Door is open for rights illumination

This week, the Human Rights Education Institute sponsored what it calls a "dialogue program," this one featuring three experts on the Coeur d'Alene and other Native American tribes.

Speakers included Tribal Elder Cliff SiJohn, University of Idaho anthropology professor Rodney Frey, and award-winning author Jack Nisbet.

We appreciate the Human Rights Education Institute bridging possible cultural gaps through greater understanding, and the program focused on a topic of great importance in our region. We hope the institute uses it as a springboard to other critical local issues.

For those unfamiliar with it, the institute describes itself this way:

The Human Rights Education Institute is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization based in Coeur d'Alene. The mission of the institute is to promote human rights as an essential element of a just and successful democracy. The programs of the institute will provide education, assistance and facilities to communities and leaders in the Inland Northwest and around the world seeking help to build better democracies, remove human rights threats, resolve conflicts and reach common goals.

We understand that the organization, created in 1998 and bolstered by a $1 million donation from Greg Carr in 2002, must be realistic in assessing what it can and cannot yet do. Still in relative infancy, the institute has struggled with leadership, bringing in Rhys Johnson from overseas as its executive director but breaking off that relationship under questionable circumstances after just eight months of working together. The split occurred in July 2005 and the institute still has not hired a permanent replacement.

Today there are two pressing issues in North Idaho that raise tension and threaten to fracture the region's peaceful coexistence: illegal immigration and gay marriage. The former is a lightning rod of strong feelings from a number of local citizens, and the latter is on the Nov. 7 ballot for all Idaho voters.

We aren't asking the institute to take sides on either of these issues, both of which appear capable of engendering hostility and increasing human rights threats. But we can think of no more worthy goal than promoting better understanding on these issues, so that even in informed disagreement, all North Idahoans can coexist peacefully and productively.