Welcome to the Action Center Weekly Update. Each week, we will provide a brief analysis of critical issues in this political moment, share immediate actions you can take, and provide helpful resources to deepen knowledge and practice of our collective work to side with love.
Nothing is inevitable. All justice movements are powered by ordinary people who come together to defeat oppression and build a loving world. You are not alone. We have power. Together we can practice and win a just and loving world where all of us thrive.
Remember we build strong movements when we take action together. Organize teams and networks that can take these actions together. For support on practical organizing skills and support check out our Organizing School and Skill Up resources.
Democracy
Millions are joining in a revival of organizing. From mass mobilizations, skills and capacity building, and nurturing relations of care and solidarity. This week, take actions to help build a strong, networked movement for a multiracial democracy.
Side With Love Denounces IRS Undermining of the Johnson Amendment; Affirms Commitment to Separation of Church and State
The IRS recently made news by suggesting that clergy be allowed to endorse political candidates to their churches. While this potential change surfaced as part of a lawsuit the IRS is involved in, no changes to IRS policies or the laws governing political activity for nonprofits have been finalized or fully enacted.
For years, the UUA has published guidance to our congregations and leaders about how to be a prophetic voice advocating for UU values in the public square. Additionally, our faith has a long history of faithful statements and resolutions that unequivocally support the separation of church and state. As such, we are deeply concerned by the IRS’s actions which would further erode this fundamental principle and democracy itself. The UUA maintains adherence to this principle and calls on all people of faith and conscience to uphold this cornerstone of democracy. This serves both to safeguard the public pluralism of religious freedom and civil rights from government interference, and to preserve the independence of religious organizations, allowing us to follow our calling without entanglement from the state. Both are more important now than ever in pushing back against the rising tide of authoritarianism and the infiltration of white Christian nationalism into government and public policy.
We offer a plethora of resources supporting congregations in being “Prophetic, Not Partisan,” including “The Real Rules” -- a handy guidebook on appropriate political activity and justice organizing. This guidance is woven into all of our nonpartisan, pro-democracy work through UU the Vote. These recommendations remain the UUA’s best guidance on navigating IRS rules and current law governing non-profits, including congregations.
In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to monitor the potential impact of any changes to nonprofit laws. In a time when UUs are under heightened scrutiny from hostile governmental leaders, we are particularly conscious that there are many who would seek any avenue to question our legitimacy and standing. Our guidance remains the same as it has always been to protect our essential position in our communities: partisan activity is incompatible with an organization’s 501(c)3 status, including for us as churches, while it remains our moral duty to advocate publicly and unapologetically for laws and policies that align with our shared UU values.
Take Action: Good Trouble Lives On
This Thursday, July 17, marks five years since the passing of Congressman John Lewis and we’re honoring his legacy with action. Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent protest and organizing to defend civil rights, voting rights, and democracy. Across the country, people of faith and conscience are taking action to say: we will not go back. Join an action near you!
Build Skills: Rise for Freedom in-person trainings
Join the Rise for Freedom Nationwide Mass Training Series and strengthen future organizing efforts, we will bridge to solely in-person engagement through our ACLU Partnership. This extended training pipeline offers free, full-day, in-person training sessions throughout the summer. We still have the same goal of bringing people together, growing and strengthening their local networks, and preparing to mobilize and demand democracy in this new and challenging environment. Find an in-person training near you!
Build Community at The Gathering
August 11, 2025 8:00 PM - 9:15 PM ET
Join us for The Gathering, a monthly virtual event from Side With Love designed to offer: Spiritual Grounding – Strengthen your heart and spirit for the work ahead. Political Analysis – Understand the threats to democracy and justice. Collective Action – Organize with others to block anti-democratic forces and build a just and loving world. RSVP today!
Climate
A just and loving world is a flourishing world. If we are to realize a world with no fossil fuels, where clean energy is a human right, and all beings thrive, we need new systems, norms, approaches, and ways of being to bring that world into existence.
