American political activist
Austin Ruse
is an American
conservative
political activist, journalist and author. He is the president of a nonprofit NGO,
Center for Family and Human Rights
(C-FAM), which has been listed as an
anti-LGBT
hate group
by the
Southern Poverty Law Center
.
[2]
[3]
Through C-FAM and his writings, Ruse advocates anti-LGBT and
anti-abortion
conservative positions and has advocated for the
criminalization of homosexuality
.
Career
[
edit
]
Around the turn of the millennium, he also was a diplomatic attache of the Permanent Mission of the
Holy See
to the United Nations.
[4]
In July 2013, Ruse was identified as a convener of a
Groundswell
coalition meeting among conservative activists and journalists.
[5]
In 2017, Ruse published the book
Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ
,
[6]
which profiles three devoutly religious children who died after extended periods of illness.
[7]
Ruse's second book,
Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data
was also published in 2017.
[8]
Ruse's third book ---
The Catholic Case for Trump
--- was published by Regnery Publishers just before the
2020 United States presidential election
.
[9]
Ruse was a regular contributor to the media outlet
Breitbart
and was instrumental in encouraging
Steve Bannon
to get involved with Vatican reporting, which paved the way for the establishment of Breitbart's Rome bureau.
[10]
Awards and honors
[
edit
]
In 2004, Ruse and his wife were awarded the John Paul II Award for Advancing the
culture of life
from the
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
.
[11]
Views and controversies
[
edit
]
Anti-left views
[
edit
]
Ruse stated that the "hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities... should all be taken out and shot" while hosting a radio talk show on
American Family Radio
in March 2014.
[12]
Monsignor Anthony Frontiero of the St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire, resigned from the board of C-FAM because of Ruse's comments.
[13]
[3]
The next day on the same radio program, he described Democrats "get[ting] into the ballot box" as "really dumb ... low-information voters."
[12]
After the fallout from his comments, AFR removed Ruse from their airwaves, stated that his views were "un-Christian", and scrubbed all of Ruse's shows from their online archives. Ruse also deactivated his Twitter account.
[3]
Ruse stated on C-FAM's website later that week in which he said he regretted using the phrase "taken out and shot".
[14]
In 2020, Ruse began attacking
George Floyd
and the
Black Lives Matter
movement, stating that Floyd's history of drug abuse led directly to his death. Following intervention from one of his publishers, he removed the offensive tweet. However, later, he defended the original remark.
Anti-gay views
[
edit
]
Radical homosexuals... are coming for your daughter and your son and your grandchildren. They don't have any children of their own. They are deliberately barren. So, they have set their sights on yours, your innocent girls and boys.
?
Austin Ruse addressing his followers in 2016
[16]
At the UN, Ruse has worked to overturn the
Human Rights Council
's decision to investigate violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Advocate
has described Ruse as "fanatically anti-gay", stating that he has supported anti-gay legislation backed by
Vladimir Putin
in Russia as well as the continued criminalization of homosexuality in many African countries. Ruse supports legislation in Russia that criminalizes free speech concerning homosexuality, and has argued that most Americans would like to see a similar approach in the US.
[17]
[18]
In 2017, Ruse attacked
Jesuit
priest
James Martin
on social media for his work that urges gay Catholics to begin conversations with their bishops.
Michael Sean Winters
described Ruse's attacks as "vulgar and childish", and stated that when it comes to Catholicism, Ruse "seems to adopt the most hurtful interpretations possible and hurls them at the feet of others".
[19]
Support for Donald Trump
[
edit
]
Ruse has repeatedly publicly expressed his support for
Donald Trump
. He has stated that Trump "more closely adheres to Catholic social teaching than Joe Biden".
[20]
Ruse mocked the speech impediment of a 13-year-old child appearing during the 2020 Democratic Convention on Twitter, drawing a comparison to Donald Trump's history of mocking people with disabilities.
[21]
He subsequently claimed he was mocking Biden and claimed, with no basis, the former vice president never had a stutter.
[22]
One of C-FAM's board members resigned over the incident.
