“We will never surrender” - by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph. D.

In MercatorNet

The following are remarks prepared by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., for the Rhode Island legislature hearings on the redefinition of marriage and delivered there last week (January 15). Dr Morse is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage.

Almost two years ago, I came to this place to plead with you not to remove the gender requirement from marriage.[1]  I predicted that children would have three legal parents[2] and that custody disputes would involve three or more adults.[3]  I predicted greater attacks on religious liberty for those who resist your war against the gendered nature of the human body.[4]  I predicted the systematic removal of gendered language from the law. No more husbands and wives, only spouses. No more mother and father. Only Parent 1 and Parent 2.[5]  

All of these things have come to pass in other places.

Tonight, I have returned.

You will little note, nor long remember what I say here.   The rich people in our country have decided that we are going to have what you call same sex marriage.[6]  You will do what you have come to do.

So tonight, I have a few more predictions.

Some of you are in this fight for power, some for love.

For those of you who are in it for the power: I predict that even if you do not have enough votes this time, you will keep coming back until you do.

I predict that you will continue to remove any recognition of sex differences from the law.  The very bill you are considering tonight replaces “husbands” and “wives” and leaves only “parties.”   Banning a father daughter dance will seem like child’s play,[7] by the time you and your allies are done using the law to purge every last hint of sex differences from society.

I predict that you will grow more aggressive in attacking the natural bonds between parents and children.  You will continue to blur the distinction between “parent” and “non-parent.”[8]

But some excluded fathers will want a relationship with their children.[9] Some mothers will find sharing their child with another woman to be far more difficult than they expected.[10]  And some children will want to know their missing parent.[11]

No matter. Genderless marriage commits the state to taking sides against the natural parent and in favor of the socially constructed parent.

I predict that you will block any meaningful reform of the IVF Industry.  The IVF industry is guilty of grotesque exploitation of the poor by the rich, including the outsourcing of surrogacy to India.[12] I predict you will turn a blind eye to this and other abuses.

I predict that you will follow Quebec in its attempts to prohibit the belief that heterosexuality is normal.[13]  Wiping out a belief in something that is actually true will certainly open up vast vistas of government involvement in civil society.   Redefining marriage opens the door to increases in government power that could never be achieved any other way.

I do not know if any of these things are your intent or your wish.  But I predict they will be the outcome, the logical result of your marriage policy.

For those of you who are in it for the love, I have a few predictions for you too.

Many of us in the marriage movement are survivors of earlier phases of the Sexual Revolution.  We found that it didn’t work for us, the hook-ups, divorce, single motherhood, marital infidelity, cohabitation, as well as the contraception and abortion that made it all appear to be possible.  Only a few of us were wise enough to see from the beginning that this would end badly. And those who did see it, drew on the wisdom of the ancient Christian churches, churches that take a far longer view of things than most people do.

It would be astonishing if the steps you are contemplating tonight will work any better for you than the earlier stages did for us.

I predict that none of it will make you happy.  Not redefining marriage. Not the attempts to smother sex differences and biological connections. Not the further suppression of churches, religious organizations, and faith-filled private citizens. If normalizing homosexual activity were going to make you happy, it would have done so long ago.  You would not be so desperate today for affirmation from strangers.

And if any of you come to realize that the Sexual Revolution has been one empty promise after another, we will embrace you.  We will welcome you to our ragtag  ranks of  refugees, defectors and displaced persons from the great social civil war of our time.

Perhaps I will be mistaken, and you will never have a moment’s doubt for the rest of your lives.  In that case, we must continue to oppose you, to try to contain the damage we believe you are doing.

Even if we should lose this particular fight on this particular evening, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on the airwaves, we shall defend our beliefs, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight in the churches, we shall fight at the ballot box, we shall fight in the schools and in the courts, we shall fight on the web; we shall never surrender.

As for me, I shall sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I have done my duty to God and my country and to future generations. And with that, I wish you all, a good night. 

Notes

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[1] My testimony from February 2011 is available on-line at the Ruth Institute Marriage Library, http://www.marriagelibrary.org/2011/02/dr-morse%E2%80%99s-testimony-to-the-rhode-island-legislature-regarding-same-sex-marriage/.

[2] California passed a bill permitting a child to have three legal parents if in the opinion of the judge, it was in the child’s best interest.  This particular law did not require the consent of any of the parents.  Governor Jerry Brown vetoed this bill, saying, “I am sympathetic to the author’s interest in protecting children. … But I am troubled by the fact that some family law specialists believe the bill’s ambiguities may have unintended consequences. I would like to take more time to consider all of the implications of this change.”
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/09/jerry-brown-vetoes-bill-allowing-more-than-two-parents.html  See my analysis of this bill, and the situation that gave rise to it, “Why California’s Three Parent Bill was Inevitable,”  The Public Discourse , September 10, 2012. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/09/6197/For a shorter analysis, see “A Little Girl Named M.C.,” available on-line at: http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/20383/20

[3] For a Canadian case involving three parents see here: http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/10/19/groundbreaking-ruling-in-gay-custody-case
For a British case involving four parents, see here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047671/High-Court-judges-blast-gay-parents-fighting-little-sisters.html#ixzz1buTCawCX

[4] For example, an innkeeper in Vermont, http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/08/24/vermont-innkeepers-settle-discrimination-case/ , a minister in Ontario, Canada, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ontario-christian-minister-forced-to-conduct-same-sex-marriages-or-get-sack.  For more complete analysis  of the religious liberty implications of this bill, I defer to my learned colleague from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Ms. Kellie Fiedorek.

