Marian Edmonds-Allen, Parity, and
Derek Monson, Sutherland Institute
We work with Respect + Rebellion, speaking about ways that differences are blessings and actually a way forward for not only better understanding, but better outcomes.
”In recent years, gay rights and religious liberty have been pitted together in what has felt, to many, like an inescapable, zero-sum fight. But does it have to be? Is there any other way?
Derek and Marian think so. More than simply a shared belief, these two have experienced it for themselves for many years – being intimately involved in paving another way as they helped to forge a compromise legislative effort in Utah satisfying both the gay community and religious conservatives.”
Sounds crazy? Then you better hear these two for yourself: See our Speaker Pair Page.
About Respect + Rebellion:
American college campuses deserve a speaker series worthy of the American embrace of competing ideas to innovate. Respect + Rebellion aims to provide it.
Universities have long been seen and experienced in Western cultures as a place where the ideals of free inquiry and deliberative democracy are embodied. But in recent years – and the fury of the American political debate has accelerated and people have isolated themselves in tribal media silos – colleges across the nation have become front-page news for alarming instances of censoring particular voices and protests escalating to near violence when two ideas come into conflict. Universities may now represent a kind of collective “canary in the coal mine” suggesting that the enlightenment value of the pursuit of truth is at real risk in such polarized times.
If escalating anger has a chance of becoming constructive engagement, it won’t happen with a lame finger wag about how we’re supposed to behave, it will be because we remembered that jumping into conversations about competing ideas is fascinating and it’s the conversation we deserve.
There is so much we see in this generation of college students that suggests “hero generation” is an apt description for them – they have broadly shown a heroic devotion to protection of vulnerable groups in society, to causes larger than themselves, to a worldwide sense of justice and progress. We think they’re poised for this challenge.
Respect + Rebellion is a project of The Village Square.
