Audio: Yes, Ryan Anderson, your anti-gay 'moral convictions' absolutely matter

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06/13/2014

by Jeremy Hooper

On last night's edition of John Stossel's Fox Business show, unmarried marriage "expert" Ryan Anderson (of Heritage Foundation) yet again instructed the uninformed dolts of American on the proper way we must love and marry and raise families in this country. But that part was just sort of whatever. I mean, it's what Ryan does for a living. It's the gig he has chosen. I don't accept anything other than his unique blend of cockiness and Catholicism.

But this part really annoyed me. Listen to the quick clip:

**FULL INTERVIEW HERE

It doesn't matter if you are personally opposed to homosexuality? Um, yes—it does. Very much so! It is the root of the whole thing.

Ryan Anderson believes that gay people should be celibate. He has said so on multiple occasions, and he has also advocated for others who push this view. That is the core of his thinking on this subject. It is ludicrous to suggest that we should pretend to not know that and just see him as a simple policy wonk.

The fact of the matter is that if it were not for his deeply Catholic view on what he calls "same-sex attractions," it's unlikely that Ryan Anderson would have taken on this work for a career. Maybe he would've; there are some who advocate against same-sex marriage without seeming entirely anti-gay. Not all that many, to be sure—but some. Though however many there are, the point is that Ryan is not one of them. He has made it quite clear that he does, in fact, have moral objections to homosexuality. His non-answer here even makes that pretty clear. And while he is well within his right to not answer, he is not free to decide that these little ideas he has about gay people needing to live loveless and sexless lives are things that should be separated from the policy work. To those of us for whom the love and the sex and the family and the policy are all interconnected, it is downright offensive to suggest we pretend to be having a debate based purely in civil law when the opponent we are tasked with debating is so clearly arguing for what he or she sees as our eternal truths.

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