Common Ground
There was an editorial in The Deseret News on Sunday: Common Ground a positive initiative to bring faith-based institutions and LGBT groups together
We applaud the NCAA's recent initiatives to bring faith-based higher-education institutions into civil dialogue with LGBT students and student-athletes.
These kinds of discussions cannot help but bring about improved relations and conversations between parties that often hold different perspectives.
The NCAA's efforts, dubbed Common Ground, mark a positive shift in posture on how to handle sensitive issues related to faith and LGBT issues.
To address this issue in the spirit of inclusion, the NCAA in November 2014 invited students and administrators from a variety of institutions, including faith-based ones, to a think tank to begin exploring how to bridge these gaps and find common ground. The goal: establish inclusive and respectful athletics environments for participants of all sexual orientations, gender identities and religious beliefs.
Last year, the NCAA found itself receiving pushback from Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, for having used its financial weight to punish North Carolina for a controversial piece of legislation that stated that transgender citizens had to use public bathrooms aligned with their birth gender.
The NCAA took action to pull its NCAA championships from North Carolina before consulting its member schools.
Jenkins, who was not necessarily supportive of North Carolina's law, nonetheless warned the NCAA against using its financial might to silence unpopular perspectives rather than engage them in constructive dialogue.
The use of brute intimidation in politics — no matter the nobility of the cause — contravenes America's democratic tradition and the university's ethos of intellectual debate and deliberation. ... Jenkins is correct to caution the NCAA against joining an emerging social culture that increasingly bullies and silences unpopular political opponents rather than engaging them intellectually.
--Deseret News
In 2015, Utah lawmakers passed the so-called Utah Compromise. Despite its name, the beauty of the legislation was that parties did not compromise their values and principles. The legislation put in place both robust anti-discrimination ordinances for housing and employment while simultaneously establishing firm protections for religious liberty.
Brigham Young University, meanwhile, recently sent its school's associate athletic director, Liz Darger, to participate in the Common Ground dialogue.
Some 40 LGBT representatives met with faith-based school officials and NCAA representatives in a collective effort to, in the words of Darger, develop "inclusive and respectful athletic environments for participants of all sexual orientations, gender identities and religious beliefs."
I was able to get to know the other participants and hear their stories," Darger said. "I was able to share about our faith with them. As we got to know one another, it became very apparent that we all care deeply about student-athletes and young people in general.
--Darger
Neither party is asked to compromise deeply held beliefs and, still, more often such discussions lead to areas of, fittingly, common ground on which to build a future that provides space for LGBT citizens and students as well as sincere religious believers.
Comments
Thank you for this, Robyn.
It feels like part of a beginning of respectful communication between people of many different viewpoints as opposed to intimidation and violence. Hopefully, we can expand our understanding of each others' beliefs.
"The use of brute
"The use of brute intimidation in politics — no matter the nobility of the cause — contravenes America's democratic tradition . . . "
Someone at the paper wasn't paying much attention to their history lessons.
There's nothing as heart-warming as a nice civil dialogue between the oppressed and the oppressors. It may be a kinder, gentler oppression afterward the discussion, but "sorry, my sincerely held religious beliefs are more important than your civil rights" is still oppression.
I hear you.
I understand how loaded with meaning this whole disagreement is about dialogue vs violent conflict and about freedom of speech. People on the left are surely divided on this issue. But I really think open dialogue will move us forward.
I am walking on a trail in the Blue Mountains.
It's a cloudy, moonless night so I am feeling the shape of the trail as I go. I come to a split with only a tiny separation, so I use both depressions to guide my trek. The separation increases so gently it takes a few steps to notice the divergence. A sudden flash of lightning reveals the enormous chasm before me. I must choose which path to take.
Is this, Brigham Young University, a mormon dominated institution?
From my understanding,
it's THE Mormon university.
We may be skirting around this issue in fear of offending or alienating each other, but basically, where I find myself right now is increasingly aware of a, shall I call it, militant intolerance of conservative religious beliefs among my fellow leftists or social liberals.
I advocate listening to each other in the hope we can make progress toward more understanding, which I believe will eventually lead to peace and equality on these issues.
I find the demonizing of social conservatives to be counter-productive, and my understanding of conservative churches is that they are often very socialistic in their hard work to help the poor and people in need.
My views concerning mormonism are rather personal.
Say what you will about the mormons but be aware that what is seen from the outside is not what is known from the inside.
I hear and respect what you are saying.
And I have a family history related to the Mormon church, going back to pioneer families in Utah, as well as family and friends in the church currently, so I have very mixed feelings of respect and serious concerns. That's true of my family who are Catholic as well, serious concerns about the church at the same time that I have hopes that the Pope will take it pacifist. We can always hope.
Dialog is fine . . .
. . . but is it really dialog when one side has the stance of "my deity says X, so while I may try and soften the wording around X a bit, making sure that X is done is my bottom line"?
When you've been commanded from "on high" to do something you probably have to tolerate a lot of cognitive dissonance if you are going to stay a believer but not follow through on the command.
That is not to say that there aren't believers who manage to get around the ugly bits by labeling them "metaphor" or some other conscience-salving euphemism that lets them act in an ethical fashion while still feeling that they are "right" with their deity. But there seems to be no shortage of believers who are just fine with making sure that the ugly bits that were commanded get done.