No On 8 Rally Update

David Pritchett has just posted a more in-depth article about the work folks are doing on the No on 8 campaign. You can link to the article at the Independent website:

http://www.independent.com/blogs/santa-barbara-public-affairs/2008/oct/29/NO-Prop8-rally-27Oct/

There are a lot of links in this article, and some are well worth clicking on (a couple of them take you to my blog, among other worthy websites). I had to laugh a little reading this article. Especially when I read this part:

"In their responses to sometimes deliberately provocative questions from this correspondent, the rabbis and clergy people looked to the teachings of their own faith about why they oppose Proposition 8. The discussion quickly tested their religious politics, especially as the clergy under the Christian umbrella of denominations remarked with open frustration about how other pastors, preachers, and ministers around Santa Barbara could interpret their same rulebook differently to justify discrimination against some people based only upon sexual orientation."

I do remember David framing some of his questions at the press conference in ways that seemed designed to elicit strong reactions from us - and I remember thinking, "what is this guy up to?" Now I know. Well thanks for pushing us, David, and thanks for your good coverage.

Below is a photo of the Three UU Musketeer-Ministers (the Revs. Erika Hewitt, Melitta Haslund and myself) at the clergy phone bank Prichett attended. Our esteemed colleague Lex Crane was also there, but kindly avoided the photo so as to not outshine the rest of us with his palpable grace and wisdom!

No On Proposition 8!

Since my congregation, the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing California Proposition 8, which would strip same sex couples of their right to marry - things have been very busy!

We have been running Sunday morning phone banks between and after services, calling undecided voters to encourage them to vote no. We've also put up a big bright banner in front of our church on a busy street, distributed many yard signs and buttons - and then capped it all off with a march from our sanctuary to the courthouse for a rally. Even though the rally took place on a Monday morning and folks didn't know it was even happening until Sunday morning, at least fifty or sixty of us turned out. It was great fun!

I was one of the speakers at the rally, along with Representative Lois Capps, our Congresswoman, Mayor Marty Blum, the always awesome Rev. Mark Asman and other community leaders.

Here is what I had to say:

Love is at the very heart of my faith, and striving to build a world ever more full of love and hope and possibility is at the heart of my ministry and my life. Love is sacred.

Marriage is the highest, the most sacred expression of loving commitment that two people can make in our society. Marriage is about commitment and it is about love. It is all too easy to get sidetracked into thinking about marriage like an accountant, balancing up the ledger, tallying up the one thousand or so legal and tax benefits that accrue to couples that are legally married.

I have never met a single couple who came to me and said, “We want to get married so we can start profiting from all the many wonderful legal and tax benefits that come with marriage! Boy oh boy - when can we do this thing?”

No. People do not get married for these things, although these things do matter. They want to get married because they want to say, “I do.” They want to join that great stream of all the loving couples who have come before them, joining their hearts forever in marriage. Marriage is not about taxes. It’s about love.

And so I cannot stand by as the same old arguments that were used to keep inter-racial couples from marrying are trotted out yet again and used to keep my same sex sisters and brothers from marrying. Some people say civil unions, “Separate but equal” but I say that separate has NEVER been equal!!! Only two hearts can decide who should be married and who should not and that decision does not belong to any government!

I have only been married for a few years now, and I know that marriage is sometimes hard. I am blessed with so many other couples that help me find my way in marriage – and many of those couples happen to be same sex couples. Their love and commitment is a blessing on this world, and my faith calls me to stand always on the side of equality, justice and love. That’s why I am voting NO on proposition 8!

And now I would like to introduce one of those couples who bless the life of my congregation: Andrew Knox and Doug Reid, wonderful fathers, who although already married in Canada years ago, have just pledged their love anew in a ceremony of marriage at our church this morning! Come on up, guys.



