Engaging Hard Issues at the Intersection of Faith, Sexuality, and Families
For example, LGBT people face discrimination in housing, jobs, and restaurants in parts of the country. They want to be treated like everyone else.
Religious schools, employers, and small businesses seek to affirm their deeply held convictions around religious sacraments—like marriage and circumcision. Sometimes they ask to step aside from services that would violate their beliefs. Sometimes houses of worship are regulated like government buildings, grocery stores, and other public places.
Instantly, important freedoms are in tension.
Equally hard, children are dying in pockets of the US from “faith healing.” Does respecting faith mean that nothing can be done to prevent these tragic deaths? Will jailing parents save lives? Can we better protect children by engaging religious communities more deeply?
Is there a solution to hard issues that best serves all our commitments? This is where the Dialogues come in.
More Than An Idea
The Tolerance Means Dialogues challenge the misconception that it’s impossible for people of good will to find common ground on the hardest issues. The Dialogues harness and amplify the insights of Millennials and Gen Z—tomorrow’s leaders—who have come of age in an era of increasing diversity and a spirit of openness and inclusivity. Just look at the essays written by our scholarship winners. Tolerance, they urge, means moving beyond ambivalence and forging a path toward genuine respect.
Alexus Morton
UnderGrad Winner Benedict College
RKeavius Barnes
Graduate Winner Benedict College
Madaline Allen
UnderGrad Winner University of South Carolina
Alexander Lingle
Graduate Winner University of South Carolina
Hugh Jones
UnderGrad Winner Cambridge University
Katie Marshall
UnderGrad Winner Cambridge University
Tom Spencer
Graduate Winner Cambridge University
Eunice Cho
UnderGrad Winner University of Illinois Chicago
Nataly Obando
Graduate Winner University of Illinois Chicago
Meredith Frank
UnderGrad Winner hofstra University
Jamin Enquist
Graduate Winner hofstra University
Ferida Osman
Graduate Winner hofstra University
Madison Szell
UnderGrad Winner Saint Louis University
Blake Sanders
Graduate Winner Saint Louis University
Kaitlynn Borik
Graduate Winner Saint Louis University
Marquis Fulghum
UnderGraduate Winner Arizona State University
Shiloh Bentacourt
Graduate Winner Arizona State University
Laura Lynch
Undergraduate Winner Wayne State UNIVERSITY
Ben VanBarr
Graduate Winner Wayne State University
Alexis Watson
Undergraduate Winner Brigham Young University
Cicily Bennion
graduate Winner Brigham Young University
Emma Baehrens
undergraduate winner
Cleveland institute of art
Kyle Jorstad
graduate winner
case western reserve university law school
**The views of essayists are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Tolerance Means Dialogues.