[5] Washington State’s new marriage bill replaces “husband” and “wife” with generic  “spouses” throughout the law.  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/6239.pdf
The U. S. State Department attempted to introduce Parent 1 and Parent 2 on US Passports. After a public outcry, the attempt was abandoned.  But the attempt is still significant because it illustrates the momentum for removing gender-specific language from the law. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010706741.html

[6] To cite just a few examples, in New York, Wall Street Republicans contributed the money necessary to redefine marriage in the legislature.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/nyregion/the-road-to-gay-marriage-in-new-york.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1  In Washington state, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos contributed $2.5 million to pass the referendum redefining marriage.  Contributions of this magnitude made it possible for the proponents of genderless marriage to outspend the advocates of conjugal marriage many times over.

[7]The Cranston,  Rhode Island school district banned a father daughter dance, under pressure from the ACLU, that such a dance would be improper gender discrimination. ” Father-daughter dances banned in R.I. as ‘gender discrimination’” Los Angeles Times,  September 18, 2012, http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-father-daughter-dances-gender-discrimination-20120918,0,2172144.story

[8] Family law radicals are already paving the way for the redefinition of parenthood, to go along with the redefinition of marriage.  One way to blur the distinction between parent and non-parent, and to break down “bionormativity,” is to create and/or expand the concept of “de facto parent,” in which a judge can decide whether someone unrelated to child either through biology or adoption, can nonetheless count as a parent.  “Court upholds woman’s ‘de facto’ parental rights,” Delaware on-line, April 18, 2011, The Delaware statute ”is not specific to same sex couples, but applies to other unmarried partners and stepparents.” http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110419/ NEWS01/104190347/Court-upholds-woman-s-de-facto-parental-rights?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s;  State of Minnesota, A05-537, May 10, 2007, In re the Matter of Nancy SooHoo, Respondent, vs Marilyn Johnson. See also,  In re parentage of L.B., a Washington case creating a four part test for definition of de facto parents.
For an academic defense of multiple party parenting by contract, see Associate Professor at Michigan State University College of Law, Melanie B. Jacobs, “Why Just Two? Disaggregating Traditional Parental Rights and Responsibilities to Recognize Multiple Parents,” 9 Journal of Law and Family Studies 309 (2007).  The media are also attempting to normalize the redefinition of parenthood. See this puff piece,  “Johnny has two mommies—and four dads,” in the Boston Globe, October 24, 2010,http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/10/24/johnny_has_two_mommies__and_four_dads/

[9] The In re M.C. case arose in part because the biological father came forward to try to care for his daughter after the birth mother went to jail for accessory to attempted murder of her former partner. “Why California’s Three Parent Bill was Inevitable,”  The Public Discourse , September 10, 2012. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/09/6197/

[10] This is probably a factor in the drama in the background of the in re M.C. case.  It is surely a factor in the celebrated Miller-Jenkins custody dispute.    “FBI arrests Tenn. Pastor in Vt.-VA custody case,” Sign On San Diego, April 22, 2011. http://www.signonsandiego.com/ news/2011/apr/22/fbi-arrests-tenn-pastor-in-vt-va-custody-case/ “Vermont: ruling in Lesbian Custody Case,” New York Times, January 22, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23brfs-RULINGINLESB_BRF.html

[11] See the many blogs and websites started by Donor Conceived Persons, such as http://www.tangledwebs.org.uk/tw/, http://www.anonymousus.org/index.php, http://donorconceived.blogspot.com/

[12] On the outsourcing of surrogacy to poor countries, see the following articles, which vary in their approval of the practice. Forbes considers it just another business. “The Newest Wave in Outsourcing to India: Surrogate Pregnancies,” Forbes, July 23, 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2012/07/23/the-newest-wave-in-outsourcing-to-india-surrogate-pregnancies/
The Center for Bioethics and Culture considers it exploitation. “Biological Eugenic Colonialism,” citing a story from May 2012, http://www.cbc-network.org/2012/05/biological-eugenic-colonialism/
WebMD just reports, “Womb for Rent: Surrogate Mothers in India,” http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/features/womb-rent-surrogate-mothers-india

[13]“The Quebec Policy Against Homophobia,” also pledges to eliminate “heteronormativity,” which is the belief that heterosexuality is normal. http:// www.justice.gouv.qc.ca/english/ministere/dossiers/homophobie/homophobie-a.htm

Why Normalizing Same-Sex Parenting Inevitably Led to Triple-Parenting - by Jennifer Roback Morse

In The Public Discourse 

A California bill allowing children to have three legal parents will not help children, but instead will unnecessarily complicate their lives. The supposed need for California’s SB 1476 flowed directly from the drive to normalize same sex parenting and recognize same sex unions.

 

Can a child have three parents? If California State Senator Mark Leno has his way, children in California will be able to have three legal parents. Before we dismiss SB 1476 as another example of California Weird, we had best look into it more closely. After all, the bill has passed both houses of the California Assembly and is awaiting Governor Brown’s signature or veto.

I believe this development was inevitable, more inevitable in fact than the much-vaunted inevitability of gay marriage. Once we started trying to normalize parenting by same-sex couples and redefine marriage to remove the dual-gender requirement, we had to end up with triple-parenting.

A deeper look at the whole picture surrounding SB 1476 reveals that not only should the three-parent law fail, same-sex “marriage” should fail as well. As we will see, embedded in this bill is an appalling power-grab by the state, and a grotesque misrepresentation of the facts by the bill’s authors.

Why Normalizing Same-Sex Parenting Inevitably Led to Triple-Parenting 

Let us state an obvious fact: a same-sex couple cannot have a child unless someone gives them one, or part of one, namely either an egg or a sperm. If two women, for instance, decide they want to have a baby, they must still involve a man in the process. They can use some form of artificial reproductive technology with sperm from a man who is unknown to them. Or, they can find an accommodating friend to have sex with one of them, or to donate his sperm.

