Support Voting Rights: Join Me in North Carolina on July 13

Support Voting Rights: Join Me in North Carolina on July 13

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The disappointing 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder overturned key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that was passed in the aftermath of the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march. Following that 2013 ruling, voter suppression laws have proliferated across 22 states with more in the works. We must not stand by while the right to vote is taken away.

On July 13 a federal court in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will hear arguments in N.C. NAACP v. McCrory, a case challenging that state’s recently enacted voter suppression laws. Outside the courthouse on that day, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, II, leader of the North Carolina NAACP’s Forward Together Moral Monday Movement, will lead a march and rally. Rev. Barber has invited me to share this stage with him, and I accepted without hesitation. I feel strongly that we Unitarian Universalists are called to stand with Rev. Barber in support of the right to vote.

Pride Then and Now

Pride Then and Now

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Two years ago today, I was scheduled for an afternoon flight from Boston to my home in Richmond, VA. I had been at UUA headquarters for meetings all week, and I was anxious to get home. I regretted that I hadn’t scheduled a late Friday evening flight after I finished my work. But now there was nothing I could do but wait.

While I waited, I pulled out the Boston Phoenix newspaper, to see what was happening around town.  Much to my delight, I discovered it was Boston Pride weekend. I could go to the Pride parade on Saturday morning and still make my flight. I love photographing parades. I love all the colors and smiles, the marching bands, and the glad-handing politicians. As a lesbian, I especially love Pride parades. 

UUs Take Action at Moral Monday CT #BlackLivesMatter Rally

UUs Take Action at Moral Monday CT #BlackLivesMatter Rally

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Two Unitarian Universalist ministers were among 17 people arrested Monday evening at a Moral Monday CT #BlackLivesMatter rally in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Taking its cue from North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, Moral Monday CT was founded in January, 2015 as a means to shed light not only on police brutality of Black communities across the nation, but also on pervasive racial disparities in employment, housing, incarceration rates, and education. Moral Monday CT leaders have a long-range plan to conduct nonviolent civil disobedience in cities across Connecticut with the goal of shifting public consciousness to support positive changes in the law.

A Theology of Liberation to Inspire White Anti-Racist Organizing

A Theology of Liberation to Inspire White Anti-Racist Organizing

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Shortly after addressing a packed room of over 400 mostly white, faith activists from around the country at the Unitarian Universalist Selma 50th Anniversary Commemoration Conference in Alabama, Opal Tometi, one of the cofounders of Black Lives Matter and someone I worked alongside fighting the "Show Me Your Papers" anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, gave me a quick look and said, "We need to build up the anti-racist work with white people, to meet the enormous needs in these times," in between conversations she had with a dozen people waiting to talk with her.

It wasn't a new message, as I've been in conversations with hundreds of organizers of color over the past two decades who have said something similar. The difference this time was that we are living in Black Liberation movement on the move times and racist structural violence is in the headlines and national debate in a way I've never experienced, as a 41-year-old Gen Xer who came of racial consciousness with the Rodney King uprising in Los Angeles in 1992.

A Call to NC: Defend Our Voting Rights July 13

A Call to NC: Defend Our Voting Rights July 13

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Fifty years after Selma the fight for equal voting rights is still going on, and this summer a major battle is heating up in North Carolina. On July 13 the Federal Court in Winston-Salem, NC, will begin to hear the lawsuit that the North Carolina NAACP brought against Governor Pat McCrory (NC-NAACP v McCrory) to challenge the voter suppression law in North Carolina. This law is the first and worst since the US Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder decision, which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The outcome will impact voting rights across the nation, and UUA President Rev. Peter Morales has accepted the invitation of NC-NAACP President Rev. William Barber to come to Winston-Salem for a Mass Moral Monday March for Voting Rights and Justice at 5pm on July 13.
We hope to build on the Moral Monday movement that has helped mobilize a broad coalition in our state, and also to begin to make real the faithful pledge that Unitarian Universalists made at the 50th anniversary events in Selma this year. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Jimmie Lee Jackson, Unitarian Universalists James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, and countless justice warriors who have gone this way before us. We stand on the side of love, and on the side of justice. 

Cleveland UU's Stay Focused on Systemic Change in Criminal Justice

Cleveland UU's Stay Focused on Systemic Change in Criminal Justice

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Although Cleveland Ohio has been one of the cities suffering some of the worst instances of police violence against unarmed African Americans, it has been a city in the shadows of the national spotlight highlighting activism around “Black Lives Matter”. That changed this week, and it changed in a way that Cleveland UU’s were proud to be part of. Alongside our interfaith community based coalition partners, Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC), we were on the streets of Cleveland on May 26 to embody our four year call for criminal justice reform, a call that was reflected back and embodied in turn moments after our march concluded, with the announcement of a Consent Decree on police department reform between the US Department of Justice and the City of Cleveland.

Mar's Story

Mar's Story

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Thank you for the invitation to share with you my passion for social justice, for promoting UUism, and for helping bring about a more peaceful and interconnected world by encouraging people to cross all the borders that separate us. These borders include linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, theological, and many others.

MY LIFE AS A UU
I have been a UU for over six years. I greatly envy those of you who are lifelong UUs. I wish I had stumbled upon it sooner when my kids were still little. As they say, better late than never. I actually came across UUism at a gathering with fellow Esperanto-speakers. I noticed that many of them were UUs. After some research the reason was crystal clear. The ideologies of both movements are so similar! They both encourage us to move beyond a culture of monolingualism and into a world community that is truly universal in its embrace of diversity and in its ability to speak, listen, covenant, and act as “We, the Peoples of the Earth” by crossing all the borders that separate us. At international Esperanto gatherings I can chat with people of over 100 countries with a language that only took me about six months to learn.

Standing on the Side of Love with Deported Veterans

Standing on the Side of Love with Deported Veterans

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My name is Mar Cárdenas Loutzenhiser, and I am a dedicated Unitarian Universalist, helping to bring the Del Lado del Amor campaign to Mexico. One of our partner organizations is the Deported Vets Support House, better known as “The Bunker”. Two years ago, my husband Gary and I found out that since 1996, the US Government has been deporting veterans who joined the Armed Forces as legal permanent residents, served their country proudly, and received honorable discharges. Veterans who have been deported served in wars such as Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Iraq & Afghanistan, and served in both combat and peacetime.

In most of the cases I know, the vets got in trouble after being discharged because they had severe PTSD and made the mistake of using drugs and alcohol to alleviate the pain while waiting for the VA to give them the medical care they needed.

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