Tag Archives: Ryan T. Anderson

Ryan T. Anderson’s commencement speech at Regent University

The full text is up at National Review. I wanted to highlight a couple of points.

First, the importance of marriage and family for raising children:

As a graduate of Regent University you know that the obligations we have to our neighbors are not dependent on race, or sex, or social class. Neither are those duties dependent on age, or size, or stage of development. Or whether someone is wanted or unwanted, planned or unplanned, healthy or sick, “perfect” or disabled.

This starts with you and me. We need to love our children. Graduating class, if you have a daughter with Down syndrome, love her. If your son is conceived “by accident,” love him. As my late mentor Fr. Richard John Neuhaus explained, we have the responsibility to see to it that every human being is protected in law and cared for in life.

The best care comes from the family. Some of you may have already started your families. Most of you will start one in the next decade. And as you welcome children into this world you will experience firsthand that the best way to ensure that children are cared for in life by the man and the woman who gave them life is to unite that man and woman as husband and wife in marriage.

We are created male and female. And marriage unites a man and a woman permanently and exclusively as husband and wife to take responsibility for their children as father and mother. That’s what marriage is all about. And our marriage policy should respect these truths. So, too, should our churches and our own lives. Graduating class: Live lives of fidelity and service to your spouse and your children.

Your children will be educated in this society. And as mothers and fathers you have the responsibility to care for and educate your children. Government should empower you to fulfill those duties. It shouldn’t interfere or indoctrinate. Nor should it use healthcare laws or anti-bullying programs to promote a sexual ideology at odds with the values that responsible parents try to instill in their children.

Second, the free market and the need for job creation:

Our responsibilities extend beyond our families. One of the best ways to care for our neighbors is by serving them in our professional callings, performing quality work at a fair price. Creating wealth and value for our neighbors. Who among the Class of 2013 will be the next David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby? Who will be the next Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-a? Who will improve our lives with new technology or medical devices? Who will create new jobs that pay decent wages? This is your responsibility as future business leaders and entrepreneurs.

We know that the market economy—along with families headed by married couples—has done more to lift people out of poverty and into a flourishing life than any other institution. But it only works if people of good character and upright morals are at the helm. Markets are inert apart from the values that actors bring to them—and you have responsibility for your market action.

Look at leaders like David Green and Truett Cathy. They run their businesses in accordance with their Christian beliefs. There’s a simple reason why: They know that they have duties to serve God—and not just on Sundays, but also on the other six days of the week, when they enter the workforce and marketplace. Remember, you can’t check your faith or morals at the door.

It’s worth a look. The actual speech can be seen here, starting at 41 minutes in.  It goes on for about 19 minutes.

Lightning round: Ryan T. Anderson answers several questions about marriage

John Stonestreet interviews marriage defender Ryan T. Anderson: (Source: The Colson Center)

Questions:

  • Don’t gay couples have a right to express their love in marriage like everyone else?
  • How would legalizing gay marriage hurt your marriage?
  • Marriage is already in such bad shape, how could it hurt marriage to allow more people to marry?
  • Aren’t natural marriage proponents on the “wrong side of history”?

Every word counts in this concise primer on defending marriage. Blink, and you’ll miss pure gold.

You can watch Ryan debate gay marriage at Arizona State University right here.

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

Details:

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.