Sexual politics – Dr. J's Blog

Ruth Institute Statement on being cut off by Vanco

The Ruth Institute, of which I am the President and Founder, issued this statement on Friday, August 31:

The Ruth Institute learned at 2 PM Thursday that Vanco, our on-line donation processing service, was cancelling our service immediately. Their letter stated:

Vanco has elected to discontinue our processing relationship with The Ruth Institute. The organization has been flagged by Card Brands as being affiliated with a product/service that promotes hate, violence, harassment and/or abuse. Merchants that display such attributes are against Vanco and Wells Fargo processing policies.”

We immediately went to the donation page on our website and found it had already been shut down. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., Founder and President of the Ruth Institute made these statements in response:

The Ruth Institute’s primary focus is family breakdown, and its impact on children: understanding it, healing it, ending it. If this makes us a “hate group,” so be it.
Vanco, Card Brands, and Wells Fargo are private businesses. The Ruth Institute respects their right to conduct their businesses as they see fit. We just wish wedding photographers, bakers, and florists received the same respect.
No one from Vanco, Card Brands or Wells Fargo ever contacted the Ruth Institute to inquire about how we “promote hate, violence, harassment and/or abuse.”
The Ruth Institute is listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Map,” which was recently in the news. We have been on this “Hate Map” since 2013. To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever been inspired to riot or shoot anyone by our activities.
We have compiled the items which some groups have found objectionable on a page called “Where’s the Hate?” Anyone interested can review that material and judge for themselves whether the Ruth Institute belongs on a list with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.
The Vanco company markets itself to religious organizations. Many churches use their services for processing donations. We surmise that Vanco dropped us because we hold views about marriage, family and human sexuality that are considered “Anti-LGBT.” Our beliefs are the common heritage of all Christian groups. Christian organizations that utilize Vanco’s services may wish to reconsider.
Donors to the Ruth Institute can rest assured that their private information has not been compromised. Supporters can send checks to our main office, 4845 Lake St.; #217; Lake Charles, LA 70605.

To interview Dr. Morse, please email info@ruthinstitute.org.

The Ruth Institute’s Statement on the SPLC “Hate Map”

For immediate release, August 23, 2017.

The Ruth Institute’s primary focus is family breakdown and its impact on children: understanding it, healing it, ending it. If this makes us a “hate group,” so be it.

Once again, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Map” is in the news, this time due to CNN publishing it in the wake of the events in Charlottesville. The Ruth Institute is listed on that map as an “anti-LGBT” group. In fact, The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization creating a mass social movement to end family breakdown by energizing the Survivors of the Sexual Revolution.

We were first listed on that map in 2013. At that time, no one from the SPLC contacted us about the possibility of being included on their “hate map.” They made no effort to understand our mission, then or now. No one outside the SPLC knows how organizations come to be included on the list. No one knows how to get off the list. The SPLC sets itself up as judge, jury and enforcer of the charge of “hate.”

People who cannot defend their positions using reason and evidence resort to name-calling to change the subject away from their anemic arguments. The “hate group” label is a club such people invented to bludgeon their political opponents.

The Ruth Institute’s primary focus is family breakdown, and its impact on children: understanding it, healing it, ending it. If this makes us a “hate group,” so be it.

We have assembled a few of the materials that some have found hateful on our page called Where’s the Hate? The Ruth Institute invites the public to review these items and decide for themselves who is “hate-filled.”

The Ruth Institute categorically condemns white supremacy, racism, Nazism, and all violent totalitarian political movements. However, under the circumstances, the Ruth Institute is honored by the “hate group” label, pinned upon us by people who show no capacity for reasoned argument.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, please email us at info@ruthinstitute.org.

This statement was originally published at The Ruth Institute, August 23, 2017.

Crying Wolf at the SPLC

I categorically condemn the Alt-Right, white supremacy, racism, Nazism and all violent totalitarian political movements. But I am a bit confused. I thought I was supposed to be a member of the Alt-Right, or a racist, or a Nazi, since I voted for Donald Trump. I guess I am even supposed to be in sympathy with the Alt-Right marchers in Charlottesville.

Dealing With the “Hate” Label

People like me who have had the “hate” label pinned on them face a dilemma: we can defend ourselves and say, “I don’t hate anyone. I just don’t agree with you.” In my experience, this strategy goes nowhere. The more we attempt to defend ourselves, the more we appear, well, defensive. Hence, not believable.

Our other choice is to say, “The heck with it. I know I’m not a hater, bigot or racist. I officially no longer care what anyone thinks of me.” This second course has a certain nobility to it. But it presents dangers of its own. People can easily become jaded and cynical about the whole concept of “hate” and “bigotry.”