The question is this: how is the same-sex couple going to manage the relationship with this third party? In some cases, the women do not want any relationship with the father. Our government will give them this. Through the legal institution of anonymous sperm donation, the government agrees perpetually to separate a mother and a father from a legal relationship with each other.

If all same-sex couples were completely and permanently committed to ensuring that their child would never have a relationship with his or her other biological parent, then there would be no particular drive for same-sex parenting to lead to triple-parenting. But this is obviously a very strong condition. Some female couples will want their children to have an ongoing relationship with their father. Some fathers will want a relationship with their children. Hence, we can see that through situations such as these, normalizing same-sex parenting creates momentum for triple-parenting.

Some of these three-party relationships will be agreeable and cooperative and amicable. But again, it is obviously a very big presumption to suppose that every such relationship will be completely harmonious for a lifetime. Only some known donor fathers will be fathers on the exact terms desired by the two women. Other fathers will desire something different, either more or less involvement than the women want. We cannot count on private agreements among the parties to solve all problems and manage all disputes. A subset of these cases is going to end up being settled by the family courts. Therefore, not only does same-sex parenting create an impetus to triple-parenting, it creates an impetus for state involvement in the ongoing management of these complex relationships.

It all sounds very nice and agreeable to allow people to make any parenting agreements they want on the front end of their relationships. But when a relationship breaks down, the long arm of the law will end up involved in the life of the family, on the back end, to resolve disputes. We are replacing the natural pre-political concept of biological parenthood with an artificial, government-created concept of parenthood that is entirely socially constructed. Instead of the government simply recognizing and recording the pre-political reality of biological parenthood, we are giving agents of the state the authority to construct parenthood, all in the best interests of the child, of course.

In one sense of the word, you could say that this is the circumstance that led to Senator Leno’s bill. This is the new “real world.” Children in this situation have three people involved and interested in their lives who desire to take care of them. Why shouldn’t the law have the power to create a legal structure that supports this situation?

The problem is that Senator Leno’s bill will create legal structures that cannot be confined to this one type of relatively benign case. SB 1476 attempts to solve this problem through the family courts in this way:

In an appropriate action, a court may find that a child has more than two natural or adoptive parents if required to serve the best interest of the child. In determining a child’s best interest under this section, a court shall consider the nature, duration, and quality of the presumed or claimed parents’ relationships with the child and the benefit or detriment to the child of continuing those relationships.

“A court may find” covers the case of three cooperating parents, which is the scenario that advocates of redefining marriage emphasize. Such cases appeal to a person with libertarian inclinations as well. But this expansion of judicial discretion also covers cases in which multiple adults are not cooperating at all, but who are contesting custody rights and support responsibilities.

Under this bill, the judge can make this determination without the consent of the other parents. None of the three parties would necessarily have to give their consent to being counted or discounted as a parent. The judge decides based on the best interests of the child.

Judges don’t normally have this much discretion. Biology, marriage, and adoption are usually pretty bright-line indicators of who counts as a parent. The only reason we are giving judges this much discretion is so we can accommodate the triple-parenting cases that are sure to arise when the law normalizes same-sex parenting. I would think that anyone who values liberty and limited government would get the shivers thinking about judges having power of this type and magnitude.

The Case Behind the Three-Parent Law: In re M.C.

 

Same-sex marriage itself generates triple-parenting situations. We can see this by considering the specific case that inspired Senator Leno’s bill. In principle, the triple-parenting bill might have been motivated by a case of three cooperating parents, consisting of the loving, stable, same-sex couples we hear so much about, and an agreeable opposite-sex friend. But this was not the impetus for Mark Leno’s three-parent bill. According to NBC News:

Leno said inspiration for the bill came from a 2011 state appellate court case in which a young girl had two mothers. When one of the mothers was sent to prison and the other was hospitalized, the girl’s biological father wished to care for her.

The court, however, ruled the biological father could not be a legal guardian because of California’s current law allowing only two parents per child.

The state took custody of the child.

This is an extremely abbreviated characterization of the case In re M.C. What led to one mother being hospitalized and the other imprisoned? Was this some kind of ill-fated alignment of the stars, an unfortunate, but random series of events that could have happened to any innocent parties?

Not exactly. The biological mother, Melissa, went to prison because her boyfriend, José, had stabbed Irene, the “other mother,” so severely that she had to be hospitalized. Melissa was charged with accessory to attempted murder.

Little M.C. had three parents, recognized under different parts of the law. Melissa counted as a mother because she gave birth to the child. Irene was married to Melissa when Melissa gave birth to M.C., so Irene counted as a presumed mother under a gender-neutral reading of the statute that was formerly used to establish paternity. José, the boyfriend who stabbed Irene, was not M.C.’s father. A man named Jesus was the biological father. Melissa had a relationship with him during one of her separations from Irene.

No court ever denied that Jesus was a father. Nor did any court find him an unfit father in any way. So with Melissa in prison and Irene in the hospital, why couldn’t the court simply give M.C. to Jesus, her biological father?

The reason M.C. was placed in foster care was that the courts found that this would jeopardize the child’s interest in reunification with Irene. Bear in mind that Irene was not the biological mother. She was not an adoptive mother. She had lived with Melissa and M.C. for about three or four weeks after the child was born. Let us face facts: Irene was not a mother to M.C. in any meaningful sense.

Irene was a “presumed” mother for one reason and one reason only: same-sex marriage. Irene and Melissa were married in October 2008, during the window of time when same-sex couples were permitted to marry in California. Their marriage is what prompted the court to call Irene a “presumed mother,” under a gender-neutral reading of the Uniform Parentage Act.

