Swedish court upheld this decision.”

Christer told WND that other parents who find themselves in such situations should “get a good lawyer” immediately.

“We’re going to have a meeting with the social board in a few days,” he said. “We’re going to talk at the meeting about if they can return him.”

He said he and his wife have been shocked by what has happened.

I don’t know why the MSM is so enthused about these “landmark gay custody cases,” which are supposedly “bringing us into the 21st century.” These cases, unfortunately, illustrate I am completely justified in my concerns about the direction of family law, under the tutelage of the gay lobby and the influence of same sex marriage. This is a case in which the courts are trying to assign parental rights to a person who is not related to the children, either through biology or adoption.

Let us call this person a “non-parent.” Read more…

The Houston Baptist University has just founded the Guild Institute for Christian Family Studies on their campus. I am truly honored that they invited me to give the Inaugural Lecture for this Institute. They lost no time in getting the video of my talk up on You Tube. I just gave this talk on Monday night!
I look forward to collaborating with my new friends at HBU on a variety of academic projects.
Watch the YouTube video…..

Readers interested in how accomodating lesbian parents will impact the definition of parenthood should take a careful look at this post, by Julie Shapiro and the discussion in the comments.   She is referring to the Santa Cruz case, in which a woman who conceived twins with a known sperm donor, left the lesbian relationship Read more…