For more about how Santa Barbara's congregations and clergy are positioned on Prop 8, check out this article in our weekly newspaper, the Independent:http://www.independent.com/news/2008/oct/26/santa-barbaras-clergy-proposition-8/

All of this is certainly attracting a good deal of attention. My voicemail at work has been full of messages - some positive, some quite negative. Our congregational voice is being heard. Not everyone likes what we have to say, of course - but at least we are relevant, and most definitely walking our talk. I am proud to serve such a fine community.

Of course we cannot know if we will be successful in protecting in marriage equality or not. The polls are way closer than we would like. But I am confident that whatever happens on November 4, our Society can look long and hard in our collective mirror and know that we have done our best and lived our values.

The Best of Intentions

Sometimes the best of intentions, the most valid of goals – clash. I find this terribly frustrating. It’s hard enough for me to come to any sort of clarity about what I call the “big questions” in life: what is important, how should I live - should I turn this way or that way at the crossroads?

Then, no sooner do I get some of these vexing questions settled (insofar as such questions can ever be settled…) then I find my all noble goals and aspirations crashing into one another!

I had a funny taste of this last Sunday after church. I had just finished delivering a sermon about things, stuff – and our relationship to them. I talked about how easy it is for us to become enslaved by our own “stuff” and by the societal pressure to accumulate and consume ever more ravenously. At the very end of the service, I challenged all of us to go home and take on that dusty and unopened box of junk we all put off dealing with – and to start liberating ourselves from all the “stuff” that clutters our lives and distracts us from the things that matter most.

So far so good.

But then, after the service, a couple of women came up to say hello. They told me how much they enjoyed the service, and then, with a devilish gleam in their eyes, they reminded me that just a couple weeks ago I preached a sermon encouraging people to make their Sundays into Sabbath days – days without work! These two had been assiduously working to build and honor their Sabbath day – and here was their minister telling them to go home and clean out their junk drawers!

Ahhh, there’s the rub.

And so, once again, two important and meaningful priorities collide. I am so grateful for the feedback those two women. They reminded me that the real challenge of living our values is not when we have to choose between the “right way” and the “wrong way” – but when two “right ways” have trouble fitting into the same space at the same time.

I did correct myself in the second service, making sure to encourage people to declare war on their junk on Monday or Tuesday instead of Sabbath Sunday – but still, the issue remains an important one. How can we balance all the values we hold dear, especially when they sometimes seem to be competing for the scant energy we have left over at the end of yet another long day?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a great answer to this question. I struggle with these kinds of tough choices all the time. What I can suggest is that we can be gentle and patient with ourselves. We don’t have to get everything done immediately or perfectly, or maybe even at all. We can take things in their own time, step by step. To paraphrase the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time to reap, a time to sow – a time for every purpose under heaven. A time for all things.

But only as individuals can we figure out if this is a time for reaping or sowing - what we need to be working on right now. So reflect deeply, prioritize based on what you need most right now – and don’t beat yourself up when you fall down. The mere fact that so many of us even care about difficult questions like, “how shall I live?” is amazing, and he fact that so many of us try so hard to walk our talk is wonderfully inspiring.

When we find ourselves forced to choose between two goods, then we have to know that something is going very RIGHT in our lives. Those are the kinds of problems I want to have!

Interfaith Campaign to Support Sanitation Workers!

Hello, all,

I have recently joined the National Sanitation Worker Justice Committee, a project of Interfaith Worker Justice (http://www.iwj.org/). We are working hard in support of our sisters and brothers who work in the sanitation industry, but it isn't easy. As you will see below, sanitation workers don't only have to deal with the "garbage" they haul, but with sometimes being treated like garbage as well. For more information about the campaign, please read the letter below from committee co-chair, Rev. Nelson Johnson, and sign the online petition if you feel so moved. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1035/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1315

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Our Faith Communities:

I am writing to you in hopes that you will spend just a few minutes of your time to help workers at Waste Management Inc. (WMI), the nation's largest waste company, who are involved in a struggle for dignity.

