uuworld.org : General Assembly

Guide to 2012 General Assembly coverage

Christopher L. Walton — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:54:55 +0000

Justice General Assembly banners in Phoenix, Ariz. (©Nancy Pierce)

Below are direct links to UU World‘s reports on the 2012 Justice General Assembly in Phoenix, Ariz. Visit our General Assembly blog for the latest reports. For live video of major events, on-demand video, and transcripts, visit UUA.org’s General Assembly 2012 page.

Reports are organized here by the date of the event, even if we published our report later.

UU World’s Fall 2012 issue

‘Hold up those lights’: The UUA challenges the treatment of immigrants at Justice General Assembly (Michelle Bates Deakin)
‘Road to a different future’: With singular focus, General Assembly is transformed (Donald E. Skinner)
Impressions of Justice General Assembly: Comments from participants (Sonja L. Cohen)

Latest updates

Monday, July 2

UU congregations to focus on reproductive justice: News summary (Christopher L. Walton, 7.2.12; version with extensive links, 7.2.12)

Monday, June 25

Board of Trustees hears report on ‘fair share’ giving (Christopher L. Walton, 7.2.12)

Board to review Fifth Principle Task Force report (Michelle Bates Deakin, 6.26.12)

Sunday, June 24

GA 2012 ends on upbeat note (Donald E. Skinner, 6.24.12)

3,714 people came to Justice GA (Christopher L. Walton, 6.29.12)

GA repudiates Doctrine of Discovery (Donald E. Skinner, 6.24.12)

Courter: Justice GA has transformed future GAs (Michelle Bates Deakin, 6.24.12)

GA finalizes several bylaw amendments without debate (Christopher L. Walton, 6.24.12)

Financial advisor Brody: Justice in UUA finances (Christopher L. Walton, 6.24.12)

Vice presidents: How to take Justice GA home (Sonja L. Cohen, 6.24.12)

Video: Morales: Justice GA ‘like a dream come true’ (Peter Bowden, 6.27.12)

Video: UCC leaders reflect on General Assembly (Peter Bowden, 6.27.12)

Video: Youth group shares highlights of Justice GA (Peter Bowden, 6.27.12)

Crestwell: ‘Go home and start a little trouble’ (Laura Randall, 6.24.12)

2012 General Assembly news summary

Christopher L. Walton — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:28:31 +0000

The primary social witness event at the 2012 Justice General Assembly was a candlelight vigil with 2,400 people outside the ‘Tent City’ jail complex, June 23, 2012. (©Nancy Pierce)

Unitarian Universalists gathered in Phoenix, Ariz., for five days of worship, public witness, and education June 20–24, 2012, at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s “Justice General Assembly.”

The 1,723 delegates, representing 530 congregations, didn’t get much practice raising their voting cards this year, as there was limited denominational business. They chose to make reproductive rights the focus of four years of congregational study and action, voted to repudiate the 500-year-old “Doctrine of Discovery,” and gave final approval to three UUA bylaw amendments, including one that opens the door to new forms of congregational membership in the UUA that are not based on geography.

Focus on immigration

Unlike recent General Assemblies, the UUA’s annual convention and business meeting this year did not feature Actions of Immediate Witness, the social witness resolutions brought to GA by petition. Delegates also voted down the only responsive resolution introduced from the floor.

Instead, the Phoenix GA took shape around a 2010 business resolution that defined this year’s gathering as a “Justice General Assembly” dedicated to public witness about the plight of immigrants in the United States. That resolution expressly limited “business as usual” at the 2012 GA; a follow-up resolution in 2011 eliminated Actions of Immediate Witness from the GA agenda to cut down on the number of mini-assemblies and plenaries at this year’s GA.

Delegates to the 2010 General Assembly had voted to sharpen and limit the focus of the Phoenix GA only months after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law the state’s strict anti-illegal immigration bill SB 1070. UUs had debated boycotting the state and withdrawing the UUA from its contracts with convention hotels, which had been signed before SB 1070 was passed. But Arizona UU leaders and some of the state’s immigrant rights leaders asked the General Assembly to come in solidarity with immigrants and groups fighting on their behalf.