Personal life
[
edit
]
Raised
Methodist
, Ruse converted to
Catholicism
.
[23]
He is a
supernumerary
member of
Opus Dei
,
[24]
[25]
a
personal prelature
of the Catholic Church.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Joyce, Kathryn (2009).
Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement
. Beacon Press.
ISBN
978-0-8070-1070-9
.
- ^
"Hate Map: DC"
splcenter.org
- ^
a
b
c
"Could Austin Ruse's Violent Rhetoric Endanger C-FAM's Status with the UN?"
.
Southern Poverty Law Center
. Retrieved
2019-05-29
.
- ^
Case, Mary Anne (March 2019).
"Trans Formations in the Vatican's War on "Gender Ideology"
"
.
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
.
44
(3): 639?664.
doi
:
10.1086/701498
.
S2CID
149472746
.
Taking the idea of a war over gender ideology a bit too literally, American Austin Ruse, now head of C-FAM (the Center for Family and Human Rights) and a Breitbart contributor but at the turn of the millennium a diplomatic attache of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, reported in 2000 that a priest in the Vatican's UN delegation had offered him absolution were he to kill Hillary Clinton.
- ^
Corn, David (July 25, 2013).
"Inside Groundswell: Read the Memos of the New Right-Wing Strategy Group Planning a "30 Front War"
"
.
Mother Jones
. Retrieved
October 13,
2020
.
- ^
Ruse, Austin (2017).
Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ
. TAN Books.
ISBN
978-1505108392
.
- ^
"Pope in Fatima"
. Crux. 2017-05-10
. Retrieved
May 16,
2017
.
- ^
Ruse, Austin (17 July 2017).
Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data
. Regnery.
ISBN
978-1621575948
.
- ^
"The Catholic Case for Trump -"
.
Regnery Publishing
. Retrieved
2021-04-12
.
- ^
"Steve Bannon is 'a good Catholic,' Charlie Rose said on '60 minutes.' Was he right?"
.
Washington Post
. Retrieved
2020-02-10
.
- ^
"IPS Honors Pro-Life Couple"
.
Arlington Catholic Herald
. Retrieved
March 18,
2014
.
- ^
a
b
Shadee Ashtari,
"Catholic Group Leader Calls For Liberal Academics To Be 'Taken Out And Shot'"
,
Huffington Post
, March 13, 2014; retrieved March 14, 2014.
- ^
John Gehring,
The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church
, New York, 2015 (chapter 2, p. 26)
- ^
"Statement by Austin Ruse"
. Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. 2014-03-14
. Retrieved
December 30,
2015
.
- ^
"Trump Gives Haters a Prominent Spot at the United Nations"
. 2017-03-21.
- ^
"Anti-LGBT Roundup of Events and Activities 6.26.17"
.
Southern Poverty Law Center
. Retrieved
2020-02-10
.
- ^
Wulfhorst, Ellen (15 March 2017).
"US sends pro-family group to UN fuelling fears over LGBT rights"
.
Reuters
.
- ^
Winters, Michael Sean (2017-09-08).
"Fr. James Martin's works will outlast recent, childish Twitter attacks"
.
National Catholic Reporter
. Retrieved
2020-02-10
.
- ^
Mucha, Sarah (18 July 2020).
"Joe Biden is a man of faith. That could help him win over some White evangelicals"
. KTEN
. Retrieved
20 July
2020
.
- ^
Dreher, Rod (21 August 2020).
"Brayden Harrington, Hero"
. The American Conservative
. Retrieved
21 August
2020
.
- ^
Gifford, Storm (22 August 2020).
"Trump-loving author Austin Ruse claims Joe Biden never had stutter"
. NY Daily News
. Retrieved
14 October
2020
.
- ^
"Austin Ruse ? Former Methodist"
. The Coming Home Network
. Retrieved
January 20,
2019
.
- ^
"Opus Dei's Influence on the U.S. Judiciary"
. 21 March 2019.
- ^
"Faith and the City: Opus Dei Assumes Responsibility for St. Agnes Church"
.
National Catholic Register
. 15 June 2016
. Retrieved
2020-08-28
.
External links
[
edit
]