This part of the statute was designed to assign paternity, that is, fatherhood. A woman’s husband is presumed to be the father of any children she bears during the life of their union. One of the attorneys for M.C. pointed out the absurdity of a gender-neutral reading of this statute, substituting for the husband, who is almost always the child’s other biological parent, a female partner who can never be the child’s other biological parent.

But no matter: the court was attempting to do its job, impossible though that may have been in the circumstances. Irene was found to be a “presumed mother.”

The solution to this tragic case is not to amend the law to allow three parents. The solution is to amend the law to remove the possibility of a person unrelated to the child, either by biology or adoption, being counted as a parent. The solution is to stop requiring a gender-neutral reading of a statute that is based on the biological, gendered facts of human reproduction.

In other words, the way to have kept M.C. out of foster care was to abandon the idea of “marriage equality.” In fact, the voters of California did exactly that, when they passed Proposition 8, affirming that the term “marriage” only can be used to refer to the union of one man and one woman. It is “marriage equality” that created the tragic circumstances in this case.

Marriage is a complex social institution. Not everyone agrees that the essential public purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to each other and to their children. But I do not see how anyone can deny that attaching children to their mothers and fathers is one of the significant social purposes of marriage. And I do not see how any reasonable person can deny that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are situated differently with respect to this purpose. It is simply not possible to treat same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples identically in all the areas of law that marriage touches.

Let us return to Senator Mark Leno and his bill and his characterization of this case. His description of In re M.C., while not technically false, is so incomplete as to be deeply misleading. He surely knew of the volatile history of the parties to this case, which includes drug abuse, mental illness, homelessness, and domestic violence. He surely knew that without the “marriage” between Irene and Melissa, the courts would have placed M.C. with her father immediately.

I have no idea why he wanted to use this case as a pretext for his three-parent bill. If I were on his side of this issue, I would not call attention to this case, filled as it is with unappealing facts for gay marriage proponents. Irene was not a parent in any meaningful sense. In addition, Melissa was not a lesbian in any meaningful sense. She had not one, but two boyfriends during the course of this drama: José, who attacked her ex-girlfriend, and Jesus, who fathered her child.

And this case had an obvious and much-less-radical solution: give the child to her father. There was and is no rational basis for granting such unprecedented power to the family courts by allowing them to declare a third party to be a parent.

Triple-parenting and genderless marriage are destructive policies. They must be stopped. SB 1476 has passed both houses of the California Assembly. Governor Brown has the power to veto or to sign this ill-conceived law. He must decide, one way or the other, by September 30.

Let us hope he does the right thing.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is the Founding President of the Ruth Institute, an educational organization promoting lifelong married love to college students and young adults. She thanks Mr. Austin Muck, her 2011 Blackstone Legal Fellowship intern, for his assistance with the legal research on In re M.C.

Why opposing the gay lobby is not anti-gay - by Jennifer Roback Morse

March 29, 2012 (TheBlaze.com) - Earlier this month the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLAAD) “Commentator Accountability Project” included me on their list of people who deserve special scrutiny before they can be engaged as commentators on the marriage debate. But it is organizations like GLAAD that need to be held accountable for the impact of their rhetoric on the public debate.

According to the GLAAD website, I have held myself out as someone who purports to be an “expert on the lives of LGBT people.” Evidently (and unbeknownst to me) I have devoted my career “making life more difficult for LGBT people.” Although these extreme statements have since been scrubbed from the site, the organization continues to claim that “Bias is Not Balance.” The undeniable implication is that my views are baseless. GLAAD’s systematic policy of slapping negative labels on their opponents without actually engaging them in debate reduces the quality of discourse in the public square.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of words I have spoken or written, GLAAD found a grand total of four quotes as evidence of my supposed “extreme animus towards the entire LGBT community.” One of these is that I say redefining marriage will marginalize fathers from the family, because fathers will be considered inessential. GLAAD acts as if this were self-evident evidence of anti-gay bias.

This is very peculiar, as the claim that redefining marriage will marginalize fathers from the family is not a statement about the behavior, character or motives of same sex attracted people, male or female. It is simply my forecast of one consequence of redefining marriage. I believe it with all my heart, and have said so on numerous occasions, citing a variety of reasons and evidence. I am not the slightest bit ashamed of this forecast.

My training is in economics. Economists examine how changes in public policies alter people’s incentives, and hence their behavior. So it is natural for me to ask, What will happen if we remove the gender requirement from marriage? I wonder what society will look like after 30 years of agents of the state making statements like this one from the Iowa Supreme Court: “The traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else.”

You may disagree with me about how likely it is that making marriage a genderless social institution will marginalize fathers from the family. Or you may disagree with my assessment of the harm it would do. But you cannot deny that this is a serious question about the possible impact of changing the law and culture of marriage.

Evidently GLAAD believes that raising legitimate questions about the group’s preferred policies automatically makes a person “anti-gay.” But surely one can disagree with policies advocated by the National Education Association without hating every teacher in America, just as one can surely oppose policies advocated by the NAACP without being a racist.

Redefining marriage raises questions that deserve to be fully aired. Trying to discredit skeptics changes the subject. Equating all disagreement with evidence of bias lowers the intellectual level of the discussion. These rhetorical tactics do not do the gay lobby any credit. In fact, responsible people of all parties should shun these strategies and make room for honest debate on this momentous question of changing the fundamental structure of our most important social institution.

How hedonism became America’s official religion - Jennifer Roback Morse

In Mercartornet

An edict from the Obama administration has ended the American experiment in religious liberty.

