The Ruth Institute’s Jennifer Johnson wrote on the organization’s blog yesterday that marriage equality advocates who criticize the Religious Right for singling out gay marriage while ignoring straight divorce “have a point.”
“Have we been too focused on “same sex marriage” and not focused enough on divorce?” she asks. “I think so.”
“Divorce is a big problem that Christians have not confronted adequately,” she writes. “Thus, we have lost our witness and moral authority in regards to the institution of marriage. At least, that’s how it looks to me. “
The Ruth Institute — which until last year was affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage — doesn’t always conform with the Religious Right’s messaging, most recently taking issue with the movement’s “whining” persecution rhetoric.
That’s not to say that the rest of the Religious Right doesn’t care about divorce — the advent of no-fault divorce is frequently brought up as as a milestone in the slippery slope of the sexual revolution, and “covenant marriage” laws are popular among some activists. (Family Research Council president Tony Perkins sponsored the nation’s first covenant marriage law when he was a Louisiana state legislator.) But the movement as a whole knows that villainizing people who get divorced is going to be a less popular strategy than scapegoating the much smaller LGBT population.
