Photo by Lefteris Bartsalis
Below is an excerpt from an opinion piece in The New York Times. Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Dialogues.Written by Special Olympics President Dr. Timothy B. Shriver:
for many years, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Supported Special Olympics International’s efforts to expand its reach unified sports Programs in schools around the world. The Unified Sports program is designed to enable children with and without intellectual disabilities to play together and, in doing so, learn to live together as well. The lesson is as simple as it is profound: everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and when that happens, everyone benefits.
Today, this lesson is important not only for people with intellectual disabilities, but also for the rest of us. There is a new issue in our politics, but it has not yet received the urgent attention it requires. We discuss migration and reproduction; We challenge each other on issues such as: education We work to enforce the law, and we express our strong ideas regarding war and peace. We work hard for the future of our planet and our energy sources.
These issues are extremely important, but what is hiding before our eyes is the one issue that prevents us from being able to address any of them: our pattern of treating each other with disdain and robbing each other of our dignity. In one society after another, in one country after another, in one religion after another, we are torn apart not by our politics, our religious values, or our differences, but by religious anger and the addictive virus of contempt. Difference is not the problem; Rather, the problem is how we differ. When we disagree with hatred and contempt, we make it impossible to solve the very problems we claim we want to solve.
 Dialogues, written by Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver.){kind=link}