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MORGAN: And here in our audience a man who says the court shouldn't make marriage policy for the country. Ryan Anderson is the author of "What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense."
Ryan, why are you so opposed to gay people getting married?
RYAN ANDERSON, AUTHOR, "WHAT IS MARRIAGE? MAN AND WOMAN: A DEFENSE": You know, I'm not really opposed to anything in this situation. I think that marriage exists to bring a man and woman together, as husband and wife, to be mother and father to any children that union produces. And that the Supreme Court in the cases that they're hearing today and tomorrow should really not cut short the democratic debate that we're having.
Citizens all across the country right now are discussing what marriage is and why it matters. And what we want to see the court do today and tomorrow is uphold our constitutional authority to have that debate and to pass laws about marriage.
MORGAN: OK. But when I asked the question why you're opposed to it, I assumed you're opposed to it. Are you saying you're not opposed to it? Are you in favor of gay marriage?
ANDERSON: I'm in favor of having the citizens have the authority to go to the ballot box and vote about marriage. And when they go to the ballot box --
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: Well, hang on. Now you sound like a politician.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Vote for marriage between a man and a woman.
MORGAN: Let me -- let's make --
ANDERSON: I think that's what marriage is.
MORGAN: Let's keep this simple. Are you in favor or against gay marriage?
ANDERSON: I'm in favor of marriage between a man and a woman.
MORGAN: So you're against gay marriage.
ANDERSON: I don't like phrasing it that way. But you can phrase it that way.
MORGAN: But there's no other way of phrasing it. You're either in favor of it or you're not. ANDERSON: It's like saying you're against the square circle. I'm in favor -- I think what marriage is is a union of a man and a woman.
MORGAN: Do you believe that because, as many argue, it's to do with procreation. That basically the reason a man and a woman should be allowed to marry rather than a man and a man or a woman and a woman, is to do with their ability to procreate?
ANDERSON: I don't think it's only that. I think what it's built upon --
MORGAN: Is that part of it?
ANDERSON: That's part of it. It's based on the truth that men and women are different and complementary and that the act that unites a man and woman is the same act that creates a new life. And the reality that a child has a mother and a father and marriage is the institution that helps incentivize the mother and the father that created the child to commit to each other and then to care for that child.
MORGAN: So would you ban everyone over the age of 50 from getting married?
ANDERSON: No. And that was a great question that was asked today during oral argument.
MORGAN: Yes.
ANDERSON: And the response to that --
MORGAN: But it is a great question because --
ANDERSON: It's a good question. There's a great response.
MORGAN: People over 50, men and women, they can't procreate so do they get --
ANDERSON: Men are fertile -- most men are fertile throughout the entirety of their lives.
MORGAN: But a woman over 50 is unlikely to procreate.
ANDERSON: Right. So the marital norm still helps because if the man is faithful to his wife he's not creating fatherless children. Government is not interested in regulating my love life. Everyone is free to live and to love as they choose. Government's interested in the marital relationship because the unions of men and women --
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: What about prisoners? At the moment under your logic, prisoners have a fundamental right to get married.
ANDERSON: Yes. MORGAN: Even if they're in prison and can't actually have sex with anybody.
ANDERSON: Yes, the --
MORGAN: You would rather defend a prisoner's right to get married than you would Suze Orman's right to get married to her partner.
ANDERSON: Yes. So the Supreme Court looked at these cases about --
MORGAN: Am I right? Is your answer to that question yes?
ANDERSON: The Supreme Court looked at these cases of the fundamental right to marry for prisoners and they understood again because of what marriage is, is a union of a man and a woman, prisoners have that same right partly because they come out of jail and they still have lives. It's not as if once you go to jail you're there forever.
MORGAN: But you understand why --
ANDERSON: And I think they still carry on relationships.
MORGAN: Right. You're right. Do you understand why I feel especially with Suze sitting here, an incredibly successful American business icon, who has been in a 12-year relationship with a woman she loves very deeply, I find it extraordinary that you as a fellow American would be quite happy to see a prisoner's right upheld to get married and you would be quite happy to have a principle which says it's about procreation even if people are 60 or 70 years old and can't procreate if they're women.
But you don't want Suze to have the right to marry the woman she loves. I find that bizarre but I want you to explain to her what's wrong with her.
ANDERSON: I don't think there's anything wrong with you.
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: We don't want them to have the same rights as you.
ANDERSON: I think all Americans have the right to live and to love how they choose to. And we don't need government redefining marriage to make that a reality.
MORGAN: But if Suze wants to get --
ANDERSON: In all 50 states, in all 50 states --
MORGAN: But wait a minute. Right. Right. If Suze wants to get married, though, you don't want her to have the same right as you to do that. Who are you to say that? I mean, with the (INAUDIBLE) of the world and the best respect, and I understand you're not the only person in America who feels this. It's a polarizing issue. Even though it's moving very fast as you know in the polls in favor of same-sex marriage.