I ask you to click on the link below and sign the petition demanding that WMI remain neutral in the workers' federally protected right to form a union to improve working conditions. Waste Management, Inc., headquartered in Houston with over 13 billion dollars in sales annually, has an in-house union avoidance team which methodically fights workers' attempts to organize. Currently around a quarter of their workers are organized and the other workers often feel intimidated when they attempt to join their organized brothers and sisters.

Forty years ago this past April, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while supporting the struggles of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The same kinds of struggles continue today for sanitation workers, including those at WMI who are simply trying to exercise their rights to form a union and take steps to improve their lives. WMI continues to violate worker rights and, because our federal laws are so weak, the company continues to get away with its immoral behavior.

There are many examples of WMI's anti-union tactics, including the July 4, 2008 firing of Stacey Stevenson, a sanitation worker and union activist in Little Rock, Arkansas, who we believe was fired for his attempts to organize his coworkers. Local ministers in Little Rock have signed on to a letter in support of Stacey Stevenson.

WMI's intimidation must stop, and your help will go a long way in that fight. Please sign the petition:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1035/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1315

By signing the petition, you are calling on WMI to stop its anti-worker, anti-union tactics by remaining neutral in union-organizing campaigns.

Immokalee Workers

What a ridiculously long time between posts! I apologize to any of you who have been checking in all this time only to fid that nothing has changed - until now. Finally, a new post. I'll do better from now on - promise.

I have been a bit busy since I last posted. Eliza and I have loaded up everything we own and left our home in Colorado (very sad) for our new life in Santa Barbara, where I am the new minister of the Unitarian Society (very happy). Life is very good and very busy, which is just the way I like it. I won't say anything about how uncannily beautiful and pleasant it is here other than to say it feels like we've unwittingly stumbled into Eden. It's that kind of perfect, except that you can eat all the fruit.

Anyway, below is a column from the St. Petersburg Times. I recently helped lead a workshop dealing with the struggle of the Coalition of Immokolee Workers to end the practice of modern slavery and exploitation in the tomato fields of Florida and beyond. These are amazing people, and I hope you will check out their website (http://www.ciw-online.org/) and the Alliance for Fair Food (http://www.allianceforfairfood.org/) to find out more about how you can help bring a little more justice to this world of ours.

There happened to be a journalist named Bill Maxwell from St. Petersburg at my workshop, and he called to interview me a few days later. He is a wonderful man with a huge heart and a powerful commitment to justice and his columns are always worth reading.

Here is his column:

"Eating that tomato can put you in moral peril"
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article695177.ece

By Bill Maxwell, Times columnist
In print: Sunday, July 13, 2008

Some deeds and practices define our individual and shared morality. When, for example, we turn our backs on the cruel treatment of farmworkers, we are complicit in inhumanity and are acting immorally.

Tens of thousands of Floridians read about the case of U.S. vs. Ronald Evans without blinking an eye. To me, everyone who eats fruits and vegetables should be outraged and should be, in some manner, advocating for farm-worker justice.

A review: In 2007, farm labor contractor Ronald Evans, his wife Jequita Evans and their son Ron Evans Jr. were sentenced to federal prison for enslaving farm workers and for other labor-related crimes in Florida and North Carolina. They were sentenced to 30, 20 and 10 years respectively.

Ronald Evans recruited homeless U.S. citizens from shelters across the Southeast, including in Tampa, Miami and New Orleans, with promises of decent jobs and housing. After the farmworkers arrived at the labor camps in Palatka and New Grove, N.C., Ronald Evans deducted the price of rent, food, crack cocaine and alcohol from the workers' pay, keeping the workers "perpetually indebted" in what the U.S. Justice Department referred to as "a form of servitude morally and legally reprehensible."

Justice Department records show that the Palatka labor camp was enclosed by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. A "No Trespassing" sign warned outsiders.

The Evans family worked for grower Frank Johns, then-chairman of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, the powerful lobby of the state's agricultural industry. As a grower, Johns was not charged with a crime.

