Ryan T Anderson

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About Ryan T Anderson

Ryan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, and the Founder and Editor of Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ. A Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, he earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. Anderson's research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices in two Supreme Court cases.

His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Harvard Health Policy Review, the Weekly Standard, and National Review. Anderson has appeared on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and the Fox News Channel. In addition to a memorable 2013 debate about marriage on CNN's Piers Morgan Live, his news interviews include appearances on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNN's New Day with Chris Cuomo, MSNBC's The Ed Show with Ed Schultz, and Fox News' Hannity.

Anderson is a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University, a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and a Visiting Fellow at the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanTAnd For his latest essays and videos, follow his public Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RyanTAndersonPhD

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Books By Ryan T Anderson

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When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment Aug 6, 2019

by Ryan T. Anderson

( 255 )

$12.99

Can a boy be “trapped” in a girl’s body? Can modern medicine “reassign” sex? Is our sex “assigned” to us in the first place? What is the most loving response to a person experiencing a conflicted sense of gender? What should our law say on matters of “gender identity”?

When Harry Became Sally provides thoughtful answers to questions arising from our transgender moment. Drawing on the best insights from biology, psychology, and philosophy, Ryan Anderson offers a nuanced view of human embodiment, a balanced approach to public policy on gender identity, and a sober assessment of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.

This book exposes the contrast between the media’s sunny depiction of gender fluidity and the often sad reality of living with gender dysphoria. It gives a voice to people who tried to “transition” by changing their bodies, and found themselves no better off. Especially troubling are the stories told by adults who were encouraged to transition as children but later regretted subjecting themselves to those drastic procedures.

As Anderson shows, the most beneficial therapies focus on helping people accept themselves and live in harmony with their bodies. This understanding is vital for parents with children in schools where counselors may steer a child toward transitioning behind their backs.

Everyone has something at stake in the controversies over transgender ideology, when misguided “antidiscrimination” policies allow biological men into women’s restrooms and penalize Americans who hold to the truth about human nature. Anderson offers a strategy for pushing back with principle and prudence, compassion and grace.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense Feb 28, 2012

by Sherif Girgis , Robert George , Ryan Anderson

( 255 )

$9.99

Until just yesterday, no society--monogamous or polygamous—had defined marriage as anything other than a male-female union. With clear and cogent arguments, What Is Marriage? explains the rational basis of this historic consensus. It defeats the arguments for recognizing same-sex partnerships as marriages and shows how doing so would harm the common good.

Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, this book’s core argument quickly became the year’s most widely read essay of more than 300,000 scholarly articles posted on the Social Sciences Research Network. Now expanded to address a flurry of prominent responses, What Is Marriage? stands poised to meet its moment as few books of this generation have. If the marriage debate in America is decided in the next few years, it will be either with this book’s help, or despite its powerful arguments.

Rhodes Scholar Sherif Girgis, Princeton University professor Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson, editor of the online journal Public Discourse, provide a devastating critique of the claim that equality requires redefining marriage. They point out that any assessment of what “marriage equality” demands depends on first determining what marriage is—what sort of relationships must be treated as essentially the same. They defend the principle that marriage, as a comprehensive union ordered to family life, requires a man and a woman. And they argue for the great social benefits of enshrining this principle in law.

Most compellingly, they show that those who embrace same-sex civil marriage leave themselves no firm ground—none—for not recognizing as marriages every relationship type describable in polite English, including multiple-partner (“polyamorous”) sexual unions.

Finally, What Is Marriage? decisively answer common objections: that the historic view is rooted in bigotry (like laws forbidding interracial marriage); that it is callous to people’s needs; that it can’t show the harm of recognizing same-sex couplings, or the point of recognizing infertile ones; and that it treats a mere “social construct” as if it were natural, or an unreasoned religious view as if it were rational.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Audio CD

Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination Apr 14, 2017

by John Corvino , Ryan T. Anderson , Sherif Girgis

( 33 )

$9.99

Virtually everyone supports religious liberty, and virtually everyone opposes discrimination. But how do we handle the hard questions that arise when exercises of religious liberty seem to discriminate unjustly? How do we promote the common good while respecting conscience in a diverse society?

