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What is marriage? Ryan T. Anderson debates Alastair Gamble at Arizona State University

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A debate about what marriage is, hosted by the Federalist Society at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, featuring Ryan T. Anderson and Alastair Gamble.

The debate took place at the law school at Arizona State University.

The speakers:

Ryan T. Anderson researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory.

Anderson’s recent work focuses on the moral and constitutional questions surrounding same-sex “marriage.” He is the co-author with Princeton’s Robert P. George and Sherif Girgis of “What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense” (Encounter Books, December 2012). The three also co-wrote the article “What is Marriage?” in the winter 2011 issue of Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Anderson received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa andmagna cum laude. He is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his master’s degree.

Alastair Gamble is an attorney in the firm’s Litigation group and focuses his practice on Labor and Employment at both the trial and appellate level.

From 2008 – 2012, Mr. Gamble practiced in Los Angeles, California, where he focused on Labor and Employment and Securities litigation. Before that, he served as a law clerk to Hon. Andrew Hurwitz of the Arizona Supreme Court and as a judicial extern to Hon. Michael Daly Hawkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Gamble holds the J.D., Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and the B.A., History, Emory University, 2000.

The video is 70 minutes:

The format is 15 minute opening speeches, 5 minute rebuttals, then Q&A.

News

Ryan T. Anderson explains marriage to Piers Morgan and Suze Orman

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Here are the two clips.

Part 1 of 2:

Part 2 of 2:

Here’s a description of what happened from the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

Anderson, co-author of the book “What Is Marriage” and Heritage’s William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society, opened the show by explaining his view of marriage:

I think marriage exists to bring a man and woman together as husband and wife, to be mother and father to any children their union produces. And the Supreme Court, in the cases they’re hearing today and tomorrow, should really not cut short the democratic debate that we’re having. Citizens all across the country are discussing what marriage is and why it matters. And what we want to see the court do is uphold our constitutional authority to have that debate.

After peppering Anderson with several hostile questions on marriage — all of which he answered with composure — Morgan turned to his guest Orman to deliver an emotionally charged tirade in which she called Anderson “uneducated.”

[…]“What are you really feeling right now?” Morgan asked Orman. “Because this is the debate laid bare. This is a guy sitting a few feet away from you who says, ‘Nope, I don’t want people like you to have the same right to get married as people like him.’”

Orman, a lesbian who lives with her partner Kathy Travis, responded:

I feel compassion for you. And I’ll tell you why. Because I know you believe very strongly what you believe, but I also know that you’re very uneducated in how it really works.

I believe from the bottom of my heart that if you really understood why the government does need to get involved, why it does need to be legal on a federal level, if you really understood that, there’s no way that you would sit there and say what you are saying right now.

Anderson’s response:

Why do you assume that I’m ignorant? You say I just don’t know. I don’t assume anything badly about you. I just think we disagree. President Obama himself has said there are people of good will and sound mind on both sides of this issue. I agree with the President.

I’m not going to call you names and I’m not going to say you’re ignorant or don’t understand. But up until the year 2000, no political community on the face of earth had ever defined marriage as anything other than a male-female relationship. I think there are good reasons for that.

[…]Morgan, a British journalist recently schooled by Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro on gun control, ended the interview by cuting off the discussion and declaring, “The idea that you want to stop people like Elton [John] and David [Furnish] or Suze and K.T. from getting married in America in the modern era, I just find a bit offensive these days. It’s not fair, it’s not tolerant, it’s not American.”

Why is it that people on the left cannot bear to stay calm and listen to anyone who disagrees with them? Is it because they deliberately surround themselves with people who agree with them about everything? Maybe they just need to be more open-minded and tolerant of views they don’t agree with? I think that they should seek out more diversity of thought and critical thinking in their circle of friends. That would make it easier for them to listen to people who disagree, instead of trying to shame them, coerce them and silence them.