We're acting on our shared responsibility to protect democracy

When we launched the Side With Love Action Center this summer, we imagined it as a place where UUs and other people of faith and conscience could easily find the resources they needed to dive deeply and faithfully into the campaigns that were important to them and their communities. The Action Center is a way to unify our shared labor and ministry based on a vision of creating a beloved community, grounded in our UU faith. 

 This week, we celebrate the hundreds of Unitarian Universalists who have joined the Action Center to learn, grow, and act in service to building beloved community. In just 2 months, we have hosted 27 events with 2000 participants and welcomed over 100 new people to our organizing.  Learn more about how you can grow our faith’s social justice campaigns at one of our upcoming events. 

 Today, we celebrate more than 10 UU congregations joining the Declaration for American Democracy coalition for a Week of Action to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. UUs around the country have organized public events in their communities. Together we are building grassroots power to build a mulitracial democracy that affirms and protects the voices of all and dismantles the systems that have historically excluded Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities from political participation and power.   

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act already has the declared support of 51 Senators, including Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Yet a minority of Senators have blocked votes on all voting rights bills this year by invoking the filibuster -- effectively requiring a 60-vote supermajority. 

 We cannot allow a group of Senators to exploit the filibuster in order to stall critical voting rights, climate, and economic policy that our communities need. 

 Together with the Declaration for American Democracy coalition we are mobilizing folx across the country to call on our Senators to build a democracy that truly represents, reflects, and responds to all of us.

 Our faith holds that it is our shared responsibility to fight for each other until all of our communities are free and thriving. Stacey Abrams reminded us in her 2021 Ware Lecture, that what we imagine can be made real when we struggle together towards our goals. She declared, “I imagine what we need and then I demand what we must have. And I don’t do it alone because doing it alone means I will lose every time!” We are so grateful for those who have organized events this week and for our volunteer leaders who are supporting these teams. 

 Together, with the Action Center, we imagine better, demand more, and organize to harness the power of love to build a beloved community today. Join our community and in collective work. The Action Center is for you. 

In faith and solidarity,

Nicole Pressley 

Field and Programs Director 

Side With Love