But I just find it odd that you want a certain right for you, but you don't want to afford it to someone like Suze.
ANDERSON: I want the right to marry to be for everyone. The question is what is marriage. I think that marriage is intrinsically, what it is is a union of a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, a mother and a father. But I think all adults should be free to live and love as they choose. They can join a religious community that perform a wedding in all 50 states, this is legal. They can join a place of employment that will give them marriage benefits in all 50 states, that's legal.
You don't necessarily need the government calling your adult relationship a marriage to live and to love how you want to.
MORGAN: OK. Suze, I've heard Ryan --
(CROSSTALK)
SUZE ORMAN, HOST, CNBC'S "SUZE ORMAN SHOW": Everything is good. I was really silent.
(LAUGHTER)
I was really silent there.
MORGAN: What are you really feeling right now? Because this is the debate laid bare. This is a guy sitting a few feet away from you who says nope, I don't want people like you to be able to have the same right to get married as people like him.
ORMAN: I have to tell you --
MORGAN: What it boils down to?
ORMAN: I feel compassion for you, and I'll tell you why. Because I know that you believe very strongly what you believe, but I also know that you're very, very uneducated in how it really, really works. That you say --
(APPLAUSE)
And I believe from the bottom of my heart that if you really, really understood why the government does need to get involved, why it does need to be legal on a federal level, if you really understood that, there is no way that you would sit there and say what you are saying right now. So I understand --
ANDERSON: Why do you assume that I'm ignorant? I mean, you --
(CROSSTALK)
ORMAN: Because you say -- ANDERSON: I just don't know. I don't assume anything badly about you.
ORMAN: No.
ANDERSON: I just think we disagree. President Obama himself has said that there are people of goodwill and sound mind on both sides of this issue. I agree with the president. And so I'm not going to call you names and I'm not going to say you're ignorant, that you don't understand, but up until the year 2000, no political community on the face of the earth had ever defined marriage as anything other than a male/female relationship.
MORGAN: Where is the American -- right.
ANDERSON: I think there's good reason for that.
ORMAN: But you have your facts down.
ANDERSON: I think there's good reasons for that.
(CROSSTALK)
ORMAN: You are really a great recorder.
MORGAN: Here's one fact. Here's one fact, Suze. Where does the American Constitution say that a same-sex couple can't get married?
ANDERSON: The Constitution doesn't, which is why the Supreme Court shouldn't say that.
MORGAN: Right. Right. But just to clarify --
ANDERSON: It's up to --
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: It doesn't say that. You have assumed that that is the position that America should adopt.
ANDERSON: I think that citizens in 41 states have defined marriage as union between a man and woman and the U.S. federal government has done that in the Defense of Marriage Act. If you want to change those laws, we can have a discussion, we can take a vote, we can let the democratic process work its way out.
But I think the Constitutional question before the court right now isn't whether or not same sex-marriage is a good or a bad idea. It's whether or not citizens have constitutional authority to pass laws about what marriage is.
MORGAN: Let's get a question from someone else in the audience. This is Falon Becker. This is an interesting question. It's on the same theme. And actually it cuts to I think what Suze was about to get to, which is the economic reality never mind anything else, about this debate. FALON BECKER, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Suze.
ORMAN: Hi.
BECKER: So I was wondering what the economic benefits are for children who are being raised by gay parents who can get married.
ORMAN: Yes. There's tremendous economic benefits and I'll get to that in one second.
And, Piers, there is also tremendous economic disadvantages to not being able to be married, which is why I said I don't think this gentleman really understands it. While it is true that every state can say that does the nine states, you can legally get married, it means nothing on the federal level.
That means what? That means we don't get to partake in estate tax. We each have to pay estate tax no matter what. It means here I am and I'm married to K.T. and I'm covered under insurance for my corporation and I want to cover her. If it's not recognized, K.T. has got to pay income tax on that health benefit. That could be $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
If we were legally married, recognized on the federal level, K.T. would not have to pay a penny. Then we have all kinds of things such as Social Security. Let's just say, K.T. never worked her entire life and now we're older, I'm going to be 62 here, I'm going to be able to collect Social Security as we get older.
As a legally married couple on a federal level, K.T. would be able to collect half my Social Security. Upon my death, she would get my entire Social Security. But not now. We don't get to participate at all.
For a child, let's just say you're in a relationship and you have children and they're legally your children, and you're staying at home with your children and taking care of them and raising them just the way that I'm sure this gentleman would like you or thinks children should be raised. You have the privilege to be able to stay at home because not everybody does.
