Talking Our Way to Common Ground Between Religious Freedom and LGBT Rights

Guest: Robin Fretwell Wilson, Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law and Founder of Tolerance Means Dialogues; Shannon Minter, Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights; Cicily Bennion & Alexis Watson, BYU students and #ToleranceMeans Essay

The US House of Representatives passed a law last month called the Equality Act. It prohibits discrimination against LGBT individuals in a wide variety of areas including education, employment and housing. If the Senate approves the measure, President Trump is unlikely to sign it. Opponents –including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –say the Equality Act threatens the “right of religious organizations and schools to establish faith-based employment and admissions standards and preserve the religious nature of their activities and properties.” Does this have to be an either-or situation? Either we protect LGBT rights or we protect religious freedom and a win for one is a loss for the other?

 

Muslim, NYPD Chaplain, Advocate

Guest: Imam Khalid Latif, University Chaplain for New York University and Executive Director of the Islamic Center at New York University

In the last decade or so, Khalid Latif has travelled the world on behalf of the US State Department, shared a podium with the Pope and the Dalai Lama, advised the Obama Administration on Muslim affairs, and served as the New York Police Department’s youngest chaplain. Latif is a Muslim imam and director of the Islamic Center at New York University. All of that makes him one of the most prominent, well-connected Muslim leaders in the country. But that hasn’t protected him from being tracked by the FBI or repeatedly targeted by airport security.

 

A Gutenberg Bible and the Eccentric Woman Who Made It Her Own (Originally aired March 29, 2019)

Guest: Margaret Leslie Davis, author of “The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred Year Odyssey”

Fewer than 50 of them exist in the world. For rare book collectors, a Bible printed by Johann Gutenberg before the summer of 1456 is the Holy Grail of acquisitions. Throughout history only one Gutenberg Bible has been owned by a woman collector – an American named Estelle Doheny.