Ruth Institute Blog

First of all this week, there was a big (about 5,000 observations) sophisticated (University of Chicago Business School) study of bad behavior in little boys. Conclusion: little boys benefit substantially from living with both their biological parents. The second study was a little (78 observations) simplistic (unrepresentative sample, ideologically motivated researchers) of the Quality of Life of the children of lesbian couples. Conclusion: the children of lesbian couples are just as happy and well-adjusted as their peers.  Read more…

Have you ever said this?

• “I know what I believe but I can’t explain it.”
• “It seems like we are losing. Are we on the wrong side of history?”
• “My church teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what do I say to people who don’t believe in God?”
• “I can tell that the marriage issue is really important, but I can’t convince my friends that this is urgent. Even my friends who agree with me!”

Then this Defending Marriage CD is just right for you! To read more and to order a copy, click here. As an added bonus, those who donate $100 or more to the Ruth Institute between now and Christmas, will receive this CD for free, as our thank you gift to you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To honor this special day, we’ve collected brief statements from college students and professionals involved in diverse ways in the marriage and life movements, and in the Ruth Institute. Here is what we are thankful for: Read more…

By Nicole Kay

Shortly after arriving Friday night, I was pleased to be able to address the entire conference of 250+ students and tell them about the Ruth Institute’s work supporting young adults. I told them about the mission of the Ruth Institute and about the Emerging Leaders program. Read more…

For a little while longer the Ruth Institute will offer the prologue and forward by Chuck Colson as a free download. You can also get individual chapters for only $1.50 each! OR, download the entire book for just $9. That’s a real deal!

Here’s a summary of what you’ll find in Chapter Two, “The Gift of Sex” Read more…

I’m writing this message from Provo, Utah, where I am spending the week contributing to an academic conference and a student symposium. Many of the Students for the Family Symposium organizers were graduates of Ruth Institute programs. This Symposium is unique in that it features a “Call for Papers” and gives students and young professionals the chance to present their work. As I was moderating one of the sessions, I thought to myself, “I have heard lots of this material before. “ Then I realized: these young people have learned from the Ruth Institute programs. This presentation is their chance to make these ideas their own, so they can feel confident expressing themselves in discussion or argument or debate. I was certainly gratified to see them growing in skill and competence. Your support makes it possible for us to continue educating these young people. Read more…

To put it simply, it’s been deleted. I think it’s been publicly agreed upon that Ari has gone over the top with this one, and his post isn’t being helpful to anyone. His comments were insensitive and received a just backlash. So, in order to get back to more germane matters, we will simply proceed without that particular post in place. Thank you for understanding.  Betsy, blog-mistress.

To our readers: I heartily concur with Betsy. Ari’s original post was in questionable taste. But his sarcasm in the comments  was beyond bad taste. Hurtful to some people.  Not helpful to anyone.  All heat, no light. Negative on balance. Down comes the post.

I enjoy running a free-wheeling, open discussion over here at the Ruth Institute.  In that environment, people sometimes step over the line. We’re pulling in the reins a bit on our own side. We still value an open and civil, exchange of ideas.

Thanks to everyone who participates in the Ruth Blog.

Dr J

by John-Henry Westen

SAN MARCOS, CA, January 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, has announced its first annual Reel Love Challenge, a video contest for young adults, aged 18-30. The contest is open to all young adults, married or single, male or female, in college, out of college, or never been anywhere near a college. “This contest is for everyone in the next generation to give their ideas about what sustains love over the course of a lifetime,” says Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of The Ruth Institute. Read more…

Have to download to watch:

http://rcpt.yousendit.com/1009399653/bb047d31da1224fc2ffcbfa504a6ace2

RUTH INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES POSTER CONTEST AS PART OF

“REEL LOVE CHALLENGE”

Photo Contest Invites Creative Slogans

SAN MARCOS, CA – The Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, announced a one month poster contest as part of its first annual Reel Love Challenge, a video contest targeting college students around the country, and aimed at promoting a positive view of marriage and lasting love.

The poster contest, which runs through the month of October and will award a flip camera to the winner, invites contestants to submit a photo holding a sign that completes the phrase “Reel Love Is ­­____.”

The poster is available for download at the contest’s website, http://www.ruthinstitute.org/reellovechallenge/posterContest.

