Austin Ruse
Ruse in 2009
Alma materUniversity of Missouri
Occupation(s)Political activist, journalist, author
TitlePresident, Center for Family and Human Rights

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.[1][2] Through C-FAM and his own writings, Ruse advocates anti-LGBT and anti-abortion conservative positions, and has advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality.

Career

Around the turn of the millennium, he also was a diplomatic attaché of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.[3] In July 2013, Ruse was identified as a convener of a Groundswell coalition meeting among conservative activists and journalists.[4]

In 2017 Ruse published the book Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ,[5] which profiles three devoutly religious children who died after extended periods of illness.[6] Ruse's second book, Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data was also published in 2017.[7] Ruse's third book --- The Catholic Case for Trump --- was published by Regnery Publishers just prior to the 2020 United States presidential election.[8]

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.[9]

Awards and honors

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.[10]

Views and controversies

Anti-left views

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.[11] Monsignor Anthony Frontiero, of the St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire, resigned from the board of C-FAM because of Ruse's comments.[12][2] The next day on the same radio program, he described Democrats "get[ting] into the ballot box" as "really dumb ... low-information voters."[11]

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.[2] Ruse issued a statement on C-FAM's website later that week in which he said he regretted using the phrase "taken out and shot".[13]

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.[14]

Anti-gay views

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[15]

At the UN, Ruse has worked to overturn the Human Rights Council's decision to investigate violence on the basis of 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.[16][17]

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".[18]

Support for Donald Trump

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".[19]

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 past history of mocking people with disabilities.[20] He subsequently claimed he was mocking Biden and claimed, with no basis, the former vice president never had a stutter.[21] One of C-FAM’s board members resigned over the incident.[14]

Personal life

Raised Methodist, Ruse converted to Catholicism.[22] He is a supernumerary member of Opus Dei,[23][24] a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.

References

  1. ↑ "Hate Map: DC" splcenter.org
  2. 1 2 3 "Could Austin Ruse's Violent Rhetoric Endanger C-FAM's Status with the UN?". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  3. ↑ 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 attaché 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.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ Ruse, Austin (2017). Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ. TAN Books. ISBN 978-1505108392.
  6. ↑ "Pope in Fatima". Crux. 2017-05-10. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  7. ↑ Ruse, Austin (17 July 2017). Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data. Regnery. ISBN 978-1621575948.
  8. ↑ "The Catholic Case for Trump -". Regnery Publishing. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
  9. ↑ "Steve Bannon is 'a good Catholic,' Charlie Rose said on '60 minutes.' Was he right?". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  10. ↑ "IPS Honors Pro-Life Couple". Arlington Catholic Herald. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  11. 1 2 Shadee Ashtari,"Catholic Group Leader Calls For Liberal Academics To Be 'Taken Out And Shot'", Huffington Post, March 13, 2014; retrieved March 14, 2014.
  12. ↑ John Gehring, The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church, New York, 2015 (chapter 2, p. 26)
  13. ↑ "Statement by Austin Ruse". Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. 2014-03-14. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
  14. 1 2 Ruse, Austin (1 October 2021). "Leaving Twitter". Crisis Magazine. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  15. ↑ "Trump Gives Haters a Prominent Spot at the United Nations". 2017-03-21.
  16. ↑ "Anti-LGBT Roundup of Events and Activities 6.26.17". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  17. ↑ Wulfhorst, Ellen (15 March 2017). "US sends pro-family group to UN fuelling fears over LGBT rights". Reuters.
  18. ↑ Winters, Michael Sean (2017-09-08). "Fr. James Martin's works will outlast recent, childish Twitter attacks". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  19. ↑ 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.
  20. ↑ Dreher, Rod (21 August 2020). "Brayden Harrington, Hero". The American Conservative. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
  21. ↑ Gifford, Storm (22 August 2020). "Trump-loving author Austin Ruse claims Joe Biden never had stutter". NY Daily News. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  22. ↑ "Austin Ruse – Former Methodist". The Coming Home Network. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
  23. ↑ "Opus Dei's Influence on the U.S. Judiciary". 21 March 2019.
  24. ↑ "Faith and the City: Opus Dei Assumes Responsibility for St. Agnes Church". National Catholic Register. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
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