Blog
Called to Arizona
May 14, 2010
The message below went out to Standing on the Side of Love supporters. Sign-up for these emails here.
Dear Friends,
We in Arizona need you.
In Phoenix, I am ministering to a wounded community that needs more love than I alone can give.
When I felt my call to the ministry in 1995, I knew it would be a challenging path. But I never anticipated that I would end up fighting against a police state.
The Standing on the Side of Love campaign will be there along with many national faith leaders, including the President of my Unitarian Universalist faith, Rev. Peter Morales.
There is still time to stop SB 1070 from going into effect.
Yours in the struggle,
Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix
P.S. For those of you unable to make the journey, send a message to your governor asking them to prevent any laws like SB 1070 from coming to your state.
More >Immigration reform is our Selma
May 13, 2010
Unless your ancestors are native to this land, you are a foreigner. We are foreigners. We are immigrants.
It is immoral to pull up the drawbridge after we have safely crossed over to this promised land. When we fail to support a path to citizenship for immigrants, we are dishonoring our ancestors.
I do not know how to fix the very broken system of immigration. I do know that we have a moral imperative to try. We have a moral imperative to be a part of the solution. Arlington Street Church, Unitarian Universalist, is a New Sanctuary Movement congregation because we stand on the side of love. We support SOMOS because we stand on the side of love. We stand on the side of just, humane, sensible, and visionary immigration policy reform.
Friends, let’s make no mistake: Immigration reform is our Selma. Forty-three years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, said:
We must move past indecision to action…. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter – but beautiful – struggle for a new world…. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men [and women]…? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause…? The choice is ours, and … we must choose….
Join me in opposing Arizona SB 1070. Join me now in choosing to stand on the side of love.
Rev. Kim K. Crawford Harvie, minister of the Arlington Street Church in Boston, delivered these remarks at a press conference opposing Arizona SB 1070.
Signs of Love
May 13, 2010
The message below went out to Standing on the Side of Love supporters. Sign-up for these emails here.
Dear Friends,
I am convinced that my Standing on the Side of Love bumper sticker has made me immune to road rage. Time and time again, I have seen drivers roar up behind me and then slowly back off.
My friends don’t believe me, but I know our message has the power to stop rage in its tracks; and we must stop rage in its tracks.
I learned this lesson when I joined four undocumented student for two days as they were walking from Miami to Washington, D.C., sharing their story and their dreams along the way. When I asked why we were walking on a very busy four-lane highway, I learned they were afraid of being out of cell phone range and in places where few people were in sight, “just in case.”
Our immigrant neighbors need to know that in case something does happen, God forbid, they have a neighbor to whom they can turn.
It is a small gesture, but it is a bold gesture.
Sometimes all people need in order to let go of fear, anger, and rage is a sign.
Love,
Adam
Adam Gerhardstein
Campaign Manager
P.S. Here is what the signs look like:
God Loves Glitter
May 12, 2010
Piedmont Park was covered with something besides pollen last week. Youths, parents, and activists marched, sang, and supported the gay and Jewish community with signs saying “God loves Glitter” and “Peace, Love, and Tolerance.” Of course, we had our Standing on the Side of Love signs! Fellow seminary students carried signs saying “God is love!”
Thursday afternoon a lot of teens from Grady High School in Atlanta and community activists converged into a wonderful counter-witness to the hate-filled messages of Westboro Baptist Church. The church members had horrible signs, “God Hates Jews”, “Fags Hate God”, and other horrible language. A youth from Grady High School found out that Westboro would be protesting at their school so she helped to organize a counter-protest. Over 800 people responded on Facebook and there were hundreds that came.
We took this moment to bring our Standing on the Side of Love signs and join other faith groups, local teens, and activist in a peaceful witness to love. I really enjoyed meeting some of the parents of the high schoolers that spoke supportively of teen efforts to organize and get their message out. One parent said, “How can I not support my daughter, when she is supporting two friends that came out in high school.” This may have been the first protest for many of these teens and they conducted themselves with good spirit and peaceful enthusiasm despite the hateful message they were protesting.
It was a great day to see the power of all ages and types of people coming together in spite of hate. It was a testament to the power of people gathered in the name of love. Even the police doing crowd control couldn’t help smiling a little.
McCain Finds Love in Ohio
May 11, 2010
I attended an interfaith Immigration Reform vigil and rally on Sunday, May 9th in Delaware, OH. Why tiny Delaware? Because John McCain was speaking at the commencement exercises at Ohio Wesleyan University, and we were asking the Senator to move back to his earlier position of supporting comprehensive immigration reform rather than Arizona-style drastic measures. The crowd – about 100 strong – was also very vocal about its opposition to bringing any kind of Arizona-style law to Ohio.
We carried our “Standing on the Side of Love” banner, and the folks from the Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship brought their congregational banner too. Church World Services helped organize the event, and the attendees included a Methodist bishop, an Ohio Wesleyan University professor, students from the Methodist Theological School, and members of Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Catholic and Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was a really nice mixture of people from a variety of faith traditions, all working together – effectively – in common cause.
Several speakers told their personal stories, including the mother of two-month-old Ariana. Ariana’s father was deported just before Mother’s Day, leaving a devastated young mother and grandparents to care for the newborn – one more example of a family torn apart by our country’s unjust and inconsistent immigration laws.
I wasn’t expecting to speak, but at the end of the day I was asked to offer a benediction. What came immediately to mind were the words of Dorothy Day, and I said something rather like this:
The great Dorothy Day once said, “People say, ‘What is the sense of our small effort?’ They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble case into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions…No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.”
Those of us gathered here are like those pebbles. We spread justice in all directions when we stand on the side of love with immigrant brothers and sisters, when we stand on the side of love with those who society rejects. With the help of God and one another, let’s take our love out into the world, send our ripples out in all directions, and know that we can make a difference. Amen.
In retrospect, I wasn’t nearly as articulate or as poetic as I would have liked, but I meant what I said. This event confirmed again, for me, that we need one another. If we are serious about changing our society and healing our world, Unitarian Universalists need the United Church of Christ folk and the Methodists and Church World Services and others. And they need us. I believe that the progressive elements in our various faith traditions are called to stand together on the side of love as we work to build the Beloved Community. We are all in this together.
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Rev. Joan Van Becelaere is District Executive of the Ohio-Meadville District of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
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