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Bay VIEW The Bay View Education Department will present a new lecture for this summer called Bridges: Crossing Cultural Divides.

The lecture, sponsored by Donald Loyd long-time friend and supporter of Bay View will discuss the areas of diversity and other cultural issues facing our society.

The event takes place at 7 p.m. on July 11 in Voorhies Hall in Bay View with the selected speaker, Dr. John Corvino, professor and chairman of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Corvino, also an author/lecturer, is the recipient of several awards including the 2012 Professor of the Year Award from the Presidents Council of the State Universities of Michigan and a 2004 Spirit of Detroit Award.

Corvinos specific focus in the lecture is conversation stoppers and the culture wars.

Ill be talking about how the importance of dialogue and how the way the things we say sometimes hinder rather than help dialogue, Corvino said. My hope is to give people some tools for building bridges across moral and cultural divides.

Corvino graduated from Chaminade High School, an all-boys Catholic school, in 1987. He attended St Johns University in New York City, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1990. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.

Corvinos writing has appeared at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Advocate, the Huffington Post, The New Republic, and Commonweal Magazine, as well as in numerous academic anthologies and journals.

Known as The Gay Moralist, (his column appeared biweekly in Between The Lines (BTL) from 2002-2007) he has spoken at more than 200 campuses on issues of sexuality, ethics and marriage.

Corvino, who for years has been researching LGBT equality, said weve been seeing remarkable progress in terms of cultural acceptance.

Access to legal marriage is probably the most significant example, but there is also the less tangible but nonetheless crucial fact of greater visibility, Corvino said. At the same time, we are increasingly polarized politically and socially. And while homophobia, racism, sexism and other ideologies may be less prevalent and visible, they remain destructive where they do exist.

Corvino recently completed a point/counterpoint book, Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination, published by Oxford University Press in June. Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis co-author the counterpoint.

In it, we explore some emerging conflicts, including those involving clerks who do not wish to authorize same-sex marriages; bakers, florists and other wedding providers who do not wish to sell goods for same-sex weddings; corporations that seek religious exemptions from legal regulations and so on, Corvino said.

I also have written some opinion pieces and released a new series of YouTube videos in conjunction with the book, Corvino added. My main concern is how claims of religious liberty are sometimes used to justify religious privilege and to harm vulnerable minorities.

Corvino also heavily studies metaethics, and based a dissertation on moral theory of the 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume.

I have long been interested in questions of how we justify our moral claims, both specific judgements such as moral evaluations of same-sex relationships and more general foundations, Corvino said. Hume was important in developing and defending a moral view that treated sentiments or emotions as crucial and has been receiving renewed attention in light of recent developments in moral psychology.

The July 11 program is open to the public and donations at the door are appreciated and are tax deductible.

Excerpt from:
Renowned author/lecturer Corvino to visit Bay View July 11 - Petoskey News-Review