No, I’m not exaggerating. The American experiment in religious liberty is officially over. The First Amendment provided institutional structures that allow different religions to peacefully coexist. All groups agree to not try to capture governmental structures for the benefit of their own particular denomination.

But the Obama administration has ended that truce. The administration made a decision to require all employers to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization. The administration offers no religious exemption for people who have the audacity to believe that pregnancy is not an illness that needs to be always and everywhere prevented.

In effect, we have a new state religion, a new Established Church of the United States of America, with Barack Obama as its head. It is the religion of Secular Hedonism, the worldview that sex is a sterile recreational activity, with babies thrown in as an afterthought, an optional extra, for people with quirky life-style preferences. The contraceptive mandate uses the full might of the US government to scrub the public square clean of any competing religious voices that dissent from the new orthodoxy.

But because this worldview is fundamentally irrational, it cannot stand on its own two feet. Some sexual activity does result in babies. Not everyone wants their government acting as if the highest goal is that pleasure is to be sought. Not everyone believes that the purpose of the government is to allow people to indulge themselves sexually, without a live baby ever resulting.

The Catholic Church for instance, famously opposes every precept of Secular Hedonism. As a matter of fact, so did all of the Christian churches, right up until five minutes ago. The ancient Christian teaching is that marriage is the proper context for sexual activity and for child-bearing, for the good of children, women, and men alike, as well as society as a whole.

The government believes that this dissenting voice cannot be tolerated. It must be crushed. And, of course, from their point of view, they are perfectly correct. They have an established religion that says that every sexual act is intrinsically meaningless except for the meaning we might happen to assign it. They simply can’t allow someone to go around saying that each and every sexual act is sacred, and endowed by our Creator with inalienable significance. From the point of view of Secular Hedonism, Catholicism must be crushed.

And of course, anyone else who dissents from the new orthodoxy must be crushed as well. That is why so many other faith traditions have joined in criticizing the Obama administration’s usurpation of power from civil society. The National Association of Evangelicals, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Jews have all criticized the administration’s attack on religious liberty. These religious bodies know that their religious liberties are at stake as well.

The religious truce is officially over. The Established Church of Secular Hedonism has declared war on the rest of us, enlisting the might of the United States government on their side. We will respond using nothing but peaceful means.

We used to refrain from making religious arguments in the public square. We thought it was our duty. We thought it was good strategy. The Ruth Institute has specialized in defending the ancient Christian teachings, using non-religious arguments. This no longer makes sense. The arguments are still good arguments. But there is no longer any reason to hold back from proclaiming our faith. Our position deserves respect, not simply because it is our “deeply held religious belief”. Our position deserves respect because it is grounded in reason and evidence, and in a far deeper understanding of the human person, and the human good. The ancient Christian teachings on marriage, family and human sexuality are superior to the teachings of the Established Church of Secular Hedonism.

If we don’t respond firmly, the Obama Administration will assume they can get away with ending religious liberty. This website, StopHHS.org will become a clearing house of info about the insurance mandate. Go sign their petition.

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage.

Loved into Existence, part two - by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

In Ruth Institute

How science is consistent with the ancient Christian teachings

Now after all this theology and philosophy, you may be astonished by my next move. I am going to show that science now substantiates many of the important claims that Christianity has been making since the beginning. Let me begin with the most basic. The human person is meant for love.

The human person is meant for love: sexual attachment

Since we have been talking about sex, let’s start with that. Men and women attach to each other, through the sexual act. Men secrete vasopressin, which creates a feeling of bonding. This hormone is sometimes called the “monogamy hormone,” because higher levels of it are associated with greater loyalty in some kinds of animals. This hormone helps to counteract the male tendency to pursue multiple sex partners. [1]

When women are being sexual, we secrete a hormone called oxytocin. This hormone creates feelings of attachment, relaxation and contentment. Our levels of oxytocin surge during sexual activity, childbirth and nursing. The title of one of the early papers on this subject tells the story, “The Role of Oxytocin Reflexes in Three Interpersonal Reproductive Acts: Coitus, Birth and Breastfeeding.”[2] A woman’s body responds to these community-building acts. The flood of oxytocin increases her desire for further touch with both her mate and her child. The hormone itself connects her to her child and her child’s father. We tend to attach to the man we are being sexual with. We also secrete oxytocin when we are nursing our babies. The sexual act itself creates an “involuntary chemical commitment.”

Becoming “one flesh” is not so easily undone as getting a divorce from our husbands or moving out from our boyfriends. We often experience significant attachments to our sex partners, long after reason would have told us to “move on. You could say this is nature’s way of creating a family. Or you could say that this is God’s way of writing our need and capacity for love into the human body itself.

The human person is meant for love: infant attachment

Let’s turn now to the most universal of all human experiences: infancy. The human infant is born helpless and dependent. It is worth noticing that this is not true of all animals. Some species are born more or less ready for life: snakes hatch and slither away from their parents. But human infants have a long period of dependency before they are prepared for adult life.

Children who are abandoned by their families often end up in orphanages. Their experience reveals some things about human development we might otherwise overlook. Children who are deprived of human contact during infancy sometimes fail to gain weight, or to develop. This “failure to thrive” syndrome is well documented. Some scientists now believe that the presence of a nurturing figure stimulates the growth hormones.^[3] All the bodily, material needs of the child are met in these orphanages. The child is kept warm and dry. The child is fed, perhaps by having a bottle propped into the crib. The child contracts no identifiable illness. Yet the child fails to thrive, and may even die. The widely accepted explanation is that the children die from lack of human contact. ^[4]

Their plight is reminiscent of the monkeys that are deprived of their mothers. The baby monkeys who just get food and no mommy develop some weird behaviors, head-banging, rocking and other forms of self-stimulation. Orphanage babies sometimes do this too. ^[5]

The human child’s brain is not fully developed before birth: if it were, the infant’s head would be too big to make it down the birth cannel without harming the mother. So the brain continues to develop after birth.

