The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College’s upcoming conference “Most Sacred: Freedom of Conscience in America" features Ryan Anderson, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and founder and editor-in-chief of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute.
Anderson will present the lecture “Not Every Disagreement is Discrimination: On the Uses—and Abuses—of Anti-Discrimination Policy” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4 in Sticht Lecture Hall in the Hall of Arts and Letters on campus.
Anderson is the author of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom” and the co-author of “What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination.” Anderson’s research has been cited by U.S. Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas in two cases before the high court.
Anderson holds a doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation was titled “Neither Liberal Nor Libertarian: A Natural Law Approach to Social Justice and Economic Rights.” He has made appearances on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and Fox News and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and National Review. He 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.
The conference on April 4 and 5 will explore: What is freedom of conscience properly understood? What is the tradition of conscientious objection, not just to Americans specifically but to Christians generally? What are its roots and applications from Biblical times to modern times? Who are its earliest martyrs and modern warriors? Which cases stand out and speak to us? Why is this a freedom worth preserving? And above all, how should we at Grove City College—an institution dedicated to faith and freedom, to the foundations of a faithful and free society, and to the mission of forming the very consciences of our students—respond to threats to freedom of conscience in today’s chaotic culture?
Other speakers include: Colleen Sheehan, co-director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University; Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio talk show host; David French, senior writer at National Review; Kristen Waggoner, attorney and senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom; and Paul J. McNulty ’80, president of Grove City College.
For a complete schedule and to register for the conference, visit the website at mostsacred.org.
The Center for Vision & Values is a conservative think tank strengthening the faith and freedom foundation of American citizenship. Its mission is to promote those principles to the next generation of American leaders and to share them with the wider world. For more about the center, visit visionandvalues.org.