Cathy Ruse Remarks, World Congress of Families IX

[One Speaker.]

[“The Future After the SCOTUS Decision. Cathy Ruse, Esq: Senior Counsel, Family Research Council. October 28, 2015” is written on the screen. The Salt Lake City 2015 World Congress of Families IX logo is shown bottom center.]

[The title and logo disappear, and the camera zooms into a podium where Cathy Ruse is standing. An audience applauds the beginning of her speech.]

[Cathy Ruse]:Well, Good Morning. It is such a treat to be with you this morning: It’s an honor really. I am with the Family Research Council, and the first thing I need to say is that I am a Catholic Christian. And that means that it is impossible for me to believe that marriage is anything other than the union of a man and a woman. And no law will change that belief, no judge will change that belief, there is nothing that can change that belief. Nothing.

[The audience applauds and shouts.] That’s pretty simple.

I’m also a mother, and as a mother, I know that no man can be a mother.

[The audience claps again.]

No man can be a mother, just as I could never be a father, and children need both. All mothers know this—all mothers know this. Single mothers know it best of all. But the elites in society today, in academia, in the media, they laugh at that proposition—They scoff at it. They say, “Everybody knows it doesn’t matter whether children are raised in same-sex households, or in opposite-sex households; it’s all the same. And if you disagree, you’re a bigot, and you’re on the wrong side of history.” Well I disagree—I disagree.

As a mother, I know that two fathers is not the same as a mother and a father. And if two fathers is the same as a mother and a father, that means that mothers are dispensable: they are unneeded, they are unnecessary, they can be disposed of—and that is a lie; as a mother, I know that’s a lie—this is a simple truth. [The audience claps.]

I know, as a mother, that my children need what I can give them: as a woman, as their mother, and that no man can do my job. I’m not replaceable by a man. No man can do this job. Even a man who might have been named woman of the year. [The audience laughs and claps.] Especiallythat kind of man can’t do my job.

And finally, I stand before you as a lawyer. So many in my profession are so blinded by ideology, that they can’t see the simplest things. There is a simple legal question here, and the question is: why is the government involved in marriage in the first place? [Clapping comes from the crowd.] Why is it a public institution? Why isn’t it simply a private rite, like baptism, like holy orders? Why does the government even care? And there is a simple legal answer. And the answer is children; men and women make babies—sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident—and societies from the beginning of time have had to deal with that fundamental truth. What are we, as a society, going to do with the children that come from the physical union of men and women. Are we going to create government institutions that clothe and feed and raise these children to adulthood? No. We are going to encourage the men and women who become mothers and fathers to raise their children, to become citizens of society. And when we do that, we do that through law. And when we do that (and encourage these mothers and fathers to raise their children) it’s good for children, and it’s good for society. And that’s why marriage is a public institution: because of what is important for society. That’s why states give out marriage licenses.

The law has never been interested in love; what you feel is not the government’s business—it has never been the government’s business. The law is concerned with less loftier things, like, “what are you two going to do with the child you’ve made? Are you going to leave her on the steps of city hall, or are you going to clothe her and feed her, and raise her to be a citizen of our society?” That’s what the law cares about. Love has never been the government’s business; who you love is not the government’s business, until now. Now, who you love is the government’s business. Now, a public marriage license is a government's stamp of approval for your personal feelings. Now, a government official waits at a desk for people to approach and declare their love, and we, the government, approve your love: Go forth and enjoy the dignity we have just conferred on your personal feelings. That is where we are today. This is not progress.

Those who brought about this change in marriage law did so for one purpose only: To create public sanction—societal, official societal sanction—for conduct, for a relationship that was not sanctioned in history, that was not sanctioned by private religion, and that was long regarded as immoral, unhealthy, and unsafe. That is the whole reason that we see this drastic transformation of marriage; this was the purpose. Because tolerance was not enough, live and let live was not enough: Official societal approval was required; and while you’re at it, bake my cake, or you lose your house.

Now, Americans did not ask for this change. When the question was put to the people in almost every state of the union, man-woman marriage won again, again, and again. Now recall, over the past 15 years, how gay activists were so confident going into many of the contests in the United States because public opinion polls told them they were going to get big wins. Yet, when people stepped into the voting booth, man-woman marriage won. That’s because opinion polls and polling places are different things. In the privacy of the voting booth, you’re free from the bullies; you’re free to consider what marriage means, and what children really need.

