Austin Ruse


Austin Ruse is an American conservative political activist, journalist and author. He serves as the President of the Center for Family and Human Rights, which has been listed as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Through C-FAM and his own writings, Ruse advocates anti-LGBT and anti-abortion conservative positions.

Career

Ruse received a Bachelor of Journalism degree as well as a Bachelor of Arts in political science and received an Honorary Doctorate from the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Having been involved in the establishment of the C-FAM, he has headed this organization since the summer of 1997, holding the title of President since 2000.
In July 2013, Ruse was identified as a key member of Groundswell, a coalition of conservative activists and journalists.
In 2017 Ruse published the book Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ.
Ruse's second book, Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data was also published in 2017.
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. Moreover, Ruse has published in First Things, The Washington Times, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, Human Events as well as Touchstone, and he has been a columnist for The Catholic Thing and Crisis Magazine.
Ruse is a founding member of the Diplomatic Society of St. Gabriel as well as a member of Sons of the American Revolution. He is a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and a Knight of Malta.

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 in March 2014. Monsignor Anthony Frontiero, of the St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire, resigned from the board of C-FAM because of Ruse's comments. The next day on the same radio program, he described Democrats "get into the ballot box" as "really dumb... low-information voters."
After the fallout from his comments, Ruse issued an apology on C-FAM's website later that week for using the phrase "taken out and shot".

Anti-gay views

has described Ruse as "fanatically anti-gay", pointing out 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. 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. Ruse has warned against "radical homosexuals" and suggested that "they 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." 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.
In 2017, Ruse attacked Jesuit priest James Martin on social media for his work that urges gay Catholics to begin conversations with their bishops. The National Catholic Reporter described Ruse's attacks as "vulgar and childish", and pointed out that when it comes to Catholicism, Ruse "seems to adopt the most hurtful interpretations possible and hurls them at the feet of others."
In January 2020, Ruse drew criticism for referring to a hypothetical transgender youth as "some sparkly boy who now says he’s a girl".

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".

Private life

Raised Methodist, Ruse converted to Catholicism. Ruse is a descendant of early English colonists. He and his wife Cathleen, a senior legal advisor to the Family Research Council, have two daughters, and live in Virginia.