The National Organization for Marriage Education Fund is happy to announce that the Ruth Institute will be running as an independent organization effective November 1, 2013. The Ruth Institute has operated as a project of NOM's Education Fund over the last three years. NOM is proud of the great work that the Ruth Institute is doing and is happy that its work has grown to the point where it will operate independently.
Category Archives: Education
Redefining Marriage "Consistently Heedless of Logic"
October 15, 2013 – 4:30 pm
Writing today in The Public Discourse, Matthew J. Franck probes "the prominence of [the] assault on reasoning itself" within the movement to redefine marriage:
Rather than say what marriage is—which anyone can see is an absolute prerequisite to saying whether "equality" demands its availability to partners never before thought capable of marrying—these advocates simply shout "marriage equality" ever more loudly, point to an array of "government benefits" linked to marital status, and make their desire for the thing substitute for an argument about what the thing is that they want.
You can read the rest of his article here.
Standing for Marriage on the College Campus
October 9, 2013 – 3:57 pm
To hear mainstream media tell it, every 20-something in the United States agrees with same-sex ‘marriage.’ Evidently Christine Guttery did not get the memo. The 20-year old English major from Louisiana State University recently penned a post for the school’s paper thoughtfully and winsomely defending the traditional definition of marriage. She writes:
I am against same-sex marriage, not because I hate the LGBT community — I don’t. Everyone deserves to be treated with equal respect and kindness, regardless of their sexual orientation. I am against same-sex marriage because same-sex relationships do not adhere to the definition of marriage, and there is no logical reason to redefine it.
…
The most common argument I hear is that everyone deserves to be happy with the one they love, and government should not deny anyone that right. But opponents of same-sex marriage are not proposing that same-sex couples be banned by law from choosing to have a relationship, but rather that such a union cannot be defined as marriage, because the nature of the union contradicts that of marriage.
…
As the definition of marriage broadens to mean different things and accepts different kinds of relationships, it loses its distinct identity and meaning. In this case, there is no point in recognizing marriage at all.
I am not against homosexuals having rights, but granting same-sex couples the right to marry is erroneous. Redefining marriage will deconstruct its original value. Louisiana should continue to defend the institution of marriage as outlined in the state constitution. (Read More)
It’s great to hear young people, especially on the college campus, carrying the banner for true marriage.
National Organization for Marriage California Backs Effort to Repeal Co-ed Bathroom Law
September 20, 2013 – 11:17 am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 20, 2013
Contact: Elizabeth Ray or Matille Thebolt (703-683-5004)
"AB1266, the co-ed bathroom law, is a horrible attempt by activists to strip society of all gender roles and uses children as a weapon in their culture war." — Brian Brown, NOM president —
Sacramento, CA — The National Organization for Marriage California (NOM) today announced that it has joined in the fight to repeal California's first-in-the-nation co-ed bathroom law, AB 1266. NOM is urging its members in California to assist in the effort to gather the nearly 505,000 required voter signatures to place the repeal on the November 2014 ballot, suspending the law until Californians can vote to reject it.
"AB1266, the co-ed bathroom law, is a horrible attempt by activists to strip society of all gender roles and uses children as a weapon in their culture war," said Brian Brown, NOM's president. "The National Organization for Marriage fully supports the efforts of the Privacy for All Students coalition to repeal this dangerous law. Opening our most vulnerable areas at school including showers, bathrooms and changing rooms to members of the opposite sex is politically-correct madness that risks the privacy and security of our children and grandchildren."
NOM has long warned that when marriage is redefined, other important social norms are soon destroyed. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the backers of Proposition 8 preserving marriage did not have the legal standing to bring an appeal of a lower court ruling finding traditional marriage laws to be unconstitutional, which resulted in same-sex marriage being imposed on the state in violation of the direct decision of the people themselves.
"Not even two short months after the US Supreme Court refused to uphold the right of over 7 million Californians to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the California Legislature passed AB 1266, the school co-ed bathroom law," said Brown. "They are forcing our school children to be exposed in showers and bathrooms to members of the opposite sex who claim a 'gender identity' with that sex. This new law doesn't prevent bullying - it is bullying. It is not about protecting kids; it damages kids."
