Welcome to Our Stories, the new SSL Blog Roll!

Dear friends,

We are excited to share our new blog roll with you, called Our Stories! Since the start of the campaign, sharing stories from our personal, lived experiences has been a core way that we have learned how to better stand on the side of love with each other.

You'll be glad to know that many stories from our old blog roll can be be found here, including several from many of the people who helped shape this campaign from the beginning, like Rev. Meg Riley, Adam Gerhardstein, Dan Furmansky, Meredith Lukow, and others. As we read through the history of all the changes, victories and set-backs, we are reminded of all the love that has gone into this campaign to make it was it is. 

We also invite you to share YOUR story with the Standing on the Side of Love community. Here are some ideas on the hows, whats and whys of sharing your story!

Share Your Story

Standing on the Side of Love is a campaign driven by the work of individuals and communities across the country. Our movement to harness love’s power to end oppression is only possible because of thousands of people like you.

While there are many stories of successes, there are just as many examples of challenges and setbacks. Sharing the stories and reflections from our efforts reinforces the importance of the work we are doing, and serves to support those facing challenges and inspire countless others who strive to live their values.

We want to hear your stories. Please use the guidelines below when you submit your blog posts, videos, and photos.

Please submit posts via email to love@uua.org. You may submit your post in the text of an email or in a Microsoft Word document. Photos should be attached to the email in .jpg or .gif format, and be of reasonable quality.

Blog Post Guidelines

While we will work to post everything we receive, there are a number of things that you can do to make sure your submission will appear on the Standing on the Side of Love blog in a timely manner. We may decline to post your submission if it is too long, falls outside of the scope of the campaign, or is not timely.

For all content, please remember to keep it short, personal, and compelling. This will help us inspire people to stand on the side of love and keep all our supporters engaged. We recommend the following:

• Keep the content of your post consistent with the mission of Standing on the Side of Love: ”To harness loves’s power to end bigotry and oppression against people because of their identity.” This includes avoiding violent or combative imagery.
• Give readers details to better understand the context of your story whenever possible. Only use acronyms after you have listed out the full title once. Ex: Standing on the Side of Love (SSL). Provide all necessary details, including who, what, where, when, why, and how.
• If you are sharing a story after a specific event, please submit content as soon as possible after an event. If it is a story we are able to share, we will do our best to get it published in a timely manner as well!
• Keep your post short. A couple of hundred words will do the trick and even better if you can keep it under 750 words.
• Submit photos or video with your post. We like to have at least two high quality photos for each story we post, including one that helps tell the story visually and one photo of the author(s) so that each messenger feels like a real life human being! 
• Make sure your submission explains who you are,  how you stood on the side of love, and if it is about an event, what were the end results. We aim to provide compelling and inspirational content to our supporters, and hearing your story is a big part of this. Let people know what your lessons learned are and share anything that surprised you along the way.
• Please proofread your post to double check for typos, etc.
• If you are writing an opinion piece, please provide enough support in your posting to help SSL readers understand your reasoning.

We look forward to hearing your story soon!