This is not an isolated case. Since 1997, through efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, six other labor outfits have been prosecuted for servitude. The cases involved more than a dozen employers and more than 1,000 workers, who testified to being locked in their compounds at night, beaten, raped, pistol-whipped and shot.

Remember, the average U.S. farmworker earns a little more than $10,000 a year. They are excluded from the protections of the nation's employment laws, and they are prevented from legally organizing.

As a result of such inhumanity and exploitation, American consumers can enjoy cheap, fresh and attractive produce. Companies such as Tropicana, Minute Maid, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's, Kroger and Wal-Mart profit from so-called "everyday low prices" made possible on the backs of abused workers.

As individuals, we are morally obligated to demand economic justice for those who harvest our food. George Orwell, who wrote extensively about poverty in England, said: "Economic injustice will stop the moment we want to stop it, and no sooner, and if we genuinely want it to stop the method adopted hardly matters."

One person I know who is trying to get consumers to see that their buying habits directly contribute to the hardships of farmworkers is the Rev. Aaron McEmrys, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Santa Barbara, Calif. I recently met McEmrys, a former union organizer, when he participated in a farm-worker seminar in Fort Lauderdale.

I quote him at length: "The things we do and the ways we live affect our fellow beings in ways that are often hard to see. Sometimes, even things that seem small and innocent to us can do terrible damage to others in the wider world. As long as we remain blissfully ignorant, we might be passively complicit in the suffering of others, but we are not knowing, willing participants. We are just ignorant.

"Once we know, however, really know, about how our choices or our lifestyles can hurt and oppress others, we have some real choices to make. We can either change our ways to stop hurting people or we can go on as we always have. But with one big difference: We aren't innocent anymore. We are still complicit, but now actively so. We have chosen to live in such a way that pushes people down instead of lifting them up, that strips away our humanity and theirs instead of celebrating our shared humanity.

"We all agree that slavery is an abomination — a sin — a crime against humanity. And yet this kind of oppression is exactly what the people who pick our tomatoes have to live with every day. The tomatoes that nourish our bodies and add flavor to so many of our meals come with a price tag. They come at the cost of human dignity, human freedom. Once we know this, we have some real choices to make: We can either change our ways or we can go on eating those cheap tomatoes knowing that we have chosen, by default, to be fed by the suffering of other human beings — human beings just like us.

"It's not a question of whether we should get involved. If we eat tomatoes, then we are already involved. The only real questions are: What are we going to do about it? How will we be involved from here on out?

"Here is a real truth: When we do the right thing, when we change our ways, even just a little, to live in such a way as to lift up the best in ourselves and others, the tomatoes will taste better. I guarantee it."

American consumers have a moral duty to stop the exploitation of farm workers. If we do not, as McEmrys argues, we enable servitude and are guilty of the "sin of complicity."

"White Working Class Voters"

1,940,000.

That's the number of search results I got a few minutes ago when I googled "white working class voters." 1,940,000.

This is a phrase that has been bugging me more and more over the last few months, as I have heard and read it at least three or four times a day as what Jon Stewart refers to as the "Long, slow, seemingly endless Bataan death march to the White House" grinds on and on.

But you know, that phrase has always kinda bugged me. Pundits generally preface their use of the phrase by explaining that they are talking about white folks without college degrees - but more and more that feels misleading to me - because even with this definition of terms, everybody knows the "code-speak" that is about to be invoked.

We do not live in a society where it is generally acceptable to openly discuss or express our racist attitudes. We are all supposed to have "transcended" race by now, and people, especially in exit polling, are extraorinarily reluctant to appear racist.

But we all know it's there - we all know that race IS a big issue in our culture and in this campaign. But we can't/won't talk about it directly. So we do what we always have - we resort to the tried and true method of coded speech.