In the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that this has been my preferred strategy. You see, the organization I lead, the Ruth Institute, is listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Map.” I don’t know how one gets on the SPLC’s “Hate Map.” And I certainly do not know how one gets off it.

Is It “Anti-LGBT” to Say Children Need Their Own Parents?

I suppose I am an “anti-LGBT” hater, because I believe children need their own parents. So here is my question: If believing children need their own parents lands the Ruth Institute a spot on the “hate map,” what words adequately describe white supremacists or neo-Nazis?

I am clear on one point: Sexual revolutionaries gain a strategic advantage by labeling people like me. Guilt by association is irrational, but powerful. The fear of being labeled a racist provides a potent disincentive for people to voice the view that children need their own parents. Silencing people relieves the Identity Politicians and Sexual Revolutionaries from the effort of having to defend their ideas.

This is convenient for said Identity Politicians and Sexual Revolutionaries, because their ideas are indefensible. Children actually do need their own parents. Sexual orientation is not the equivalent of race. Two mothers do not equal two fathers do not equal a mother and a father, and certainly not one’s own mother and father.

One typical Revolutionary response at this point is, “Why are you singling out gay people? What about divorce?” Please be aware that the Ruth Institute spends a LOTof time talking about divorce and other forms of family breakdown. Don’t change the subject. Society’s injustice to children through divorce is proof-positive that depriving children of a parent through genderless marriage will also be unjust.

This “Hate” Labelling is a Dangerous Game

But what does any of this have to do with being a Nazi? Or a racist? Or advocating violence? Nothing.

and Same Sex Parenting. Kids need their own parents!

Our “opinion-makers” in the media, academia and assorted left-wing think tanks are playing a dangerous game. They have told us that the views of many ordinary decent Americans are the equivalent of racism. Some of those same ordinary decent Americans are fed up. They know they are not racists, haters or bigots. But we no longer have an adequate public vocabulary to describe actual haters, bigots and racists.

As I said, I categorically condemn the Alt-Right, white supremacy, racism, Nazism and all violent totalitarian political movements. You may search the Ruth Institute’s website all day long, and never find a racist word. Instead, what you will find are reasons and evidence to support sentiments that align with the vast majority of Americans, black and white, male and female. Children need their own parents. Men and women are different. Sex makes babies and therefore society has every right to expect people to control their sexual impulses.

The advocates of the Sexual Revolution cannot defend their ideas. That is why people with my views end up on their “Hate Map.”

On Wednesday, August 23, the Ruth Institute released a statement being included on SPLC’s “Hate Map.” You can read that statement here. The Ruth Institute has also created a special page called “Where’s the Hate?” which lists items that some have deemed “hateful.” They invite the public to review these items and determine for themselves who is actually “hateful.”

Originally published at The Stream, August 23, 2017.

Beauty and the Beast

My son and I saw the new Beauty and the Beast. It was lovely. Magical. Almost perfect.

This is the story everyone wants to hear: darkness and evil and selfishness transformed by love into light and good and self-surrender. Life and love conquer death and fear.

The ultimate Christian Story: Death does not get the last word.

This just happens to be the Christian story. That is why we never tire of hearing this story. It is hard-wired into our hearts, by our Creator. We were meant for love, for communion with others, for radical self-giving. The Nihilist Story that nothing really matters just doesn’t work for us. Nor does the Lone Wolf Story, that no one really needs anyone for anything.

What about the Beauty and the Beast “gay moment?” Interestingly enough, LeFou doesn’t really fit the Official Gay Storyline. He is unsure of his masculinity. By attaching himself to the hyper-masculine Gaston, he can reinforce his own sense of maleness.

But his attraction to Gaston does not do anything positive for him. In fact, it weakens him. LeFou lied for him. He acquiesced in an attempted murder. He participated in the mob violence. All along, he knows that he is doing wrong, but he stifles his conscience, all for the sake of pleasing Gaston. When Gaston finally throws him under the bus (actually, under the piano), LeFou has second thoughts. After he mentally ditches Gaston, he can fight for what he knows to be right.

In other words, he becomes a truly manly man. He doesn’t need Gaston. At the end of the film, he is dancing with women, along with every other man in the castle.

Is it really a gay moment” in the last scene when he momentarily gets partnered with a man? Or is it reversion to heterosexuality when LeFou dances happily with women in the bulk of the scene? More importantly, what is this even doing in the movie? It adds nothing to the theme of self-giving love.