And the money that's being brought in by your spouse who is a woman and now she dies. You can't get Social Security based on her income. You can't get the widow's benefit. There's -- so there's all kinds of things.
MORGAN: OK. Ryan, you've heard Suze there, spelling out loud and clear the key issues. It's not just about issues you raise. There are sound economic reasons why it's just unfair. Never mind anything else.
ANDERSON: So I think we can craft public policy that treats all Americans fairly without redefining marriage. So I'll give you an example. The case tomorrow before the Supreme Court on the Defense of Marriage Act, it involves a same-sex couple when one of the spouses passed away, the other was hit with the inheritance tax like you mentioned.
I'm a fellow at the Heritage Foundation for the past 15 years. We have been urging Congress to repeal the inheritance tax because the death tax is bad tax policy. And you can ask yourself this question. What if instead of being a lesbian couple, the two women in question were just elderly sisters who lived together, loved each other, had shared their lives together all their life, one passed away, the other one was hit with the inheritance tax.
Is there any reason why the lesbian couple would deserve the tax break and not the two sisters? I think this is evidence to my mind that what we can do to fix this is craft better tax policy, not redefine marriage. And this would then work for all Americans.
ORMAN: The problem is, however, right now, estate tax for most people aren't a problem because it's a $5 million estate tax exemption. So if that had happened now, we wouldn't be in that situation but how about health benefits, how about Social Security? You are dealing in an economic situation right now where it's like, are they really going to re-craft tax policy, do you really think that's possible? Do -- is that what you think is going to happen?
ANDERSON: But don't want to have to obscure -- I think these are secondary issues. The primary function that marriage serves in every society is protecting the rights of children. Everything we've discussed so far has been about adult relationships. What institution --
ORMAN: I don't know. One out of two people who get married in the United States of America, heterosexual marriage, gets divorced. Why?
ANDERSON: So how do we strengthen the message that they shouldn't get divorced.
ORMAN: The number one reason is argument over money.
ANDERSON: How --
ORMAN: So marriage is not keeping people together, sweetheart.
ANDERSON: It's not doing -- it's not doing a very good job.
ORMAN: Right. It is not doing the function that you say it is.
ANDERSON: It's hard redefine it four years ago.
ORMAN: And this isn't about children. This is about --
ANDERSON: It should be though. That's the problem.
ORMAN: No.
ANDERSON: Right? Because 40 years ago --
ORMAN: No. Because what if people don't want a child. What if this couple here, they never want a --
ANDERSON: Not every marriage have a child and be silent as a mother and father?
(CROSSTALK)
ORMAN: What if you were sterile and you couldn't have a child?
ANDERSON: And marriage is what connects the mother and the father with each other for the child. Forty years ago we redefine marriage --
ORMAN: No. Marriage is what connects the husband and the wife together as one.
ANDERSON: For the sake of connecting a mother and a father with a child. Otherwise, we --
(CROSSTALK)
ORMAN: Really?
ANDERSON: -- we can have the government out of the marriage system.
ORMAN: Audience, we have a live studio audience here.
ANDERSON: Why do we need --
ORMAN: What do you say to him?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Really?
ANDERSON: We're in the court of this public opinion, but in America, there are lots of people who agree with me. And so we should have this conversation and not --
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: The trouble, the trouble, the trouble, Ryan, as you just discovered in this audience, is that actually popular opinion is moving very, very fast. And mainly I think a generational issue, it seems. How old are you?
ANDERSON: I'm 31.
MORGAN: Right. It's interesting to me that someone of your age still maintains --
ANDERSON: Because I think mothers and fathers are important. And I think we need to have an institution that holds up the ideal that men and women are different.
MORGAN: OK. ORMAN: All right, so --
ANDERSON: And that mothering and fathering are different phenomenon.
ORMAN: Right.
ANDERSON: And that children needed both.
ORMAN: All right. Wait one second. He can talk all about what he thinks and his belief and he is seriously in the minority, especially at the age of 30. Anybody at the age of 30, if you take polls all throughout the United States right now, they are way in the majority of like what are you people even talking about.
MORGAN: Yes.
ORMAN: What issue is this? But, Piers, more than this being what he says, mother, father, it's about two people being able to have the ability to say, I love you, and I want to be with you forever. It's about sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner and while the kids are at the table, asking the other people when did you meet, how was your wedding, how did you get married and there K.T. and I are sitting and nobody's asking us.
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: Well, I saw Elton John and his -- and his partner, David Furnish, they were their second baby they've now got, I've never seen two more loving parents in my life. And the idea that you, Ryan, the best one in the world, the idea that you want to stop people like Elton and David or Suze and K.T. from getting married.
ANDERSON: I don't want to stop anyone from living and loving.
MORGAN: From getting married in America in the modern era, I just find a bit offensive these days. It's not fair, it's not tolerant, it's not American.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)