Ryan T. Anderson is the most dangerous man in America. His new book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” is the hottest new thing that you absolutely should not read.

At any rate, this is what you’re meant to believe. Immediately following the book’s release, legions of trolls were unleashed to demolish it with sneering Amazon reviews. Of the first 49 detractors, only one was a verified purchase. (My suggestion to trolls: after offering your opinion of one book you obviously didn’t read, why not head over and review this one as well?)

Allow me to state the obvious. If Anderson were really the prejudiced, hateful crank his critics declare him to be, liberals would not be desperate to bury his book. They would be trotting it out at every opportunity. “Extra, Extra! Fresh installment of crazy from Mr. Marriage!”

We’re not hearing that, because Anderson isn’t a crank. But he is a rarity: someone who has a clear position on what marriage is. Even more unusual, he understands the ramifications of his view, and is still willing to defend it. That’s bad enough, but the real offense? He can make that view appealing.

Most Americans, I believe, feel our culture is coming apart at the seams. We have a vague sense that things used to be better-ordered and more purposeful; somehow they’ve degenerated. Marriage is part of this grim picture. Most everyone nowadays agrees that it’s a good thing, but somehow it’s prohibitively difficult to do. When did ordinary things (marriage, family) get so maddeningly out of reach? How did our shiny scientific age get so broken and confused?

Anderson’s book has that salt-of-the-earth quality that makes the reader feel it’s possible for the world to be sane again. What we need is to recover a clear understanding of what marriage is, and to build our culture around that understanding in a meaningful way. Same-sex marriage has swept through our culture, not because our definition of marriage has “evolved” or “expanded,” but rather because it has degenerated.

Understanding The Velvet Devolution

In a way, the problem is fairly simple: people aren’t sure what marriage is anymore. The cultural trappings remain, but there is no central function to tie them all together. Lacking clear purpose, the institution unsurprisingly loses its integrity. We no longer have a good answer for people who wish to marry their same-sex friend, or two friends, or their sister, or their dog. A surprising number of intelligent people (some of them passionate advocates for “marriage equality”) have told me earnestly that marriage can and should be “whatever the participants wish for it to be.” They don’t seem to have noticed that if the arrangement cannot be defined, it is literally meaningless.

The velvet revolution of same-sex marriage is really more of a “velvet devolution.” Past a certain point of decline, it is no longer possible to maintain the clear lines that once elevated marriage to a unique, purposeful relationship. From the swamps of untamed Eros come querulous demands for relationship-validation, and even those who are properly ashamed of our cultural decay find themselves hard-pressed to refuse. On what grounds can we really distinguish anymore, when divorce and voluntary barrenness have so radically transformed the institution? Who are we to judge?

Thus we find ourselves returning to fundamental questions. Have we truly eviscerated the central purpose that once made marriage meaningful? If so, then marriage as such is lost to us and we should simply retire the word, along with the legal and cultural structures that accompany it. People should be free to love one another in whatever way they choose, deciding for themselves how to fit sex, fidelity, commitment, and children into their personal-relationship picture. Perhaps we could follow Maria Bello’s lead and refer to all important persons in our lives as “partners,” just to avoid any (polite cough) confusion.

That alternative will be absolutely disastrous for children. If it truly is our only option, our culture is doomed. Happily, there is an alternative. We could try to convert this into the kind of “rock bottom” moment that forces introspection, clarity, and change of trajectory. Obergefell could mark the turning-point. For those who are willing to help, Anderson’s book is a great place to start, because he holds the key.

He is a man who knows what marriage is. This is dangerous stuff, indeed.

Ryan T. Anderson Explains Marriage in Simple Terms

I have particular admiration for Anderson because I think he arrived early at an insight that took me years. I signed onto the “Catholic” understanding of marriage the first time I encountered it, which was about 12 years ago, when I first read this book. It’s a wonderful book. It’s rich and wise and laden with philosophical complexity. I was in awe. The downside was that my view of marriage became wrapped up in a rich, wise, philosophically complex set of arguments, and I walked around for the next several years telling people that the “Catholic” view of marriage was wonderful! But also that it was complicated and obscure.

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