Now when historians write about the politics of marriage in the first decades of the 21st American century, what will they write? Will they write that in the year 2000, Nebraskans voted overwhelmingly to put into place—to codify—man-woman marriage in their state law? Will they write that in 2004, Arkansans codified man-woman marriage in their state law, as did Georgians in theirs, and Kentuckians in theirs, and Michiganians in theirs (or Michiganders, whichever you prefer,) and North Dakotans, in theirs, too? Will they write that in 2004, the people of the great State of Utah overwhelmingly codified man-woman marriage in their state law, as did Oklahomans in their state law, as did Ohioans in their state law, and Louisianans in their state law? Will historians write that in 2005, Texans made man-woman marriage—overwhelmingly voted man-woman marriage—as the definition of marriage in the great State of Texas? And that in 2005, Coloradans codified it in their state law, Idahoans in theirs, South Carolinians in theirs, South Dakotans in theirs, Tennesseans in theirs, Wisconsinites in theirs? Will they write that in 2008, Floridians made man-woman marriage the law of the Sunshine State, and that Arizonans made it the law of the Grand Canyon State, and that Californians made it the law of the Golden State? Will they write that in 2009, Mainers codified man-woman marriage as the law of their land, as in 2012, North Carolinians codified man-woman marriage as the law of their land?

These laws were not passed, generally—I don’t think any of them were passed—by the remote vehicle of a legislature; these were people stepping into the voting booth and casting their personal vote for man-woman marriage. Will historians write that by the year 2012, over 50 million Americans had stepped into the voting booths, said no to a change in the definition of marriage, and did all they could as citizens to preserve—legally preserve—man-woman marriage as the law of their land? Historians won’t write this, and that’s why I’m spending so much time reviewing it with you, they won’t write this. They will not write what I just told you, but it’s the truth.

What will they write about what happened next? Will they write that in 2013, a federal judge struck down the law that the people of Utah had passed? Will they write that in 2014, another judge struck down the law that the people of Oklahoma had put into place, and another by the people of Virginia, and another by the people of Texas, and another judge by the people of Michigan? Will they write that a handful of federal judgesboldified the laws that the people had put into place in Ohio, Arkansas, Idaho. And another handful struck down the laws that the people put into place in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Florida. Certainly, they will write that in the spring of 2015, five lawyers on the highest court in this land struck down the rest of the laws that the rest of the people had put into place, but they won’t write it that way. Instead, historians will speak of a shift in American attitudes. They’ll use phrases like tidal wave and sea change. They’ll ruminate on how rapidly Americans came to embrace this new paradigm about marriage. But that will be an illusion: it will be a lie. All that really can be said is that a handful of liberal judges embraced it and forced it on the rest of us.

[Applause from the audience.] Thank you.

Now, the other side wants those of us who believe in man-woman marriage to think that all of America is against us, and the world is against us; and certainly it feels that way, doesn’t it? It sure feels that way. But thatis an illusion; they don’t want us to count the number of nations in the world that have changed their laws to embrace same-sex marriage, because it’s just 20—20out of 193 member states (U.N. member states), out of 220 nations worldwide. They don’t want us to count how many nations have forced same-sex marriage on their people by court order, because there are just two: Brazil and now, the United States of America, in all of the world. They don’t want us to notice that Eastern Europeans are changing their constitutions to protect the definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman. One, after another, after another of these countries. They don’t want us to remember the 1.5 million Spaniards that crowded the streets of Madrid, protesting a change in the definition of marriage. That’s the equivalent of 10 million Americans storming Washington D.C. It was amazing that they want you to forget that. They want you to forget the millions of Frenchmen who stormed the streets of Paris, protesting a change in the definition of marriage, in trying to preserve man-woman marriage as the law of their country. But we must remember it all, and we must tell it all, and we have got to repeat this story, because you can’t do anything in the future unless you understand the past. And you have to understand what just happened; we have to understand the truth of it, not the spin. Historians will lie; future generations will not understand if we don’t continue telling the story of what happened: of how Americans tried to preserve man-woman marriage, and how a handful of liberal judges stopped us. We must tell this story. This can never be forgotten, because it’s important for the future.

[Applause comes from the audience.]

In the days ahead, mothers will have to proclaim the importance of motherhood, and fathers of fatherhood; we have to do it better. We have to say that children need mothering and fathering, not just two adults in the house. This is an important truth that we can’t take for granted anymore; this has to be taught—this has to be taught specifically, and, above all, we must fight for the right to live and work according to our beliefs. Our enemy in this fight is not our neighbor, not even the 1.6 percent of our neighbors who identify themselves as gay. No, our enemy are those who would be our masters: the judge who jails a clerk for failing to give her signature; the magistrate who takes the house of a baker for want of a cake; these are our enemies in the fight ahead. No government official can force us to bend the knee at the altar of a foreign god, it’s as simple as that. [The audience applauds.] Thank you.

And if we can not secure this freedom in law, then we must live it in civil disobedience of the law. Thank you. [The audience applauds once more as Cathy Ruse walks away. The screen goes black, and the World Congress of Families is shown again.]

[End.]