The brain has three basic parts, the reptilian brain or the brain stem, the cerebral cortex and the limbic brain. The brain stem governs basic biological functions and runs pretty much on auto-pilot. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that does algebra and balances check books and plays chess. The limbic brain governs the person’s ability to be in relationship, to intuit people’s emotions, and read people’s faces.

And it is the limbic brain that develops in the first year after birth, by being in a relationship with the mother. The limbric brain is unique to mammals, and allows us to have the kind of social life that is unique to animals whose young are born alive, and dependent. The limbic brain is the part of our physiology that controls our bodily responses to other people. This is the part of the brain allows us to respond to touch, proximity, and other people’s emotions.

This is the part of the brain that makes a hug feel good. It is this part of the brain that makes watching a movie in a crowded theater a different, more intense experience than watching it at home by yourself. The close contact with all those other people makes the scary parts scarier, the funny parts funnier, and the exciting parts more thrilling. The responses of the limbic brain make physical contact with other people a healing experience. This is why bringing pets into nursing homes and hospitals can help sick people get better. The sick people pet the animals, and talk to the trainers. Both those forms of contact can help people feel better.

The limbic brain allows us to “read” other people’s feelings. Our brains are capable of responding to the emotions of other mammals. We can look at each other and sense whether another person is angry, happy or fearful. These basic facial expressions are remarkably invariant across cultures. We can read many of the same cues among other mammals. [6] This is why we prefer mammals for pets.

Here is the part that is really important for the baby, and his relationship to his mother. The human brain is so large compared with the rest of our bodies that it is not fully developed before birth. If our brains were fully developed in utero, our heads would be too big to make it out of the birth canal without killing our mothers. Much of the development of the limbic brain takes place after birth. The limbic brain develops in response to being in a relationship with the mother.

We can see the physiological impact of the relationship between and infant and his mother by looking at other mammals, as well as at the behavior of humans. Infant mammals have a predictable pattern of reactions to separation from their mothers. The babies first go through a “protest” phase, and then a “despair” phase, after a prolonged separation. Each of these phases can be easily observed. And the physiological attributes associated with these phases can be readily measured. [7]

In the “protest phase,” the youngsters cry out, run around and search for their missing mommy. A scientist or lab technician can measure more subtle, but hardly surprising responses. The baby’s heart rate increases. So does his body temperature. His little body produces elevated levels of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, and elevated levels of catecholamine, an adrenaline-like hormone that increases alertness.

The baby can not sustain this heightened level of alertness and tension indefinitely. If the mother is absent long enough, the infant enters the “despair” phase. He stops running around crying for his mommy. He may slouch, huddle himself and look sad. The scientist observer discovers that the infant’s heart rate and body temperature decrease. His consumption of oxygen decreases, his immune system is impaired, his sleep rhythms change.

His little body produces less growth hormones. This is why children raised in orphanages or who have prolonged hospital stays lose weight, and fail to grow, no matter what their caloric intake. This is the physiological source of the “failure to thrive” syndrome, also called “hospitalism” by its discoverer, Rene Spitz. [8]

The good news is that most people can be reasonably good parents, just by doing the ordinary things that literally, come naturally. Rocking the baby, feeding the baby, looking at the baby, imitating their little noises, bouncing them on your knee, all these things help develop the limbic system of the brain.

A relationship is in part, a physiological event. In the process of rocking the baby, feeding the baby, looking at the baby, responding to the baby, the mother is helping the baby’s limbric brain to continue its development. This is probably why the problems of the little orphanage children are so persistent. These kids are completely deprived of either a mother or even a mother substitute. They are not only psychologically damaged, but their brain development has been hampered as well.

In fact, some physicians have defined a new syndrome to describe the complex of symptoms these kids have. The doctors call it “institutional autism.” [9] When an infant is born, he or she is looking for someone: their mother. When the mother returns the child’s gaze, she is helping the child to make sense of the world. She is also helping the brain itself to develop. The brain begins to make the neural connections that allow the child to make the human connections with others. But if the child is looking out into the world and no one looks back at him or her, the brain does not develop properly

In other words, the human infant’s physical and mental well-being depends upon their being loved. Hence, my claim: science is consistent with the ancient Christian teaching that the human person is indeed meant for love.

Or consider another possible disastrous outcome for the badly neglected child: attachment disorder. When infants experience an episode of neediness, they cannot solve their problem themselves. They cry out for help. In the ordinary course of an ordinary child’s life, someone comes to help them, to feed them, to hold them, to change their diaper, to play with them. Every time the mother does this, she is building up the child’s internal and unspoken sense that the world is a safe place, that he deserves to live, and that he can safely entrust himself to others.

But for the badly neglected child, no one comes. The orphan cries out, no one comes. The child of a drug addicted or otherwise preoccupied mother cries out, no one comes. Eventually, these children stop crying. They stop asking for help. They turn inward on themselves. They trust no one.

In the worst case scenario, the seriously attachment disordered child never develops a conscience. We often think of conscience development as the process of children learning right from wrong. But that is actually one of the last steps in a very complex process. Children don’t begin with abstract concepts. Moral development starts with something as simple as “My mother will punish me if she sees me doing X.” Then, “my mother will punish me if she finds out after the fact that I have done X.” The process advances to “My mother won’t like it if I do X.” And then, “My mother might find out, and if she finds out, she will be disappointed.” Then “I will be disappointed in myself if I do X.” And finally, “I’m not the kind of person who even thinks about doing X.” At this stage, the person has a fully mature conscience. They have internalized the voice of the parent. No one needs to try to control them. They control themselves.