The Update: The last fourteen days have been intense for climate injustice. On July 1, the Trump administration shut down the website of the US Global Change Research Program responsible for sharing climate change reports and resources. They folded the USGCRP into NASA where the information is currently not available to the public. On July 4, extreme rainfall came down in Texas resulting in catastrophic flooding that did not relent for 10 days. In that period, the floods killed at least 132 people. The rains continued for another seven days, with forecasters warning that “slow-moving thunderstorms could cause more flash floods on July 7.” This weekend, heavy rain started up again in Texas, and search-and-rescue efforts have stalled because of it. At the same time, a wildfire began raging in California with almost 81,000 acres of shrub forest and grazing lands destroyed, and the fire still isn’t contained. Meanwhile, three other fires have popped up in the last 24 hours in both Northern and Southern California. As global warming continues to accelerate, we can expect for extreme weather events to be more commonplace. Simultaneously, we can expect increasing burdens of climate injustice for all people as they remain scarcely addressed nationwide, not just in Texas or California. Having infrastructure and preparatory measures in place make all the difference towards greater survival. It is easy in times of crisis for the media and outsiders to seek someone to blame, while not looking at larger, systemic hurdles. The recent passing of the congress bill that divests from integrating environmental and climate justice into existing infrastructure across with the United States will harm more future lives and take “years to reverse.” This bill “leave[s] America a far crueler and weaker place,” and it promises more economic and environmental stressors with fewer protections and a crumbling social and built infrastructure unable to face the extreme climate ahead.
Act:
Talk about recent events with random people you encounter and frame them as events of climate injustice.
Send a message to your House and Senate leaders and tell them how the new anti-environment bill will affect people in your community.
Learn:
Does your congregation have a disaster preparedness and response plan? It should! Learn how to assess climate impacts and mobilize for action in your community with the Climate Disaster preparedness for UUs Toolkit, then make a plan to protect those most at risk of climate disruption in your community.
Read:
They’re fighting Polluters. Trump’s tax bill guts their funding.
Trump administration shutters major federal climate website.
‘A self-inflicted tragedy’: Congress approves reversal of US climate policy.
What Trump’s anti-environment one big beautiful bill act means for your wallet, health, and safety.
As deadly floods hit America, a meteorologist looks ahead.
Watch/Listen:
For inspiration on how to frame recent events with an understanding of climate injustice: watch SWL’s “Climate at the Intersections” series.
Gender & LGBTQ Justice
Every body is sacred. Side With Love unapologetically affirms that trans people are divine, that abortion is a blessing, and that no one is disposable. Attacks on identity is a part of a divide and conquer tactic that relies on the belief that one group’s safety comes at the expense of another group’s safety. Solidarity is the moral and strategic mandate of our time, and we must rise to challenge these attacks and build communities of care and safety for all.
The Update:
The update this week highlights the urgent need for support and advocacy for trans rights and reproductive justice. Trans allies are encouraged to send messages of love to trans Texans facing political hostility and raise awareness about growing barriers to gender-affirming care everywhere, especially for youth like Eli in California. A new federal law threatens abortion access by targeting clinics in supportive states, while the EEOC faces criticism for deprioritizing protections for trans and nonbinary workers. Following a Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, our update urges action through community support, policy advocacy, and engagement with organizations like the ACLU and PFLAG. We also recommend watching John Oliver’s segment on trans athletes to better understand the broader political context.
Act:
Send Love Letters to Trans People via the Transgender Education Network of Texas
“Over the past few years, we’ve received over a thousand love letters from people all over the country. Love Letters like yours remind trans Texans that through the political turmoil, they are still loved.”
Read:
Trans youth fight for care as California clinics cave to Trump: ‘How can this happen here?’ “Eli, a 16-year-old Los Angeles student, is spending his summer juggling an internship at a natural history museum, a research project, a physics class and cheer practice – and getting ready to apply for college. But in recent weeks, he has been forced to handle a more urgent matter: figuring out how he is going to access vital medical treatments targeted by the Trump administration.”
Abortion-related travel could face another ‘shock to the system’ under new spending law
“A new federal law that would “defund” Planned Parenthood could gut the system people have used to obtain abortions since the fall of Roe v. Wade, disproportionately closing the clinics in states that have become abortion havens for people living under bans.”
Learn:
Acting head of US employment rights agency failing to protect trans and nonbinary workers, Democrats say: “Democrats are demanding the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforce civil rights protections for transgender and nonbinary people. A letter to Andrea Lucas, a copy of which was viewed by the Guardian, alleges the agency has “abdicated this responsibility under the law when it comes to transgender and nonbinary workers. The letter cites that shortly after Lucas’s appointment as acting chair of the EEOC in January 2025, Lucas instructed the agency to halt the processing of claims related to gender identity discrimination, and that in April 2025 the agency instructed all employees to classify gender identity discrimination complaints as its lowest priority.”
Join:
The Supreme Court Dealt A Blow to Trans Rights. Here's How to Take Action: “Last week, the Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to trans youth, their families and the communities that support them. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Skrmetti v. U.S. that SB1— Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors —does not illegally discriminate against individuals on the basis of sex or transgender status. This allows Tennessee, and any other states that may choose to follow its discriminatory lead, to ban medically-necessary health care for minors.
