Share the good news of marriage with your friends by forwarding this newsletter to them!

Action Item: Pray for a positive outcome for marriage in the Federal Prop 8 trial!

Talking Point: Man/woman marriage provides children with access to their genetic, cultural and social heritage. Reason #4 from 77 Reasons to support man/woman marriage.

Ron Prentice interview Dr. J reports from the Prop 8 trial held December 6 at the San Francisco courthouse. Here's her interview with Ron Prentice. There are also podcasts of interviews with Bill May and with Bruce Hausknecht of Focus on the Family's CitizenLink.

Click the POD icons to listen. 

Subscribe to the complete Ruth Institute podcasts with iTunes!

Lutheran Public Radio: Dr. J is usually on live on Tuesdays from 2-2:15 p.m. Pacific Time (Click the link to listen live or find a station near you.)

December 18: Ruth Institute Christmas Party! If you live in Southern California and would like to join us, email us for the details.

Dear Dr J:

One of my daughters has a daughter in the first grade, and on the school bus a young boy showed her and her friend a photo of a couple performing a sex act. My daughter found this out when my granddaughter and her friend cried and begged my daughter to drive them to school so they wouldn't have to ride the bus.

What do you do when something like this happens, the innocence of your child is really ripped away, and the opportunity for a parent to educate and discuss with her child the world of sex at an appropriate time is stolen from you? I feel that we are being forced to educate our children at earlier and earlier ages - perhaps before it is really needed - because of outside influences.

-Concerned

Read Dr. J's answer here. Have a question of your own? Ask it here.

• To prevent mailbox filters from deleting mailings from The Ruth Institute, add jmorse@ruthinstitute.org to your address book

I am writing this month’s President’s Message from a hotel in Northern California. I spent yesterday in the federal courtroom in San Francisco, covering the appeal of the Prop 8 case to the Ninth Circuit. Some of you, no doubt, have been following our coverage of the trial on www.ruthblog.org or at www.prop8case.com. Thank you for your support, which allowed me to travel to this historic event!

Yesterday’s proceedings concerned two questions. First, do the official proponents of Prop 8 have standing to defend it in court? I look for the Ninth Circuit to rule that we do have standing. Second, we presented arguments showing that Prop 8 is perfectly consistent with the US Constitution. I look for the Ninth Circuit to overturn Prop 8, but on narrower grounds than Judge Walker. Our friend Chuck Cooper, the lead attorney for our side, did a great job defending Prop 8. Be sure to keep reading the blog for all my analysis and interviews explaining why. Your support makes our electronic publications program possible, including the blogs, our podcasts and this newsletter. Thank you!

During the proceedings and afterward, I met with many of our friends in the marriage movement. There was a whole bevy of Alliance Defense Fund attorneys. Some of the official proponents, Ron Prentice and Mark Janssen, were in the court, as were friends from the California Catholic Conference and Focus on the Family. I am so grateful to all of you who have supported the Ruth Institute. Thanks to your support, our allies in the Marriage Movement regard us as important players. More than one of them told me yesterday how grateful they are for our work explaining the deeper meaning of marriage.

Some of you dedicated political junkies may have even watched the live coverage on C-Span TV. If you did, you may have seen that I was on camera! Friends told me that I was in the background of the shots, as I was sitting across the courtroom from the camera! I was wearing a bright yellow sweater and a rainbow scarf.

Yes, I wore a rainbow-colored scarf. I intend to reclaim the rainbow! That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I mean, honestly, the Gay Lobby does not own the rainbow. I want people to feel ok hanging rainbows in their nurseries and pre-schools, without wondering whether they are sending some kind of pro-gay message. So let’s be clear: the rainbow is a Biblical symbol of God’s covenant with the entire human race, placed in the heavens after the Great Flood in Noah’s time. The rainbow is a symbol of God’s promise never to destroy the entire earth again, regardless of human infidelity and sinfulness.

Whew! Thanks for letting me get that off my chest! And besides, the side for natural marriage is in fact the real Rainbow Coalition. I attended a meeting at an African-American church up here in the Bay Area last evening. This group of parents included people of many races and Christian denominations. This group is drawn together by a desire to take responsibility for monitoring the activities of their local school district.

This is the kind of meeting that wouldn’t have taken place prior to Prop 8. These people wouldn’t have met each other, known each other, or been interested in each other, if not for the great inter-faith, inter-racial effort that passed Prop 8 by a comfortable margin in 2008.

As 2010 draws to a close, I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. Your love, support and prayers over the last two and a half years have made the work of the Ruth Institute possible. I wish to our elder brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith all blessings for their Festival of Lights, continuing through December 9. And I wish all of my brothers and sisters in Christ the most Blessed Christmas season.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Dear Ruth Readers,

It is with a mixture of sadness and excitement that I write to you, our faithful subscribers, today. I have decided after two and a half years at the Ruth Institute to move back to Colorado to be closer to my family. I will be leaving right before Christmas.

I am so thankful that I was able to be part of the growth and development of the Ruth Institute. Dr. Morse has quite a vision for our young people and the culture of marriage; I am eternally grateful for her confidence in me to contribute to this vision. She, along with the rest of the Ruth Institute and NOM team, have won many battles for marriage that lead our world one step closer to healing.

Most importantly, I am thankful to you, our supporters, readers and students. The Ruth Institute is fueled by your enthusiasm and hope for a renewed culture; a culture that’s standard is a loving home with both a mother and a father.

There is no doubt that the Institute will continue on in this vital way for the future of marriage. I look forward to watching it grow and staying involved in this mission to promote lifelong love to young people.

Bless you and your families. And Merry Christmas,

Jamie Gruber
Executive Director
Ruth Institute

If this email was forwarded to you from a friend and you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, click here to subscribe.