Religious Liberty: The Key to Healing LGBT Divides

Reverend Marian Edmonds-Allen, executive director of Parity

"Faith, hope, and love are made possible through religious liberty — especially regarding LGBT concerns." -Reverend Marian Edmonds-Allen

Join Notre Dame Law School's Religious Liberty Initiative and the LGBT Law Forum this Thursday, October 26 for a conversation with Reverend Marian Edmonds-Allen, the executive director of Parity, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ concerns. Rev. Edmonds-Allen will be in conversation with Dean G. Marcus Cole.

At this event, Rev. Edmonds-Allen will share about her faith journey and how learning she was LGBT at the age of 40 impacted her traditional, Christian beliefs. She will talk about becoming an activist who worked with LGBT youth experiencing homelessness in Utah and her 'Road to Damascus' moment of meeting a Latter-day Saint who wanted to help. This experience, an experience of religious liberty, changed her life profoundly and resulted in bipartisan state and federal legislation to help LGBT youth experiencing homelessness and increased suicide risk.

Rev. Edmonds-Allen will also speak about the sense of hopefulness that exists through having the integrity of religious belief along with the framework of religious freedom that provides for dignity and wholeness for all people. She will expound on her recent experiences of working with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on federal bipartisan legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT concerns.

The event is co-sponsored by Notre Dame Law School's Religious Liberty Initiative and the LGBT Law Forum. Free lunch will be provided.

Originally published at religiousliberty.nd.edu.