The Privacy for All Students coalition is attempting to stop the law's implementation by gathering nearly 505,000 voter signatures by early November. The law will then be suspended until the people have the chance to reject it at the general election to be held in November 2014.
"We urge all our supporters to download a petition and to financially support the Privacy For All Students coalition effort," Brown said.
The National Organization for Marriage expects to play a significant role in getting the referendum on the ballot as it did in the Prop 8 campaign in 2008.
###
To schedule an interview with Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, please contact Elizabeth Ray (x130), [email protected], or Matille Thebolt (x143), [email protected], at 703-683-5004.
Paid for by The National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown, president. 2029 K Street NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. New § 68A.405(1)(f) & (h).
ADF: Professor Ordered Students to Support SSM
June 19, 2013 – 2:00 pm
A Tennessee community college professor ordered her students to wear ribbons supporting gay rights and said those who believed in the traditional definition of marriage are just “uneducated bigots” who “attack homosexuals with hate,” according to a legal firm representing several of the students in the class.
Students in a general psychology class at Columbia State Community College were directed by their professor to wear “Rainbow Coalition” ribbons for an entire day and express their support for the homosexual community, said Travis Barham, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Barham is calling for the college to punish Dr. Linda Brunton and order her to apologize to the students whose constitutional rights he believes were violated, according to a letter he sent to the community college president.
“Dr. Brunton essentially turned her General Psychology class into a semester-long clinic on the demands of the homosexual movement,” Barham said.
... According to her faculty page, Brunton is a member of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Educators Network and lists diversity issues among her professional interests.
Anti-Bullying Presentation Forces Middle School Girls to Ask for Same-Sex Kiss
April 22, 2013 – 3:56 pm
BEFORE marriage is redefined, we're always told these things will never happen. Yet this seems to be what always happens.
A recent anti-bullying presentation at a middle school in New York that focused on homosexuality and gender identity has angered parents after their daughters have come home to tell them they were forced to ask another girl for a kiss.
During the workshop for girls, the 13 and 14-year-olds were told to ask one another for a kiss. They were also taught words such as “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”
Parent Mandy Coon told reporters that her daughter was very uncomfortable with the exercise. “She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough; now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” she lamented. “They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.”
Coon stated that she was especially irate over the matter because parents were given no warning about the presentations, nor an opportunity to opt out. She is also dismayed that college students were granted the right to come into the classroom and encourage her daughter to be sexually active. -Christian News Network
Two UK Teachers Punished for Not Teaching About Gay Marriage
March 11, 2013 – 1:00 pm
A primary school teacher faced disciplinary action because she didn’t want to read to her class from a storybook about gay penguins.
The teacher, who has not been named, works in a school in a London Borough and her case has been told to a committee of MPs looking at the gay marriage Bill.
Another teacher, from Scotland, says he was pressurised to promote gay marriage against his will and it contributed to a breakdown.
The two teachers have remained anonymous because they fear for their careers, but have permitted a lawyer to outline their cases to Parliament.
LifeSiteNews Chief Promotes NOM's Latest MarriageADA Video
February 2, 2013 – 11:00 am
Patrick Craine, Canadian Bureau Chief of LifeSiteNews, promotes our latest MarriageADA video on the threat of same-sex marriage infringing on the rights of parents:
Just as Ontario’s new Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced plans to reintroduce an explicit sex-ed program, the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance, and our friend Damian Goddard have released a great video about a striking case where exactly this type of program has been used as a battering ram against parental rights.
... It’s bad enough that this stuff would be taught in the classroom at all – why not let parents judge for themselves when their kids are ready to discuss sex? – but now there’s an increasingly entrenched opposition to even informing parents when it comes up.
The video is an interview with Dr. Steve Tourloukis. Tourloukis asked the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to be told when his kids would be discussing same-sex “marriage” and other controversial issues in the classroom, but they said to do so would be a violation of “human rights.” So he’s taking them to court to get a declaration that the parent has primary authority over his children’s education.