Director Bill Condon paid obeisance to the Big Gay Activist Machine, by hinting about the “exclusively gay moment,” to “the UK’s best-selling gay magazine.”

But was it enough? Of course not. Nothing is ever enough for the Activists. Cracked and Polygon panned it. USA Today called it “queerbaiting:” promising just enough to get gays into the theaters, but not nearly enough.

As David Horowitz has said in another context, for the true revolutionary, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

The Disney people allowed themselves to paint a mustache on their Mona Lisa of a film, in order to placate the Activists, who, in the end, were not satisfied. I wonder how the Gay Artists who worked on Beauty and the Beast actually felt about it. I seriously doubt that everyone who is same sex attracted puts activism ahead of art.

Yes, a viewer could blink and miss these moments in the theater. When the DVD comes out, and parents watch it endlessly, how will the “gay moments” hold up? All the rest of this live-action remake could be watched again and again, without losing its beauty or magic. But the gratuitous gay scenes will be boring the second time you see them. They are the gay equivalent of a juvenile fart joke.

A Friendly Amendment to “The Benedict Option”

No mention of Pope St. John Paul II: That’s odd.

Dreher’s chapter on the Sexual Revolution neglects both John Paul II and contraception. That struck me as odd.

St. John Paul wrote volumes, literally, on the human sexuality. Michael Waldstein, the editor of the second edition of Male and Female He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, goes so far as to say that this work is JPII’s response to Cartesian mind-body dualism. I agree with him.

Dreher liberally quotes Wendell Berry, who speaks eloquently on gender complementarity, but who can’t figure out the problem with genderless marriage. But no mention of JPII. That is just: odd.

Relentless propaganda for the Sexual Revolution

Along with neglecting the person of JPII, Dreher neglects the issue of contraception. The government and the major cultural elites have engaged in near-constant promotion of the contraceptive ideology: everyone is entitled to unlimited, child-free, care-free, costless sex. Without this ideology, the distortions of sexualty Dreher rightly decries would not be even remotely plausible. Perhaps these two omissions are related. He quotes Michael Hanby, in the chapter on technology. I know for a fact that Hanby understands the connection between technology, contraception and modernity. How could Dreher overlook this point?

So here is my friendly amendment to the Benedict Option. Dreher includes many suggestions for Benedict Option communities. Here are a few additional suggestions for a counter-cultural Christian sexual lifestyle. First, for young people of child-bearing age:

Throw away your condoms, your diaphrams and your pills. (But don’t flush them down the toilet: its probably not good for the environment.)
Go to your doctor and ask him or her to remove your IUD or the implants from your arms.
Ladies, begin charting your cycle. It is completely harmless, and you will know your body very well before you get married.
Young married couples, go take a good Natural Family Planning class. Learn to cooperate with God, and with your body. I don’t care which method: Billings, the Sympto-Thermal Method, or any other fertility awarenss method. The right method for you, is the one that you will use regularly and comfortably.

For old people like me who are past child-bearing age, you can help the young families in your community:

Support them in getting married at a reasonable age, in their mid-twenties, rather than insisting they wait until they have a Masters degree and their student loans paid off. That may mean:
Help them avoid college debt in the first place.
Help them with babysitting, transportation, and other necessary chores, if they have kids while they are still in school or in the early stages of their careers.
Help them with low-cost housing.
Be pro-active in seeing what things would improve the quality of
The true counter-cultural radical.

their family lives. We got recruited this past weekend, to do yard clean-up for a family expecting their 7th child. By “we” I mean me, my husband and our 28 year-old son. We were recruited by a couple in their 30’s, who observed the situation, and moved into action. We try to say “yes” as often as possible to these requests.
Above all, tell them how much you enjoyed your parenting years, and how the kids will be grown before you know it, and how you wish you could have had more kids.

I can honestly say that a lot of us Baby Boomers wish we had more kids. We were full participants in the Sexual Revolution. We didn’t figure out that we were being bamboozled until it was too late.

(If you’d like to share your story, consider contributing to our Tell Ruth the Truth blog. We’re always on the look-out for honest, heart-felt tales that will encourage the young to stay the course, and to discourage them from buying the lies of our toxic sexual culture.)

Christian sexual morality is good news for everyone, male or female, gay or straight, young or old. And, Dreher correctly observes, getting sex right is the key to rebuilding a truly Christian civilization.

“The Upper Class is Communist”

“By any Marxian pattern of how classes behave, the upper class should be for you and the lower classes should be against you. But it is the upper class that is most violent against you. How do you explain that?”