This point-counterpoint book brings together leading voices in the culture wars to debate such questions: John Corvino, a longtime LGBT-rights advocate, opposite Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, prominent young social conservatives.

Many such questions have arisen in response to same-sex marriage: How should we treat county clerks who do not wish to authorize such marriages, for example; or bakers, florists, and photographers who do not wish to provide same-sex wedding services? But the conflicts extend well beyond the LGBT rights arena. How should we treat hospitals, schools, and adoption agencies that can't in conscience follow antidiscrimination laws, healthcare mandates, and other regulations? Should corporations ever get exemptions? Should public officials?

Should we keep controversial laws like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or pass new ones like the First Amendment Defense Act? Should the law give religion and conscience special protection at all, and if so, why? What counts as discrimination, and when is it unjust? What kinds of material and dignitary harms should the law try to fight-and what is dignitary harm, anyway?

Beyond the law, how should we treat religious beliefs and practices we find mistaken or even oppressive? Should we tolerate them or actively discourage them?

In point-counterpoint format, Corvino, Anderson and Girgis explore these questions and more. Although their differences run deep, they tackle them with civility, clarity, and flair. Their debate is an essential contribution to contemporary discussions about why religious liberty matters and what respecting it requires.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom Jul 14, 2015

by Ryan T. Anderson

( 447 )

$9.99

The Supreme Court has issued a decision, but that doesn't end the debate. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, Americans face momentous debates about the nature of marriage and religious liberty. Because the Court has redefined marriage in all 50 states, we have to energetically protect our freedom to live according to conscience and faith as we work to rebuild a strong marriage culture.

In the first book to respond to the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage, Ryan Anderson draws on the best philosophy and social science to explain what marriage is, why it matters for public policy, and the consequences of its legal redefinition.

Attacks on religious liberty--predicated on the bogus equation of opposition to same-sex marriage with racism--have already begun, and modest efforts in Indiana and other states to protect believers' rights have met with hysterics from media and corporate elites. Anderson tells the stories of innocent citizens who have been coerced and penalized by the government and offers a strategy to protect the natural right of religious liberty.

Anderson reports on the latest research on same-sex parenting, filling it out with the testimony of children raised by gays and lesbians. He closes with a comprehensive roadmap on how to rebuild a culture of marriage, with work to be done by everyone.

The nation's leading defender of marriage in the media and on university campuses, Ryan Anderson has produced the must-read manual on where to go from here. There are reasonable and compelling arguments for the truth about marriage, but too many of our neighbors haven't heard them. Truth is never on "the wrong side of history," but we have to make the case. We will decide which side of history we are on.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback

Liberalism Safe for Catholicism?, A: Perspectives from The Review of Politics (REVIEW OF POLITICS Series) Jun 30, 2017

by Daniel Philpott , Ryan T. Anderson

$24.49

This volume is the third in the “Perspectives from The Review of Politics” series, following The Crisis of Modern Times, edited by A. James McAdams (2007), and War, Peace, and International Political Realism, edited by Keir Lieber (2009). In A Liberalism Safe for Catholicism?, editors Daniel Philpott and Ryan Anderson chronicle the relationship between the Catholic Church and American liberalism as told through twenty-seven essays selected from the history of the Review of Politics, dating back to the journal’s founding in 1939. The primary subject addressed in these essays is the development of a Catholic political liberalism in response to the democratic environment of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Works by Jacques Maritain, Heinrich Rommen, and Yves R. Simon forge the case for the compatibility of Catholicism and American liberal institutions, including the civic right of religious freedom. The conversation continues through recent decades, when a number of Catholic philosophers called into question the partnership between Christianity and American liberalism and were debated by others who rejoined with a strenuous defense of the partnership. The book also covers a wide range of other topics, including democracy, free market economics, the common good, human rights, international politics, and the thought of John Henry Newman, John Courtney Murray, and Alasdair MacIntyre, as well as some of the most prominent Catholic thinkers of the last century, among them John Finnis, Michael Novak, and William T. Cavanaugh. This book will be of special interest to students and scholars of political science, journalists and policymakers, church leaders, and everyday Catholics trying to make sense of Christianity in modern society.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

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