The school board, amazingly, has the gall to oppose him in court on even such a basic proposition.
This type of abuse by schools is coming to cities across North America and the West, so parents need to be ready. Our children’s hearts and souls depend on it.
You can watch the video right here.
UK Government Source: Teachers May Face Firing for Refusing to Teach Gay Marriage
January 28, 2013 – 12:30 pm
As Great Britain's government prepares to vote on a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, an official from the Secretary of State for Education's office reportedly has expressed trepidation toward the bill, arguing that primary school teachers in the country could possibly lose their jobs if they do not teach about gay marriage in the classroom.
One unnamed senior source from the office of Michael Gove, who serves as the country's current Secretary of State for Education, has recently said that ultimately the U.K. government is not in control, should a teacher lose their job for refusing to teach same-sex marriage, and the case would ultimately go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, where the European Parliament is located.
... Additionally, those critical of the upcoming same-sex marriage bill argue that hospital chaplains and other people in authority may be faced with difficult decisions when their conscience conflicts with their work protocol.
"Shocking Impact on Schools if SSM Allowed", UK Experts Warn
January 22, 2013 – 2:00 pm
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children:
There will be a shocking impact on schools if same-sex marriage is passed into law, experts warned at Westminster press conference today.
Experts on family policy, sex education and ethics agreed that schools will become a focus for the promotion of radical and explicit homosexual material to schoolchildren. In addition, same-sex marriage will be used as a reason to silence objections by teachers and parents to explicit sex education.
The press conference was organised by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) www.spuc.org.uk , a leading pro-life and pro-family organisation, to launch its campaign warning headteachers about the consequences to schools of same-sex marriage (see further below for the full text of SPUC's letter to headteachers of all state-maintained secondary schools).
SPUC opposes the redefinition of marriage in law to include same-sex couples, because it would undermine the true nature of marriage and thus the pro-life benefits of marriage. Marriage offers the most protective environment for both unborn and born children. SPUC also campaigns against explicit sex education because such teaching fails to reduce abortions.
"A Student Who Voices Reservations About SSM Could be Accused of Bullying LGBT Students"
January 22, 2013 – 10:30 am
Katherine Kersten in the Star-Tribune on the agenda behind Minnesota's anti-bullying initiative:
"...Why this new law? The task force appears to presuppose that bullying is a pervasive and growing problem. In fact, however, incidents of bullying and intimidation have dropped markedly in recent years, according to surveys by the Department of Justice.
And while the task force gives the impression that LGBT students are a primary focus of bullying, evidence suggests that the vast majority of bullying is directed at other students. The DOJ surveys indicate that the percentage of 12- to 18-year-old students who reported being targets of hate-related words based on their sexual orientation fell from 1.0 percent in 2007 to 0.6 percent in 2009.
... Not surprisingly, the task force's proposed new antibullying regime would not treat all children equally, despite lip service to this goal. Instead, it focuses on students in "protected classes," including sexual orientation and "gender identity or expression."
Under the task force's vague and overbroad definitions of bullying and harassment, students could be punished for "direct or indirect interactions" that other students --especially those in protected groups -- claim to find "humiliating" or "offensive," that have a "detrimental effect" on their "social or emotional health," or even that promote a "perceived imbalance of power."
By this standard, a student who voices reservations about same-sex marriage could be accused of bullying LGBT students." (Star-Tribune)
French Government Warns Catholic Schools to Stay ‘Neutral’ on SSM
January 11, 2013 – 11:00 am
As French Catholics prepare to mobilize on January 13 for a national march against the creation of homosexual “marriage,” the country’s education minister is warning Catholic schools against participating, claiming that it could cause “homophobia” against homosexual students.
National Education Minister Vincent Peillon has written a letter to all of the country’s 8,300 Catholic school principals, claiming that they have the responsibility to maintain “neutrality” regarding the debate over homosexual “marriage” in their institutions, according to reports by Le Monde and the French Press Agency.