Henry Luce, the founding publisher of Time magazine, asked this question of Whittaker Chambers at a private dinner. This was during the period when Chambers was testifying that Alger Hiss was part of an extensive network of Soviet spies inside the US government in the 1940’s. “All the best people,” inside and outside of the government, supported Alger Hiss. Meanwhile, Whittaker Chambers received cards and letters of support from ordinary people of modest means from across the country.

Chambers reports that a “witty European whom I shall call Smetena” replied to Luce’s question:

“You don’t understand the class structure of American society or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are communists.” *

Today, we could modify this statement slightly and say: “The poor are Democrats. The working class are Republicans. The Elites are advocates of Moral Relativism. ” Or “The Elites are advocates of Multi-culturalism.” Or “The Elites are advocates of “the Sexual Revolution.”

What do all these ideologies have in common? They are all totalitarian ideologies.

Communism is a fantasy ideology that says that we can have prosperity and justice without private property and with government control of the entire economy. It cannot be done. But “All the Best People” were absolutely convinced that attempting it was a moral duty. The attempt to do the impossible empowered the State to an unimaginable degree.

Billionaire investor George Soros: financier of Totalitarian Fantasy Ideologies around the world.

Moral Relativism is a fantasy ideology that makes the truth-claim that there is no such thing as truth: there is only “truth” which is socially constructed. This belief system leads directly to the Law of the Strongest, since it short-circuits any appeal to truth, reason or evidence. This allows the People in Power to label anyone they dislike, or anyone who hinders their agenda du jour as bigots.

Multi-culturalism is a subset of Moral Relativism. It is a fantasy ideology that claims to be unable to detect any differences among cultures. Ditto for empowering those who already have power.

The Sexual Revolution is a fantasy ideology that says that a good and decent society should separate sex from babies and both from marriage and that all differences between men and women are socially constructed. Ditto that this ideology is impossible to implement. But, this belief system leads to the destruction of the most basic human bonds. This destruction allows Elites to move into the legitimate sphere of the family, take it over and refashion it at will.

The motto of the Davos power elites of the world.

In short, Elites like these ideologies because they empower those who already have power: economic, political or cultural power. By contrast, the institutions of self-government allow people with minimal power to nonetheless rule their own lives. This is why the Elites prefer court rulings to elections, mass society to localized society, mass media to personal participation and a highly regulated global economy to small scale enterpreneurs.

*(Quotation from Witness by Whittaker Chambers, pp. 539-540.)

Divorce Reform: Take your stand.

Representative Matt Krause of Texas has introduced a bill to limit no-fault divorce in that state. Ruth Readers: it is time to put up or shut up about family breakdown.

We have a petition that anyone can sign. It just says we support Rep Krause’s effort to limit no-fault divorce. You do not have to live in Texas to sign it.

Conservatives complain and wring their hands over “losing the culture wars.”

We can’t honestly complain about losing a battle we never even fought.

“Kids need a mom and a dad,” the constant mantra of the pro-marriage movement, is not nearly strong enough. “Kids need their own mom and dad,” is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I’m sorry to get in your face about this. But children are entitled to a relationship with both parents, unless some unavoidable tragedy takes place to prevent it.

“I’m tired of your father,” is not an unavoidable tragedy. It is very avoidable.
“I’m running off to marry my secretary,” is not an unavoidable tragedy. It is a selfish act of injustice to the children of the marriage.

These are the divorces that no-fault protects. When people say, “but we need no-fault divorce because fault is too hard to prove,” adultery and selfishness are sneaking in the backdoor.

Conservative Christians complained about “gay marriage” harming children.

No-fault divorce harms children.

Conservative Christians complained about “gay marriage” being un-Biblical.

No-fault divorce is un-Biblical. See Matthew 19. Don’t whine to me about the so-called “exception clause,” aka “escape hatch big enough to drive a Mac Truck through.”

Why were people against gay marriage? I don’t know about you. But I know why I was. I saw that it would harm children’s legally-recognized rights to have a relationship with both parents.

We at the Ruth Institute were virtually alone in the “Marriage Movement” in arguing this way. And I am pretty sure I know why. Once you say, “Kids have a right to their own parents,” you have to be willing to start talking about divorce, single-parenthood and donor conception. Most of the Marriage Movement bobbed and weaved to avoid these topics.

The Ruth Institute did not. I am grateful to our supporters who have stood by us as we made these arguments. I am not ashamed to say:

no-fault divorce is an injustice to children.
single-motherhood by choice is an injustice to children.
donor conception is an injustice to children.
gay “marriage” and gay parenting is an injustice to children.

