NOM’s Ruth Institute Floats The Idea Of Banning Gay Adoptions

For the second time in two weeks, the Ruth Institute -- a project of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) -- is speaking volumes about the anti-LGBT agenda of its parent organization. 

In an August 11 blog post titled “Intelligent Replies to Idiotic Comments, Part 2, (Gasp!!!),” Ruth Institute President Jennifer Roback Morse reminded us that anti-gay groups like NOM are interested in much more than just denying same-sex couples the right to marry.

In her post, Morse did her best to respond to a basic argument in favor of marriage equality: same-sex couples will adopt and raise children regardless of whether they’re legally allowed to marry, so the government might as well do what it can to ensure that these families have the same rights and protections as other families.

While attempting to refute this “idiotic comment,” Morse raised the possibility that the government could work to prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting children together: 

Let’s examine this. What exactly is it that supposedly follows automatically and obviously?

Same sex couples should be encouraged to have more children.  No, that doesn’t follow.  You’d have to make an argument to support that conclusion.

Same sex couples will continue to have more children, no matter what the law does or doesn’t do.  No, that doesn’t follow either. As a matter of fact, the law can, if it chooses, make it quite difficult for same sex couples to share parenting rights. [emphasis added]

Rob Tisinai at Box Turtle Bulletin couldn’t help but mock Morse’s “repugnant veiled threat”:

[N]ice veiled threat there, Jennifer, and the “quite” adds a great James-Bond-villain flavor, circa 1967 — I can see you sitting in a huge chair stroking a white kitty saying, We can make it quite difficult to share parenting rights, Mr. Bond [emphasis original]

Morse’s statement is no laughing matter. NOM has an incredibly long history of opposing adoption non-discrimination laws for gays and lesbians, even when those laws have nothing to do with same-sex marriage.

It makes sense that a group like NOM would support denying gay and lesbian couples the ability to adopt. Maggie Gallagher, NOM’s chairwoman, has previously justified banning same-sex marriage by arguing that it amounted to “a vast social experiment on children” that would put all children “at risk.”

NOM centers its opposition to same-sex marriage on the myth that, in order to be raised properly, children need a mother and father (even pushing this bogus assertion under oath in front of Congress).

In other words, the arguments that NOM and the Ruth Institute use to justify its opposition to marriage equality are the exact same arguments it would (and does) use to support restricting the rights of gay couples to adopt.

Mind you, this is the same Ruth Institute that just last week called the “LGBT lifestyle” violent, deviant, disease-ridden, and drug-filled.

Despite these kinds of blog posts, NOM and the Ruth Institute will continue claiming that they’re not anti-gay, that they’re only concerned with defending traditional marriage. Believing them: now that would be truly “idiotic.”

 Previously:

NOM Joins Anti-Lawrence v. Texas Crowd

NOM’s Ruth Institute: “It Gets Better” Project “Aggressively Promotes Deviant Sex”

Ruth Institute: Marriage Equality Supporters Want To… Ban Circumcision?