“It is your responsibility in effect to ensure that the debates that are occurring in French society not be expressed, in the schools and establishments, by the phenomena of rejection and homophobic stigmatization,” wrote Peillon.
... Peillon also asks principles to inform him “as quickly as possible regarding eventual incidents and regarding any initiative contrary to these principles, within the public institutions as well as the private institutions under contract.”
Kevin Williamson on Fourth-Grade Indoctrination
December 14, 2012 – 9:00 am
Kevin Williamson in National Review Online:
Next week, fourth-grade students at Penn Valley Elementary School in the gilded Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion will spend part of their school day watching and discussing a very clever piece of cinematic propaganda courtesy of organized homosexuality. The film is called That’s a Family!, and it is endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign along with other homosexual activist groups.
... That’s a Family! is not about tolerance or treating people decently. It is about indoctrination, a fact that its enthusiasts make little attempt to hide. It lists among its endorsers such Democratic worthies as Senator Barbara Boxer, who declares that the film can be used to “break down” attitudes she finds disagreeable. Loret Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher in (of course) San Francisco, wrote that the film provides “a gentle starting point to reach elementary age children with a message of respect for all differences before biases become entrenched and the pressures of middle school set in. . . . We have the opportunity to take an active, moral approach to deflating the power of stereotypes by addressing them in the classroom.”
... There are no cease-fires in the culture wars, because the Left simply will not stop until it has achieved total conformity, which it pursues under the banners of “tolerance” and “diversity,” i.e., a virtue the Left does not possess and a condition the Left will not abide. The front runs through every corporate human-resources office, every college campus, every church, and the fourth-grade classroom at Penn Valley Elementary School, too.
VICTORY: University Settles with Christian Julea Ward After Court Rules "Tolerance is a Two-Way Street"
December 11, 2012 – 11:30 am
Excellent news from the Alliance Defending Freedom:
Eastern Michigan University has agreed to settle an Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuit filed on behalf of Julea Ward, a graduate student whom the university expelled from a counseling program for abiding by her religious beliefs. As a result, a federal district court issued an agreed-upon order of dismissal Monday.
Even though counseling referrals are a common and accepted professional practice, the university expelled Ward when she sought to avoid violating her religious beliefs by referring a potential client to another counselor. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled in her favor.
“Public universities shouldn’t force students to violate their religious beliefs to get a degree. The 6th Circuit rightly understood this and ruled appropriately, so the university has done the right thing in settling this case,” said Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco, who argued before the court in October of last year. “When Julea sought to refer a potential client to another qualified counselor--a common, professional practice that is endorsed by her profession’s code of ethics--EMU denied the referral. Then it attacked and questioned her religious beliefs, ultimately expelling her from the program. We are pleased that Julea and her constitutionally protected rights have been vindicated.”
Visit our Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance page to learn more about citizens who have experienced discrimination and harassment for their pro-marriage views.
"I’m Socially Conservative, in College, and Need a Party"
December 11, 2012 – 9:00 am
Derek Bekebrede, a senior majoring in economics at Harvard, writes in search of a party that shares his social conservative principles:
"...John Londregan and Luis Tellez on Public Discourse already have shown why the Republican Party should continue its principled support of life and marriage, but the debate has thus far ignored a critical obstacle to the conservative movement’s efforts to appeal to youth: the American college campus. More than sixty years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote in God and Man at Yale that on college campuses, “the conservatives, as a minority, are the new radicals.” We remain so today.
After three years at the helm of Harvard’s student conservative movement, I know that the campus is not only liberal but also hostile to conservatives, especially social conservatives. As the Republican Party and fellow conservatives try to appeal to young voters, they must not ignore the university environment in which many of those voters live and learn. The actual state of America’s universities is worse than most Republicans realize, not because conservatives’ efforts have failed but because they have not wholeheartedly been tried. Instead of abandoning fundamental portions of the Republican platform, it’s time for the party to embrace a new one: outreach to America’s universities on social issues." -- The Public Discourse
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