The Gay Lobby accused us of hypocrisy, saying we didn’t really mean it about any of those other topics. We just really hated gay people. Divorce and single-motherhood and all the rest were just window dressing.

Too bad. We talked about children’s rights then. We continue to talk about children’s rights, now, long after the dust has settled on the whole gay “marriage” controversy. We intend to keep talking about it.

What about you? Will you sign our petition, supporting Rep. Krause and his divorce reform?

Why does the media care about crowd sizes all of a sudden?

ne-cute-girls-dc-2011-300x224 — Cute girls from Omaha, at the March for Life in 2011, (Photo by Friend of Ruth, Steve Hicks)

How many people watched the Trump inaguarion? I have no idea, and I honestly don’t care. The Main Stream Media is going hysterical over it, which I find funny.

Trump And His Press Secretary Flagrantly Lied On Their First Full Day In Office. That Matters.

stanford-students-for-life-2011 — Stanford Students for Life, West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco (!) 2011. photo by yours truly.

The March for Life has commemorated the Roe v Wade anniversary for over 40 years. The media consistently under-report the event itself, and the size of the crowds. The media will have a chance to redeem itself this Friday. We shall see whether they report on the presence of half-million peaceful Marchers for Life, most of them young. We shall see if they give as much time to Feminists for Life, Students for Life and the busloads of students who come in from all over the country, as they did to the vulgar, all-abortion-all-the-time, probably-paid protesters. Not to mention the additional marches across the country, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and many other cities.

walk-for-life-2013-mexican-dancers — Diversity anyone? Mexican dancers at the West Coast Walk for Life, 2013. Photo by yours truly.

This pattern can be seen calling 350,000, “thousands” in 2010, over 300,000 pro-lifers in 2012 were treated equally with 11 pro-abortion protesters, 500,000 attended in 2013 and the media ignored them. (To be fair, USA Today did a pretty good job in 2015.) In 2016, the biggest stories were about the snowstorm which reduced attendance down to a mere 200,000, instead of the usual half-million.

Check out this video from 2016.

Of course, it would be better if Trump did not exaggerate. But you know what would be even better? If the Main Stream Media took a good look at itself in the mirror. Trump voters and Trump supporters are going to forgive him, again and again, including for things that ought not be forgiven.

Main Stream Media, you have only itself to blame for this situation: ya’ll have been so completely clueless for years.

Memo to the Media: redeem yourselves this Friday, and cover the March for Life. It won’t kill you, just this once.

Catholics don’t pray to Mary, and why it matters

I asked all my readers to say the Rosary every day, in the last Ruth Institute newsletter of 2016. (You are not a subscriber? Easily corrected.) I gave my non-Catholic readers a non-Rosary suggestion for stepping up their prayer lives.

mary-at-st-matthews — Statue of the Mother of God at St. Matthews Cathedral in DC. She reaches out to the viewer, pointing us toward her divine Son in heaven.

I got one very charming note from a non-Catholic who was very concerned that I was praying to Mary. I would like to clarify this bit of Catholic teaching.

We do not pray to Mary or any saint. We ask dead people to pray for us, just as we ask living people to pray for us. That is all.

If it is coherent to ask a friend to pray for me (and of course, it is) it is perfectly ok to ask a deceased friend to pray for me.

We do not worship Mary. (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) #971.) We do not worship the saints. (CCC #956). We do not worship statues. (CCC# 1670). We never have.

This is important, whether you are Catholic or not because it illustrates how factual errors, constantly promoted, can take on lives of their own. I do not know who started these rumors about Catholic belief. I do know that they took on political and economic importance around the time of the Reformation. Ambitious people had an incentive to spread these rumors, promote these rumors, feed these rumors. No matter how many times we say, “we do not worship Mary or the saints or the statues,” they kept insisting that we did. This has been going on for at least 500 years.

No doubt someone will write to me and tell me I am mistaken and that in fact I do worship Mary. I issue this challenge: if you can find me any definitive magisterial statement by a competent Church authority to the contrary, I will listen to what you have to say. But I don’t think you can find such a statement.

Today, we have ambitious people promoting flat out lies about the human condition, such as: Kids don’t need their own parents. All differences between men and women are socially constructed. A fetus is not a person. Bruce Jenner is a woman. And so on.

Just because these statements are false does not mean that they will die out. The people who benefit from them will keep promoting them, no matter how many times we correct the record.

We have to call this out for what it is: lying. It won’t go away on its own. It could go on for 500 years. I, for one, am not going to sit by quietly while such a thing gets started.