
Ryan Anderson is a fellow with D.C.'s conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation
CHICAGO - Heritage Foundation's marriage defender Ryan Anderson is in Chicago to speak with two very different audiences - first, law students at Northwest University Tuesday and the Catholic Citizens of Illinois Wednesday night in Oak Brook.
Anderson, 31, says that conservatives have not lost the discussion about the definition of marriage, despite gay rights' activists recent judicial and legislative victories nationwide.
Now a doctrinal candidate at the University of Notre Dame, the Princeton graduate has become one of the nation's leading debaters on the importance of preserving the one-man/one-woman definition of marriage. Anderson co-authored a book with Princeton’s Robert P. George and Sherif Girgis “What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense” that U.S. Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito cited in an opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act.
Illinois Review had the chance to ask him a few questions about the current state of marriage in America.
IR: Have conservatives already lost the debate about the definition of marriage?
Anderson: No, not at all. I think we're just starting to have that discussion. We're a little late to the game, but there's no reason to think that this discussion is over for the long haul, even if there are temporary setbacks in the short term.
But there's nothing more important for the conservative movement to do than to champion a sound understanding of marriage and the family. If we don't get that right, then we won't get civil society right, and if we don't get civil society right, we can't get limited government right. And if our long term goal is restoring good government - which needs to be limited for government to be good - we need to get the family right, we'll need to get marriage right.