Blog
“Stand” and Sing Out Your Love to Haiti
Feb 15, 2010
Susan Leslie is a member of First Parish Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist.
My congregation had an amazing service yesterday that focused on Haiti and on standing with immigrant families here in the United States. Community partners from the Haitian Coalition were in attendance. We collected Valentine’s Day cards made by UU Mass Action to send to our legislators for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. People signed up to participate in Temporary Protected Status Legal clinics sponsored by the UUA & UUSC and partners. People also signed up to go as a congregation for a Walk for Haiti in March sponsored by the Haitian Coalition that will raise funds to rebuild schools in Haiti. The religious education classes made valentines for Partners in Health and read Circles of Hope – a story about Haiti. The youth group sold t-shirts for the walk (1/2 the sales go to Partners in Health or you got a free t-shirt if you promised to get sponsors for your walk).
Rev. Fred Small preached a truly amazing sermon on Haiti – managing to give ‘a people’s history of Haiti’ in the context of worship and rousing folks to love and action. Truly standing on the side of love. We sang “Stand” by Amy Carol Webb in the worship service, the choir sang a Haitian ballad, and the congregation sang a calypso Alleluia. At the end of the service after eveyone had a chance to eat Haitian cake in the parlor, speak with our guests (a number of people from the Haitian community came to the service as well as the folks who work at the Coalition) and sign up for the TPS legal clinics and the walk (along with turnng in cards for CIR) – we all went out on to the front steps of the church – holding the Standing on the Side of Love Banner – and singing ‘Stand’ with Rev. Small playing guitar and singing the verses. The moment was magical, folks were filled with love, and passersby stopped to listen and cheer us on. We’re now thinking we could do this once a month around various standing on the side of love justice issues as a form of public witness.
More >Same-sex couples again denied marriage licenses
For the past six years, same-gender couples have applied for marriage licenses in Richmond, Virginia on our near Valentine’s Day. This video documents their attempt in 2010.
News coverage of this courageous action appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
More >The Buzz is Building
Feb 12, 2010
Valentine’s Day is being Reimagined in Ogden (Utah), Loudoun County (Virginia), Long Island, Uganda, Ontario, and beyond!
This weekend we are standing on the side of love all across the world. Yesterday interfaith advocates spoke to the media in the capitol rotunda in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The buzz is building. Love is on the march. Are you wondering what this looks like? Well here are some early photos below. Don’t you forget to upload your photos directly to our website.
The SSL banner unfurled in the MN Capitol rotunda
Des Moines, IA SSL Party 2/6/10
UUs in Canton, NY Standing on the Side of Love
A Fun and Vital Message
Feb 11, 2010
Check out this important message about the future of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign. Click the image below and make sure your speakers are on.
Minnesota Kicks-Off Reimagining Valentine’s Day
Rev. Meg Riley is Campaign Director of the Standing on the Side of Love Campaign and a Minnesota resident.
Tomorrow, early in the morning! That’s when the Minnesota Standing on the Side of Love event takes place, early in the line up of over 100 such events across the nation which will unfold through the weekend!
Here, SSL is joining a broad interfaith rally at the Capitol Rotunda to encourage legislators to support marriage equality, so that Minnesotans don’t need to take buses to Iowa in order to get legally married. We want Minnesota to be the progressive beacon we know it is, and to dare to take action on behalf of equality under the law for all of its citizens.
I’m thrilled to join such national figures as Bishop Yvette Flunder (City of Refuge UCC), Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson (Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Church), and other religious and elected officials, representing Standing on the Side of Love. I’m scheming to have the banner there and highly visible. I’m thinking through what to say in my three minutes in the sun!
I love all of the ripples that spread out over the waters from this one event. Ripples which extend out to hold a wide variety of religious people, who share the same conviction about marriage equality. Ripples which extend out to a national day of love and justice which 100 other religious communities are committing themselves to in a wide variety of arenas, and even to Uganda, where people of faith will stand on the side of love in the face of draconian legislation against glbt people.
In such moments, when we experience being one people, I feel that I am living my religious mission. We all know that the forces of hate and fear are strong. Here’s our chance to know that the force of love, when we stand on the side of love, is even stronger.
More >
