Diversity, Pluralism, & Liberty | Montse Alvarado & Mark Rienzi | Constitutional Conversations

0:00 so what’s on us as as individuals I mean let’s let’s think about this from the standpoint of just regular folks walking around everyday students walking into a classroom how do you how do you create a feeling of unity of any kind in a nation when one of our sort of touchstone rights is this right to be that

0:22 different all the way down to our core what it is we think and believe and how we want to live that out how does that work it’s embracing diversity and so making sure that one you’re you’re literate and what other people believe just as you’re curious about what you believe being curious about what other people believe is really important so that you’re not like Mark said seem rolling someone or crushing someone

0:43 because of what they believe a great example that of a case that we had is a case on goat sacrifice where someone’s neighbors weren’t aware that what they were doing and sacrificing a goat was part of their religious tradition the Yoruba tribes in Africa when they came over they had a mix with Catholicism that turned into some Vidia practices

1:04 and this son theta is a real religion it’s practiced in many areas of the u.s. in Texas and also in Florida and this person was being told that he wasn’t allowed to have these on these ceremonies which is how he passes on the faith from one priest to another it’s a beautiful ritual some people found it annoying just because your

1:26 religion is annoying doesn’t mean that the government has the right to stop you from worshiping and stop you from practicing it and from believing it and that comes with religious literacy that comes with being curious about what other people believe and not just accepting and I would actually don’t even like the word tolerating I think it comes from love of neighbor you want

1:47 someone else to have the same rights that you have it’s that charity and generosity and can I say I think it’s also self-preservation right I mean like we can all look around at our neighbors and find people who have different political beliefs different religious beliefs different thoughts about all sorts of things in the world right and they’re living lives that are different from ours if we want the space to live

2:08 our own lives the way we want to live it then we need to be willing to allow our neighbor who’s different race a different religion a different political belief of different whatever we ought to be willing to allow them the space to do it so I actually think as you said a core part of being American is the ability to disagree with your neighbor I think that’s exactly right but it ought to be sort of cherishing and embracing the idea that hey that’s

2:30 what freedom looks like I mean we could have a world where we weren’t free to have different beliefs than our neighbors do but I don’t think any of us really want to live in that world I think we all kind of like the world where we’ve got the freedom and ability to see things the way we do and just live with the fact that our neighbors are different that’s that’s okay that’s not a problem