So, how Can We Support the Trans Community Today?
Transgender youth deserve to be safe, loved, and respected—everywhere. You can help by taking action:
Connect with your state ACLU affiliate, PFLAG, or local LGBTQ organizations.
Support the Trans Youth Emergency Project, a nationwide effort by the Campaign for Southern Equality helping families access the care their children need.
Contact your members of Congress and demand they stand with transgender people and families—rejecting laws that let politicians dictate our personal health care decisions.”
Watch/Listen:
Trans Athletes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): John Oliver discusses why trans athletes seem to be at the center of U.S. politics right now, the nuances around competition and safety, and where the conversation could be headed.
Decriminalization & Immigration
Criminalization and dehumanization are a political and spiritual project. We must dismantle the false idea that safety for some must come at the expense of safety for others. As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We proclaim a future where care and safety are abundant because our relationships are cultivated through mutuality, not domination.
Migrant detention and deportation. The school to prison network and mass incarceration. Unceasing police violence toward Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. Bills making protest and resistance movements illegal. Laws criminalizing poverty, gender identity and expression, sex work, abortion, accessing and providing health care. All of these forms of criminalization are used by the state to disrupt, disempower, and dehumanize our communities.
The Update:
Choose Democracy writes: Just looking at the expanding ICE police state, we’ve seen a lot of tremendous bravery showing noncooperation is very much alive: from Dodgers staff keeping ICE off stadium grounds, which came from Nezza singing the anthem in Spanish and others who pressured Dodgers, to resilient Angelenos confronting agents face-to-face.
ICE attorney Adam Boyd just resigned, calling the policies “morally indefensible.” Others are doing an even more brave thing — and staying (or even getting hired) in ICE to resist, slowing down the machine.
In Camarillo, CA, protestors blockaded ICE from raiding a farm. The standoff lasted 9 hours—tear gas, rubber bullets, until eventually busloads of farmworkers were taken away witnessed by sobbing children. This should never be normal.
The police violence is not convincing. Gallup just reported 79% of US Americans now record high support for immigration. Why? Because the violent kidnapping of our neighbors is exposing what many of us have known: undocumented people are embedded in our communities, they are family members, school coaches, and cherished friends.”
Act:
Tell Major League Baseball: Keep ICE Out of Your Stadiums: In June, ICE agents requested access to the parking lots at Dodger Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. But the team denied ICE entry. The harsh reality is this isn’t just happening in Los Angeles under Trump’s mass deportation agenda. That’s why it's imperative that the 28 other MLB teams in the U.S. follow suit and publicly REJECT ICE from using their stadiums to abduct and detain immigrants.
The Native Organizers Alliance writes: “Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have taken a decommissioned airport in the Everglades surrounded on all sides by the Big Cypress National Preserve and illegally built an ICE detention camp intended to imprison up to 5,000 immigrants. They’re calling it Alligator Alcatraz. Big Cypress has been home for the Miccosukee and Seminole Nations for centuries.They have stewarded its lands and waters -- sacred cultural sites and ceremonial grounds are scattered throughout -- and hundreds of Native peoples still live in more than a dozen remaining traditional villages. In an outright violation of Tribal sovereignty, no one consulted either Tribe. Federal environmental regulations were tossed aside. And conditions for detainees are reportedly inhumane.
Donate to support local farmworker families impacted by ICE raids like the one in Camarillo, CA.
Read:
Choose Democracy’s blog “It hurts because your humanity is intact”
Join:
One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism. Come join Freedom Trainers for what may be the single largest noncooperation training in US history!
Session 1: The Moment & Your Mission - July 16, 8-9:30 ET
Session 2: How to Make it Happen - July 30, , 8-9:30 ET
Session 3: What Now? - August 13, 8-9:30 ET
Watch/Listen:
It’s a good time to revisit Digital Security, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is full of great resources like this guide to Making a Secruity Plan
Our Surveillance Self-Defense guides are a great place to start your journey of securing yourself against digital threats. We know that it can be a bit overwhelming, so we recommend starting with our guide on making a security plan so you can familiarize yourself with the basics and decide on your specific needs. Or, if you’re planning to head out to a protest soon and want to know the most important ways to protect yourself, check out our guide to Attending a Protest. Many people in the groups most likely to be targeted in the upcoming months will need advice tailored to their specific threat models, and for that we recommend the Security Scenarios module as a quick way to find the right information for your particular situation.