But for this process to get started, the child must have a loving adult present in their lives, someone whose good opinion matters to them. The conscience is the voice of the loving parent, a voice the child internalized long before he or she was capable of giving reasons or explanations for anything.

And the child without a conscience, the attachment disordered child, is a social problem. This is a child who only responds to threats and punishments, carrots and sticks. The parent can never turn his or her back on such a child. Of course, as the child gets older, you cannot watch him or her constantly. A four year old, you can pick up and carry out of trouble. For a fourteen year old, you cannot. These are children who will lie, cheat and steal if they can get away with it. As they age, they become more and more scary, and more and more expensive to supervise. Ultimately, these are the sociopaths of society, the remorseless criminals.

Society depends on people having consciences. The system of economic markets depends on people keeping their promises and contracts, and cooperating with each other. The market is one giant system of mutual cooperation.

That is why it is no exaggeration to say that the economic order requires love. The love of the parents for the infant motivates them to give far more than they receive directly in return. The parents make the generous first move required to begin the process of mutual cooperation. Infants grow into children who are willing to give in return, to cooperate, to restrain themselves, to trust. Without the vast majority of people having these skills, the market order is not likely to last long.

The economic realm, which appears to be comprised of impersonal exchanges of material objects among strangers, is actually based upon love.[10]

Unmarried families are a financial burden to the state.

The break-up of families, or the failure to form families, also leads to an expansion of state expenditure. Children from disrupted families do worse than the children of intact married couple households in virtually every way.^[11] Children are more likely to have physical and mental health problems. Even accounting for income, fatherless boys are more likely to be aggressive^[12] and to ultimately become incarcerated. ^[13] A recent British study offers tantalizing hints about the possibility that the children of single mothers are more likely to become schizophrenic. ^[14] And an extensive study of family structure in Sweden took account of the mental illness history of the parents, as well as socio-economic status. Yet even in the most generous welfare state in the world, with very accepting attitudes toward unmarried parenthood, the children of single parents faced double the risk of psychiatric disease, suicide attempts, and substance abuse.^[15] All these issues are expensive to the taxpayer, through health care, special education services, mental health services, substance abuse recovery, or the criminal justice system.

All of these social pathologies are expensive to the taxpayer and painful to the individuals. A couple of recent studies calculated the taxpayer costs of family breakdown. One American study, prepared by the National Fatherhood Institute, announces its conclusion in its title: “The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man.”[16] This is their estimate of the taxpayer costs of fatherless. Another study, by the Institute for American Values, using slightly different methodology, concludes that the total annual cost of fatherlessness to federal, state and local taxpayers amounted to $112 billion.[17] At the time this study was done, this amount, $112 billion, was the equivalent of the GDP of New Zealand.

Speaking of New Zealand, the taxpayer cost of family breakdown there has been calculated to be around $1 Billion, or about $300 per year per taxpayer.[18] Likewise, in the UK, family failure costs the government about £41.74 billion. This means failed relationships cost each current UK taxpayer £1,364 a year.[19] In Canada, family breakdown costs the government about $7 Billion per year.[20]

These observations support the wisdom of the ancient Christian teaching that sex and childbearing belong within marriage. The alternatives to marriage are expensive to the taxpayer, as well as being a source of great unhappiness for individuals.

Family breakdown burdens the government with trivial matters.

The American experience with no-fault divorce illustrates that the dissolution of marriage involves the state in trivial family matters. This section of the talk may be somewhat surprising to a Chinese audience, because your society may very well have different ways of dealing with the problems I am about to discuss. Nevertheless, I think this discussion of the American experience with changing divorce laws will illustrate an important general point.

In 1968, California removed the “fault” basis for divorce. The old rule had been that a couple could get a divorce, only in the case of some “marital fault,” usually desertion, adultery or cruelty. “No-fault” divorce means that one person can get a divorce for any reason, or no reason.

Presented to the public as a great expansion of personal liberty, no-fault divorce has led to an increase in the power of the government over individual private lives. That is because no-fault divorce frequently means unilateral divorce: one party wants a divorce against the wishes of the other, who wants to stay married. Therefore, the divorce has to be enforced. The coercive machinery of the state is wheeled into action to separate the reluctantly divorced party from the joint assets of the marriage, typically the home and the children.

Family courts tell fathers how much money they have to spend on their children, and how much time they get to spend with them. Courts tell mothers whether they can move away from their children’s father. Courts rule on whether the father’s attendance at a Little League game, a public event that anyone can attend, counts toward his visitation time. Courts rule on which parent gets to spend Christmas Day with the children, down to and including the precise time of day they must turn the child over to the other parent. I have ever heard of a judge deciding what dress a teenage girl should wear to a dance. The estranged parents could not agree.

Involving the family court in the minutiae of family life is hardly the behavior of an efficient modern state. In America at least, there is no other agent of the government that we permit to intervene in people’s private business, so intimately, so frequently, and so routinely. The activities of the family courts amount to an blurring of the boundaries between public and private life. People under the jurisdiction of the family courts can have virtually all of their private lives subject to its scrutiny. ^[21]

Thus, the social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was accepted as an expansion of personal liberty has resulted in an unprecedented intrusion of the state into the private lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

These observations too, support the wisdom of the ancient Christian teaching that sex and childbearing belong within marriage. The social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was accepted as an expansion of personal liberty has resulted in an unprecedented intrusion of the state into the private lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

Even the phenomenon of teen pregnancy can be better understood when viewed through the Christian lens. We believe the human person is meant for love. This helps us understand that many out of wedlock teen pregnancies are not really “unplanned.” In fact, some girls get pregnant precisely because they want to be loved. The sexual experience is for them, not so much a result of lust, but of the desire to be loved by their boyfriends. Some girls get pregnant because they believe that their babies will fill an empty hole in their hearts with love.

