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Talking Point: “Unless we restore the traditional family to a central position in American life, we cannot expect to return to the kind of wealth accumulation of the 1980s and 1990s.” Asia Times columnist and First Things editor, David P. Goldman (as quoted by Pat Fagan in this week’s article.)

Latino Values Coalition Dr. J speaks at the Latino Partnership for Conservative Values in support of natural marriage. The Partnership is an independent expenditure group supporting Carly Fiorina's bid for California senator. (Click the POD icon.) If you're in the So. Cal area, the Vote Your Values Bus Tour will be near you tomorrow!

Hey, students! In case you  missed it, check this out: October 15-16 Jamie Gruber will be at WCPAC in Newport Beach, CA. WCPAC stands for Western Conservative Political Action Conference, Inc. Click here for more information. Scholarships are available! Interested students should contact Jamie. (Interested parents who want their students to be interested should contact Jamie, too.)

Where in the world is Dr. J? Now you can find her with the Ruth Institute Calendar. Mark the dates she'll be near you on your calendar!

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.)

October 12: Speaking at the Pinnacle Forum in Phoenix

October 16: Speaking at the Catholic Women’s Conference in Kalamazoo, MI

October 15-16 Jamie Gruber will be at WCPAC in Newport Beach, CA. WCPAC stands for Western Conservative Political Action Conference, Inc. Click here for more information. Scholarships are available! Interested students should contact Jamie. (Interested parents who want their students to be interested should contact Jamie, too.)

October 21: Sacramento, CA "Same Sex Marriage: Why Not?" 7-9:00 p.m. Open to the public! See flier with info here.

October 28: Duke University, North Carolina 

Miss an issue of the newsletter? You can find recent main articles by going to the Ruth blog and selecting the category, Newsletter Articles. 

Do you need advice on how to improve your marriage or relationship, or on how to find the right person for you? Expert Dr. J is here for you. Click here to ask your question, which may be featured anonymously in this newsletter for the benefit of all.

Read past questions and answers here.

Need help with your marriage? You can also check out Dr. J's "101 Tips for a Happier Marriage!"

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The Ruth Institute is clicking into high gear for the 2010-2011 school year. We have two super cool projects coming up this academic year, in addition to our usual rounds of travel, writing and advocacy.

Cool project #1: The Reel Love Challenge. Is lifelong love possible? We’re asking young adults ages 18-24 to answer this question in 30 second videos, (hence the intentional misspelling of “reel.”) We opened this contest on September 20. The grand prize will be $2,000, with runner-up prizes of $1,500 and $1,000, to be awarded after the contest closes on February 1, 2011.

We can’t do this kind of project without your support. Please consider making a donation.

Cool project #2: The Ruth Institute will be sponsoring a regional conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in February, in cooperation with Aquinas College. “Love and Life in the Divine Plan and in Real Life,” is a conference based on the Pastoral Letter of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on marriage, “Love and Life in the Divine Plan.”

The bishops identify four threats to marriage: contraception, divorce, cohabitation and same sex unions. This conference will feature a lecture from top academic experts on each of these threats, highlighting the evidence supporting the bishops’ position. This conference will feature lectures on Christian anthropology and the Theology of the Body, showing that the bishops’ vision is not only more humane and attractive than the modern “sexual revolution,” but also more realistic.

Like all Ruth Institute events, this will be an inter-faith gathering. The battle for natural marriage is an interfaith effort, and we want everyone to feel welcome at this conference. Don’t be put off by going to a Catholic college, run by nuns, to talk about a letter written by US Catholic bishops! The harmony between faith and reason and the whole natural law tradition is part of what Catholics bring to the table. Whether you are Catholic or not, this conference will give you the intellectual ammunition you need to defend marriage against all comers!

So, mark your calendar for February 25-26, 2011. If you live within driving distance of Nashville, send us your street address, and we’ll send you a personal invitation! Readers from Tennessee, Kentucky, and as far as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Birmingham, St. Louis, no matter what your faith tradition may be, y'all come now!

In the meantime, Jamie and I continue our efforts to promote lifelong married love. In September, I spoke to Catholic educators in Sacramento, crisis pregnancy workers in Illinois, at a forum celebrating the Manhattan Declaration in Oakland, and a book launch in Boston. Most of these talks are already on our podcast page. Jamie represented the Ruth Institute and NOM at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., and will be at the Western Conservative Political Action Campaign meeting in Newport Beach, CA. She is also doing radio shows on the Reel Love Challenge. Watch the podcast page for our latest radio appearances! And become fans of the Ruth Institute on Facebook, so you can keep track of us!

You, dear Friends of Ruth, are the ones who make all this possible. Your financial support, your help in spreading the word, brings the message of hope for lifelong married love to the next generation. Keep helping us, until the day that every child can be welcomed into life in a stable married family, and every young person can realistically look forward to a lifetime of married love.

Thank you for your generous support. Please make your most generous contribution today.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council, and Ruth Institute Advisory Board member.

Republicans and Democrats differ on a wide range of issues, but almost all elected officials in Washington, D.C., believe that a key responsibility of both the White House and Congress is keeping the economy running at full-speed, providing an ever-increasing number of jobs, products, and services for the American people. Elections are won or lost on the public’s perception of the ability of a president and his party to implement policies that contribute to a rising Gross Domestic Product and rising standards of living. The parties differ as to the means to achieve these ends. Yet from George W. Bush’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program signed into law in October 2008 to Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package passed in February 2009, the parties share a commitment—especially during a recession like the current one that started in 2007—to keep the American Dream alive by getting the economy back on track as quickly as possible.

The preoccupation of Washington with immediate crises and quick fixes, however, prevents both parties from sowing seeds today that may not bear fruit tomorrow but will nonetheless generate a rich harvest in the next generation. If they did, policymakers would have long ago responded to an equally important crisis—the meltdown of the American family—that started in the late 1960s and is an underlying cause of the current economic slowdown, according to former Wall Street analyst and Forbes columnist David Goldman.

It appears that the strategists that advise both political parties have lost sight of the indispensable building block upon which the fortunes of the economy depends: the married-parent household—especially the child-rich family that worships weekly. Not only have the experts overlooked this “fundamental,” but also few have expressed concern that the absolute number of married-parent families with children under 18 years of age, a key driver of economic growth, has remained largely flat since Richard Nixon served in the Oval Office.

Despite its invisibility to the news media and the economic guild, the family GDP, or the contribution of the family to the economy, is nonetheless massive. At a rudimentary level, every marriage creates a new household, an independent economic unit that generates income, spends, saves, and invests. The vast majority of these new households produces babies and transforms what are largely self-centered children into responsible adults, contributing the necessary next generation of human capital to the economy.

But that new household does more than simply increase the labor force or consumer spending. As this essay will demonstrate, marrying and staying married for life, bearing and raising a sufficient brood of children, and participating in public worship on a weekly basis transforms the behavior and attitudes of men and women, and their children, in profound ways that not only strengthen the economy but also serves as its very lifeblood. Like any successful entrepreneur or businessman, continuously married men and women not only tend to think less of themselves and more of others but also focus less on the immediate and more on the long-term. Like any responsible portfolio manager, they are thinking about the future, channeling their energies into achievements of lasting value and true wealth, including children they are raising with the same future orientation.

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