Now That’s What We’re Talking About—Nov. 13, 2009

I’m not cheering because the Mormons are supporting gay rights legislation in Salt Lake City.  I’m cheering because of the process that led up to it.

Gay rights advocates and Latter Day Saints leaders got together in “quiet conversations to help foster better understanding.”  I’m cheering because when people step down from their podiums and put away their placards and start listening to each other, they find points of connection. They are willing to set aside, for a time, their strongly felt positions and open up to other people’s experiences and stories and perspectives.  They are changed.  That change is evident the next time they talk into the microphone, or the megaphone, or the telephone.  Or, in this case, when they support a piece of legislation.  That change is a recognition and understanding of “others.”  They have replaced caricatures with full human beings.   There is genuine interest, and maybe even compassion, instead of assumptions about who “those people” are.

At the Public Conversations Project, where we define dialogue as a conversation for mutual understanding, people often ask us “so what?”   So what if people understand each other better?  They can’t sit in a room and “just talk.”  They have to get back to “the real world,” where they still have the same disagreements, the same problems, the same choices and decisions to make.

But as seen in Salt Lake City, relationships can be built across the most fundamental differences.  “Just talking” can mean coming to know, trust, and even like (!) people we otherwise would condemn, dismiss, or blame, so that we can grapple with problems more effectively, intentionally, and care-fully.  And that’s what we’re talking about.

Alison Streit Baron

Program Manager
Public Conversations Project

November 13, 2009