Submissions will be received until October 31, and a winner will be announced November 1.

The one month poster challenge is part of the Ruth Institute’s Reel Love Challenge, which invites college students around the country to submit 30 second videos to the contest website answering the question “How is lifelong love possible?” Video submissions will be accepted from September 20, 2010 until February 1, 2011, followed by an awards ceremony in San Diego where finalists’ videos will be viewed and winners will be determined by a panel of notable judges.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, contact Mary Beth Hutchins by e-mail at mhutchins@crcpublicrelations.com

Keep checking the podcast page for more lectures from “It Takes a Family.”  The most recent one up is Dr. Robert Gagnon’s talk, entitled “Jesus and Sex.”  He’s a professor from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and he discussed what Jesus taught about sex–including marriage, homosexuality, and divorce–and how His teachings related to the Mosaic law and the mores of the culture.

Jesus and Sex @ ITAF

Book outlines stark divisions

By Cheryl Wetzstein, The Washington Times

Young parents Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston may have gotten engaged again recently, but they are still a quintessential “red” family trying to swim against the tide of family change, say two family law professors who have launched a debate about “red” and “blue” American families.

The 2004 and 2008 elections showed a divided America — and that division extends even to families, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone write in their book, “Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture.” Read more…

We are getting excited about our Gala August 12 near LAX. Southern CA supporters of the Ruth Institute should be getting an invitation in the mail shortly after the July 4th weekend. If you don’t get one, let us know! Or, just go here to sign yourself up!

This article from CNN quotes favorably our friends at the Love and Fidelity Network, based at Princeton. Evidently, students from a number of schools are trying to start nonreligious pro-abstinence clubs. This is a favorable report, because they are describing the students in their own terms, rather than putting scare quotes around them, or implicitly arguing with them. (To see why such groups are needed, check out this discussion I had on Fox News with someone who ought to be old enough to know better. Notice how she interrupts my every sentence….) Read more…

Sean Hannity reports that #100 on his list of wasted stimulus money” $219,000 on an academic study of female hook-up patterns at Syracuse University. Note that the professor/principle investigator explains that hooking up is a public health problem, or at the very least, correlated with public health problems. Why, then, do we not discourage hooking up, the way we discourage smoking and driving without seat belts? Instead of spending “stimulus money” to study a preventable public health problem, why not do something to actually prevent the preventable public health problem?

Remember yesterday’s post about Sex Week at Yale? Why aren’t the administrators at Yale taxed for their share of the public health costs they are creating? (This calls to mind a bigger problem: no one makes any money from people living chaste monogamous life-styles, whereas somebody makes money from each and every problem that flows from non-monogamous sex….)

My colleague Jamie Gruber found this and posted it over at the Ruth Youth blog.

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…

The winning essays from the Stand for the Family Symposium are already posted! Great job to Jamie and Betsy for getting those 18 essays up so quickly! There were three categories, with separate judging and prizes: Undergraduate essays, Graduate student essays, and Law student essays. They are all posted at the Marriage Library. Students, you can show your parents and friends your essay!

The BYU symposium generated a bit of local publicity. Here is an article about my opening talk that kicked off the conference. The author did a reasonable job of identifying the important points of my talk.

Americans are being taught to believe they’re generic humans, that “we’re not men and woman, we’re generic parents, we’re not moms and dads,” she said. “Ladies and gentlemen, there are no generic people!” Read more…

I have been in the student presentation sessions at the BYU Stand for the Family conference. The Ruth Institute sponsored the Call for Papers. We arranged for the judging and awarding of prizes. We had over 150 papers entered in our essay contest. The first place winner for undergraduate papers was Alyssa Brown. Her paper was a critique of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. She won first place from a field of over 100 entries in the undergraduate category.
Steve Francis won first place for the graduate papers with a paper on the New Natural Law and the definition of marriage. Sterling Olander won the first prize for a paper he wrote for a Law and Logic class, “Logical Fallacies Used by the Courts to Justify Same Sex Marriage Validate a Slippery Slope.” All these papers are works in progress, and may be substantially revised before they get published. We will be posting them on the Ruth Institute Marriage Library site, in the meantime.
Thanks to all students for their efforts!

Why just read when you can watch? 

Check out Dr. Morse on the Ruth Institute Youtube page.