Growing up Ryan Anderson

The current issue of WORLD Magazine includes an interview with Ryan Anderson, author of the newly released Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. Below is the first of three bonus segments from that interview. We’ll run the others tomorrow and Wednesday. At age 33, Anderson, who now serves as senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, has already accomplished a lot. You’d think his prep school would be proud of him—but think again.

You attended the liberal Quaker Friends School in Baltimore. Tell us about their pride in you. I have a sense you’re being facetious. I went to this school from first grade to 12th grade. All four of my brothers went there from kindergarten through 12th grade, so collectively among the five of us we have more than 60 years of attending this school. The Washington Post ran a front-page profile of me back in April. The Post didn’t agree with me obviously, but it was saying here’s the guy who is out there defending marriage between a man and a woman. He’s filed amicus briefs. He’s been courted by the Supreme Court. He goes to college campuses and even liberals and pro-gay marriage people respect him. It had quotes from the Human Rights Campaign and a Harvard Law School professor saying nice things about me. So someone at my alma mater posted it to the school’s Facebook page saying, “Here’s a great example of what Friends School produces, people who think for themselves.”

What’s not to like? Posted at 10 a.m. By 5 p.m., Friends School had removed it from its Facebook page and issued an apology. Some students and, most importantly, I think, donors were saying, “You wouldn’t post a profile of a racist. Why are you posting a profile of a homophobic bigot?”

Did you inquire about the removal? I spoke with the head of the school that night by phone saying, “Wait a second, what message are you sending to conservative members of your community?” He said, “We have to think about what message posting this is sending to the gay students on campus and the liberal students on campus and other groups.” I said, “Wait, what message are you sending to the people who actually agree with me if you are saying even an objective news story about me is inappropriate to be shared on a social media site at the school? You are more or less saying, ‘These are their views and they aren’t fully members of the community.’” He said, “I’ve never thought about it like that.” Interesting. Sensitivity to one constituency of the school and a lack of sensitivity to a different constituency.

He had never thought about that. After your conversation, did anything change? This was in April. He wanted me to come speak sometime in the fall. I agreed to it. If the invitation comes, I will gladly drive to Baltimore and do a talk not so much about the marriage issue but how to disagree within the bounds of friendship and a school community.

Brothers sometimes disagree. How are you doing in your family? The Washington Post quoted my eldest brother, who is a professor of German in California, who disagrees with me. He was the foil for the story: “I love my brother. We disagree about this. I don’t think he’s Hitler.” Something to that effect. One of my brothers agrees with me. The two other brothers just don’t want to have to talk about it, which I think is probably symptomatic of the country. People strongly in favor of gay marriage, people against it, and a large swatch just wishes we just didn’t have to talk about it.

You majored in music at Princeton, not political science or something like that. That’s surprising to some of the students here at Patrick Henry College. I wanted to explore things I might not get to do later in life. You can go to professional school later in life to learn your trade—law school, business school, med school, or whatever. I had always been a musician growing up and here was a chance to study history, theory, composition, all that stuff within the context of a liberal arts college.

What did you plan to do after graduation? I had no idea. People would joke that I’d be unemployed. But my thought was to take the next step. You don’t have to know what the five- or 10- or 15-year plan is. I still don’t know what I’ll be doing five years from now. My thought is to do what I’m supposed to do now and that will lead to the next thing. If you believe in providence that’s how it can work out.

For more of this interview, see “Ryan Anderson on natural law” and “Silence kills: More from Ryan Anderson.”