Prospects for Common Ground: Introduction, in Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground

Abstract

This introduction to Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground--a groundbreaking volume of leading voices in the faith and LGBT advocacy communities, equality and religious liberty scholars, and legislative stakeholders--surveys the volume’s far-reaching exploration of the deeply contested question of whether respect for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) and faith communities can be reconciled in the law. In identifying the topics presented by the volume’s thirty-five chapters, the introduction opens the door to dialogue and negotiation for mutually acceptable laws for faith and LGBT communities. Discussions span from state funding of religious for-profit and non-profit organizations, to the reach of LGBT nondiscrimination law, to approaches in tolerance and collaborative lawmaking. Setting the stage for the dialogue, the introduction notes the shift in policies from the Obama to the Trump administrations, a concerning report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, and political and legal developments that cast issues in a win/lose framework. This lead-in to an overdue conversation, one that began with the volume’s contributors at a two-day summit at Yale University, asks whether we must remain divided as a nation over matters at the intersection of faith and sexuality.