Working with immigrant rights groups and others in the Phoenix area, GA organizers welcomed the 3,714 people who registered this year to a series of evening public witness events and a variety of educational workshops, volunteer opportunities, and worship services.

For most General Assembly goers, the primary social witness event was a candlelight vigil the night of June 23 outside Maricopa County’s “Tent City” jail, where County Sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps prisoners outdoors in tents without air conditioning. On June 23, the high temperature in Phoenix was 109°F.

Busloads of Unitarian Universalists and interfaith partners traveled from the downtown convention center to the jail site at dusk, where organizers estimate approximately 2,400 people sang, chanted, and held up battery-powered candles for a two-hour vigil. Speakers at the vigil included several ministers who had just returned from an hour-long tour of the jail led by Sheriff Arpaio, including UUA President Peter Morales and the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ. The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, leader of the UU Arizona Immigration Ministry and one of the primary coordinators of the UU partnership with local immigrant rights groups, shared the stage with Puente Arizona organizer Carlos Garcia, who thanked UUs for bringing national attention to the conditions at the jail.

The Rev. Dr. William F. Schulz, president of the UU Service Committee and former executive director of Amnesty International USA, also toured the jail; he led the vigil in remembering 122 people who had died in detention in the U.S. between 2003 and 2011* without having been convicted of a crime.

(Read UU World’s General Assembly blog for coverage of the vigil and a tour of “Tent City.” Watch videos of people describing their visits to the jail, including UCC President Black, Arizona UU minister Frederick-Gray, and the Rev. Leslie Takahashi Morris. Another video shares a Minnesota youth group’s experiences at the vigil and at the Justice GA.)

Approximately 600 UUs volunteered at a “Naturalization/Citizenship Fair” at the ASU Preparatory Academy on Saturday, June 23, where they helped 320 people complete citizenship applications. The fair—a service project designed by Mi Familia Vota, a nonprofit promoting citizenship and voter engagement, and UURISE (Unitarian Universalist Refugee and Immigrant Services and Education)—drew many more volunteers than organizers expected.

“We were bowled over,” said UURISE President Daniel Stracka, who expected closer to 200 volunteers. “It was a great affirmation that people wanted to do this kind of work.”

At the General Assembly convention center, meanwhile, other volunteers packed books, hats, water bottles, and other necessities in backpacks for children from low-income families served by the Dysart Community Center in Phoenix.

Justice GA unfolded as the U.S. Supreme Court prepared to release its decision about the legality of Arizona’s SB 1070. Several immigrant rights activists and scholars predicted throughout the week that the decision was likely to be bad news for immigrants and ethnic minorities in Arizona and throughout the country—no matter their legal status—but the court’s decision, released the morning after GA ended, was mostly a pleasant surprise: The court overturned most of the law’s provisions. President Morales applauded the decision, but added, “I am deeply disappointed that the Court has chosen to uphold the ‘check your papers’ portion of SB1070. This is not in keeping with our country’s long tradition of striving for justice for all, nor does it reflect our collective moral obligation to protect and support vulnerable populations among us, including migrants and people of color.”

UUA Moderator Gini Courter, who presided over the Justice GA, and several members of the UUA Board of Trustees joined a Phoenix rally condemning the court’s decision to affirm any part of SB 1070.

A new focus on reproductive justice

Delegates selected the new Congregational Study/Action Issue (CSAI), “Reproductive Justice: Expanding Our Social Justice Calling,” from among five proposals. The four-year study/action issue, which calls congregations to champion reproductive rights and reproductive justice as a religious issue, will culminate in a UUA Statement of Conscience in 2016. The UUA is halfway through another four-year CSAI, “Immigration as a Moral Issue.”