Early in the Democratic primary, when Obama was racking up victories in places like my home state of Wisconsin or Iowa - which both have TONS of white folks without college degrees - there was no mention whatsoever of "white working class voters." It wasn't until the campaign moved into the South and into Appalachia, that this particular phrase became ubiquitous.

"White working class voters" has become a code phrase to describe white folks who are afraid of, uncomfortable with, or just plain opposed to - a black President. It has become a useful way of talking about the very real race-based (racist) challenge a black candidate faces - without actually having to call it by it's name (racism) or having to single any white folks out as still holding onto viewpoints which we pretend we have left in the past.

Sometimes, however, the veneer wears thin and the actual racism behind the code-phrase becomes more apparent. A good example of this is when Hillary Clinton described Barak Obama as being unable to win over her supporters, "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." This statement reveals a good deal about all the coded meaning that is packed into that phrase - that to be a "hard working" American means to be a "white" American. This plays into well established opinon polling which has shown over and over again that as many as "one half to three quarters of white Americans possess at least one negative and racist sterotype about black people" - like, for example, "black people don't have a strong work ethic."

But are all white people (or even most)without college degress racists? Of course not! To create and uncritically feed a phrase like "white working class voters", which is clearly a coded way of talking about people with racist attitudes is unbelieveably offensive to me - just as any other racist sterotype is. It's no different than saying that black people are lazy or all Asian kids are academic superstars with no social skills. Or that white guys can't jump. It's just stupid.

I am from as white and working class a town as anyone can find in America - Grafton, Wisconsin. Are a lot of those folks white and working class? Yes, definately. Are there racists there? Yes, definately. But to extend those traits to all people living in Grafton, Wisconsin is absurd and demeaning. Reducing any group of people to nothing more than a monolithic blob not only denies the essential humanity of that group - but it also removes them from the equation altogether, creating an empty canvas (Nascar dads, Starbucks democrats etc.)that other people can project anything they want onto - in this case "white working class voters" (white people without college degrees)have been used by pundits and politicians alike to project the widespread and mostly unspoken racial and racist fears our society has yet to deal with.

Oregon has a higher percentage of whites without college education than Pennsylvania, for example, as well as a lower median househole income - and yet Obama won a clear majority of those groups, including union households. Are these not "white working class voters?" Of course they are - but they are not the kind of "white working class voters" pundits are talking about when they use that phrase.

I believe we need to stop all this code-talking, and the news media needs to step up to the plate and begin to police themselves more critically and more aggressively. It is interesting to me that Obama is often lauded for "transcending" race - which also seems to be code for a couple things: a)Obama doesn't talk about race very much, and rarely addresses the endemic oppression still faced by people of color in this country and b)he's almost like one of "us" but with different skin tone.

Nominating a black man is a great thing, but it does not mean we have "transcended" our racist heritage or the massive discrimination in health care, employment, the justice system and housing, among others.

Has any white candidate ever been asked or expected to "transcend" whiteness?

It is interesting to me that even as the dominant media has been engaging in a constant and blatantly race-based dialogue under cover of code-speech like "white working class voters" - African Americans like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are roundly excoriated for NOT speaking in code! I do not believe that the controvercial things Wright sometimes says are any more offensive than some of the carefully coded inferences I hear on CNN every day (and have you listened to the truly frightening stuff the Rev. John Hagee, a white supporter of John McCain has said?!). So is it what Wright SAYS that makes people so upset - or is it that he refuses to speak in code, like the rest of "polite" society?

I understand the political and social context of this election. And I understand that, from a pragmatic point of view - Barak Obama (and any other black candidate)has to play along to some extent if there is to be any hope at all of being elected. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

As Tim Wise writes in Lip Magazine", "We have taken racism to an entirely new and disturbing level, one that bypasses all the old and all-encompassing hostilities of the past, and replaces them with a new, seemingly ecumenical acceptance in the present. But make no mistake, it is an ecumenism that depends upon our being made to feel good, and on our ability to glom onto folks of color who won't challenge our denial let alone our priveleges, even if they might like to."

