Austin Ruse

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 holds Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. For its opposition to the LGBT movement at the UN, it has been charged 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.

Austin Ruse
Ruse in 2009
Alma mater	University of Missouri
Occupation(s)	Political activist, journalist, author
Title	President, Center for Family and Human Rights
Spouse	Cathy Cleaver Ruse[1]

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.^[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's fourth book, "Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic" was published by Sophia Institute Press in 2021.

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

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

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.^[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.^[15]

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^[16]

In 2011, Ruse's organization opposed the Human Rights Council's decision to investigate violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Ruse said his group opposed the effort because it would begin a process of adding "sexual orientation and gender identity" as a new category of non-discrimination in international law. The Advocate has described Ruse as "fanatically anti-gay", stating that he has supported anti-gay legislation backed by Vladimir Putin in Russia. Ruse supported legislation in Russia that banned homosexual pedagogy in grade school curricula, 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

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]

In August 2020, critics charged Ruse with mocking the speech impediment of a 13-year-old child who had appeared during the 2020 Democratic Convention on Twitter. Ruse has consistently denied the charges. ^[21] He has repeatedly claimed the former vice president never had a stutter.^[22] One of C-FAM's board members resigned over the incident.^[15]

Personal life

Raised Methodist, Ruse converted to Catholicism.^[23] He is a supernumerary member of Opus Dei,^[24][25] a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.