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MESJ Crystal Clear on the Airwaves !
On Tuesday, June 12, 2007, at about 5 minutes before noon,
I received an email announcing that Crystal Young-Otterstrom would be
part of a discussion on Free Speech on the radio station KRCL Community
Radio.
Great! I live in Las Vegas, had never heard of Radio Free Utah before,
and was visiting at the moment at my daughter's in San Francisco!
So what to do with that information?
Well, I 'googled' KRCL, and what do you know: a couple minutes later I
found myself listening online to a live stream of KRCL!
After an interesting segment about Free Speech and the ACLU, Crystal was
introduced as a member of a panel, together with Will
Carlson, secretary of the Gay and Lesbian Law Alliance of Utah, and
Marshall
Thompson a representative of the military community and anti-war activist,
who inspired us all with his recent 500 mile march for peace through Utah.
(watch the 2 min. video-clip)
In the introduction it was mentioned that Crystal was a representative
of MESJ - Mormons for Equality and Social Justice.
A 45 minute discussion followed on 'Free Speech in Utah'.
Crystal explained that she was raised in Texas, and that being LDS in
the Bible Belt came with certain challenges!
Crystal: "We show tolerance because we know what it's like to experience
intolerance."
As a member of the Relief Society presidency in her ward , Crystal is
relatively new in Utah, but she learned that it's not the Church who preaches
intolerance, but rather comes from segments within the LDS culture and
from members of the LDS legislature.
The panel concluded that hate-speech, as ugly as it can be, should not
be answered by legal restrictions on Free Speech as guaranteed by the
First Amendment, but that the best response to hate-speech is: More speech!
More speech will expose, counter, inform, and encourage dialogue.
Thank you Crystal for representing MESJ and for being such an eloquent
advocate for free speech!
Robert Poort
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