Let me be very clear - I am not endorsing a candidate. But I am arguing that any talk about "transcending" race without actually dealing with race - is a dead end and an illusion. Code-speech is one of the age-old vehicles of racism, and until we can speak openly and honestly (even when we won't like what we hear)we will remain shackled.

Unfortunately I expect we will hear a lot more code-speech now that the general election is starting - and I hope that this time more of us (especially in the media) will step up to expose and denounce such language every time it opens its mouth.

Sometimes Things Just Work Out

You know how sometimes it feels like we work and work and work at things but never feel like we’re getting anywhere?

I know I feel like that sometimes (or even more often, depending how things are going…) – but today is not one of those days!

In just the last couple days I have had wonderful news from two of the groups of workers I have been helping out this year. I work with an inter-faith clergy group organized by my good friend and colleague the Rev. Daniel Klawitter, a Methodist Minister who works for F.R.E.S.C. (don’t you love acronyms?) – the Front Range Economic Strategy Center.

FRESC, and the diverse clergy group I work with are committed to the following principles:

• Coloradans who work hard should be able to provide for their families and have the opportunity to achieve a good quality of life.
• The public should have a meaningful voice in the government decisions and investments that impact their communities and their lives.
• Economic development should build environmentally safe and sustainable communities where ordinary people can afford to live and work.



FRESC utilizes policy development and advocacy, academic-level actionable research, community organizing and non-partisan civic engagement to promote the creation of jobs that pay family-sustaining wages with benefits, housing and health care which are affordable to all families, and neighborhoods that are environmentally safe and sustainable.

Our clergy group, which is made up of clergy from Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist and a variety Protestant Christian denominations, works side by side to help bring these principles to life right here in our own back yards.

But as I said before – lots of the time progress is hard to see and victories can feel few and far between.

But not today.

Just this week I have received two wonderful emails, with victories attached. In both cases, members from our clergy group first met with workers and then reached out separately to management, offering our support and encouraging a fair and peaceful resolution of their differences on behalf of our congregations and faith traditions as well as ourselves.



The first was from a group of workers who work as therapists, teachers, counselors and assistants at a school for children with severe disabilities, behavioral issues and mental health concerns. Workers there have been fighting for well over a year now to improve workplace health and safety (which are big issues there), to improve staff/client ratios and to provide a higher quality of care.

After enduring months of aggressive and illegal intimidation and retaliation, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that the school had indeed been violating their employee’s rights in many ways, some of them very serious. The primary author of these violations has been forced to resign and the workers are now more hopeful than ever that they can finally turn the page on all the unnecessary conflict and get back to what really matters – helping to transform the lives of the children they serve.

The second email was from a group of hotel cleaning staff at the Hyatt Regency downtown. You can read my original blog posting here: http://acrossthethresholduu.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html



I always had a good feeling about this one. Not only were the workers simply wonderful people – so full of commitment and integrity and a palpable spirit of solidarity – but the management team seemed genuinely committed to making things better as well. In an unusual gesture of goodwill, for example, the management negotiating team was perfectly open to having our clergy delegation join both sides at the bargaining table to speak our peace as ministers and community members and to stay for the rest of the session as observers. This is very unusual, and I was heartened by their open and relatively healthy approach to the problems at hand.

But that was WAAAY back in September!

Still, I was thrilled to get a thank-you note from the workers today. They were writing to let us know that they have finally come to a fair and just agreement with the hotel, and agreement which should drastically decrease workplace injuries while also lowering the costs of health care, increasing wages and giving them an active and constructive voice in their working lives.

So if you ever need a good hotel in Denver, I am more than happy to recommend the Hyatt Regency, where you can sleep well knowing that your pleasant and comfortable stay (and especially your immaculately clean room!) comes compliments of safe, secure and healthy employees - and a company which is fulfilling its commitment to be a good corporate citizen.

Boy do I love sharing good news!