Conclusion: What we ought to do

This is what we believe: God loves each of us into existence, and wants us to participate in His creative process through love.

I hope that this analysis helps you understand the Christian teaching about many policy areas that are now considered controversial. Why sex outside of marriage is so often so deeply disappointing, even if it is safely contracepted. How marriage itself prepares the couple for parenthood. Why marriage is properly permanent and exclusive. Why conception outside the womb is an act of injustice. Why Christians consider abortion a heinous crime.

These beliefs impose obligations on us, obligations which sometimes feel onerous. Those of you who are not Christian may sometimes look upon us with scepticism: is it really possible to live the way Christians advocate? And even for those of us who are Christian, living the lifestyle may seem daunting.

All too often, we know what we are supposed to do and to think, but we cannot completely explain why. Living up to the challenge of the full Christian teaching will be very difficult, if we do not understand the reason for that teaching. In the United States at least, I can say for sure that a great many Christians do not meet the challenge. This is partly because they do not fully understand the depth and beauty of the reasoning behind it.

At the center of the universe, is a deep abiding love. We are called to be part of it. We are not ashamed to believe this. We invite everyone to accept the challenge to live as if we are loved into existence.

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[1] The Alchemy of Love and Lust, by Theresa L. Crenshaw, (New York: Simon and Schuster, Pocket Books, 1997), pg. 94; 102-106. Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture:Genes, Experience and What Makes us Human, (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), pg. 42-46.

[2] Niles Newton, “The Role of the Oxytocin Reflexes in Three Interpersonal Reproductive Acts,” Clinical psychoneuroendocrinology in reproduction, L. Carenza, P. Pancheri, and L. Zichells,eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1978) pp. 411-18. (Cited in Crenshaw, pg.97.)

^[3] This syndrome is known as the Kaspar Hauser syndrome, or psychosocial dwarfism. See Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/VI, Vol.2, Sixth Edition, Harold I Kaplan, M.D. and Benjamin J. Sadock, M.D., Editors, (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.) See Chapter 40, and sections 43.3, 47.3.

^[4] See Ibid, Section 43.3, “Reactive Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Early Childhood.” The locus classicus is the work of John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss. Vol. 1: Attachment, (New York: Basic Books, 1969). Also, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Blehar, Everett Waters and Sally Wall, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1978).

^[5] Deborah Blum, Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2002), especially pg. 214, where John Bowlby tells Harry Harlow, “Harry, I don’t know what your problem is. I have seen more psychopathy in those single cages than I’ve seen anywhere on the face of the earth.” The monkeys were sucking themselves, rocking back and forth, cuddling their own bodies. “You’ve got some crazy animals.”

^[6]A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 39-40.

^[7]A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 77-78; Deborah Blum, Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2002), Chapter 8, “The Baby in the Box.”

^[8] A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 79-80.

^[9]Ronald S. Federici, Help for the Hopless Child: A Guide for Families (With Special Discussion for Assessing and Treating the Post-Institutionalized Child), Second Edition, (Alexandria VA: Ronald Federici and Associates: 2003).

[10] Jennifer Roback Morse, Love and Economics (San Marcos, CA: Ruth Institute Books, 2009) pg 57.

[11]For useful summaries, see “Do Moms and Dads Matter? Evidence from the Social Sciences on Family Structure and the Best Interests of the Child,” Maggie Gallagher and Joshua Baker, Margins, 4:161-180, 2004; “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About It?” Kristen Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek and Carol Emig, Child Trends Research Brief, June 2002; Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World, Jennifer Roback Morse, (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing, 2005).

[12]“Household Family Structure and Children’s Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children, Nancy Vaden-Kiernan, Nicholas S. Ialongo, Jane Pearson and Sheppard Kellan, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23(5) 553-568, (1995)

[13]“Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,” Cynthia C. Harper and Sara S. McLanahan, Journal of Research on Adolescence, 14(3) 369-397 (2004).

[14]“Schizophrenia much more likely in children of single parents,” Sarah Hall, UK Guardian, November 2, 2006.

[15]“Mortality, severe morbidity and injury in children living with single parents in Sweden: a population-based study,” Gunilla Ringback Weitoft, Anders Hjern, Bengt Haglund, Mans Rosen, The Lancet, 361(9354) (January 25, 2003).

[16] “The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man: The Annual Public Costs of Father Absence,” Steven L. Nock, Christopher J. Einolf, (Washington D.C.: National Fatherhood Initiative, 2008).

[17] “The Taxpayer Cost of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States,” Benjamin Scafidi, (New York: Georgia Family council and Institute for American Values, 2008).

[18] “The Value of Family: Fiscal Benefits of Marriage And Reducing Family Breakdown in New Zealand,” Report to Family First, New Zealand, October 2008, available on-line: http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/docs/nz%20report%20executive%20summary.pdf

[19] David Wong, “Counting the Cost of Family Failure: 2011 Update; (Cambridge: Relationship Institute, 2011.) available on-line: http://www.relationshipsfoundation.org/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=132

[20] “Private Choices, Public Costs: How Failing Families Affect Us All,” Rebecca Walberg and Andrea Mrozek, (Ottawa: Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, 2009) Available on-line: http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/Cost%20of%20Family%20Breakdown%20finalHR.pdf

[21]Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage and the Family, Stephen Baskerville, (Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing, 2007).