The Rev. Rob Keithan, a UU minister newly hired as the director of public policy of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice* and former director of the UUA’s Washington Office for Advocacy, had urged UUs to select the reproductive justice CSAI. “The war against women and birth control and abortion is implicitly and often explicitly driven by religious values that are in deep contradiction to our own,” Keithan said during a plenary presentation on the issue June 22. “While it’s been 20 years since our UU General Assembly took up this conversation, just yesterday the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops kicked off a two-week campaign aimed in part at limiting women’s access to no-cost birth control. . . . It’s time for the UU community to lift our voice and make a real difference.”

The UUA will publicize a study guide on reproductive justice issues for congregations this fall.

Repudiating the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’

Delegates debated only one issue at any length this year. They adopted an amended version of a responsive resolution the Board of Trustees had proposed earlier this year repudiating the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the centuries-old legal doctrine that declared indigenous peoples subject to the Christian explorers who “discovered” them. The resolution called the doctrine “a relic of colonialism, feudalism, and of religious, cultural, and racial biases having no place in the modern day treatment of indigenous peoples globally and indigenous nations of North American and the Hawaiian kingdom.” The resolution calls on the U.S. government to fully endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and calls on the UUA to eliminate any vestiges of the doctrine from its own policies and practices.

In the June 24 debate about the proposed resolution, critics focused largely on the timing of the resolution, arguing that congregations had not had time to study the issue. Supporters argued that one of the UUA’s Arizona partner organizations, Tonatierra, had specifically asked the UUA to take up the issue at the Justice GA. They also argued that the resolution invited congregations to engage the issue further. The resolution was adopted by a resounding majority.

Expanded definition of ‘congregation’

Delegates also adopted three bylaw amendments without debate and with nearly unanimous votes. One, supporters said, may open the door to major cultural changes in the UUA.

The first bylaw change eliminated references to “associate ministers,” an obsolete category of ministers following changes adopted by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee.

The second changed the process in Article XV for amending the UUA’s Principles and Purposes (Article II). The modified process will allow the General Assembly to amend proposed changes to Article II under particular conditions. The last time a General Assembly considered a proposal to revise Article II, in 2009, delegates had wanted to adopt part but not all of the proposal submitted by the Commission on Appraisal, but could not modify the commission’s text under guidelines in Article XV.

Finally, delegates approved a small wording change that the Rev. Dr. Susan Ritchie, the UUA trustee who introduced the amendment, said could have major implications. The amendment changes references to “churches and fellowships” in the bylaws to the more general term “congregations,” and cuts “local” from references to “local congregations.” Removing “local,” Ritchie explained, would open the door to forms of religious affiliation not necessarily tied to physical meeting spaces.

“We can gather as intentional religious community with people we do not share a particular geography with,” Ritchie said. “The board believes it serves the cause of justice to expand the definition of congregations.”

This story was also published on uuworld.org on July 2, 2012. UU World will publish its full report on the 2012 General Assembly in the Fall issue. For extended coverage of GA, including photographs and video reports, see our General Assembly blog and guide to our online coverage. Sonja L. Cohen, Michelle Bates Deakin, and Donald E. Skinner contributed reporting to this story.

Correction 7.6.12: An earlier version of this story reported that the names of 122 detainees who had died in the past year were read during the June 23 vigil outside the “Tent City” jail, based on the way UUSC President William F. Schulz introduced the commemoration. The list of names, however, includes deaths across an eight-year period from October 2003 through July 2011. Click here to return to the corrected paragraph.

Correction 7.11.12: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Rev. Rob Keithan’s role at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Click here to return to the corrected paragraph.

3,714 people came to Justice GA

Christopher L. Walton — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:51:16 +0000

Young UUs played in a fountain during Friday night’s community celebration (©Nancy Pierce)

The 2012 Justice General Assembly drew 3,714 people, according to UUA Secretary Tom Loughrey’s final credentials report in the closing plenary on June 24. The total included 1,359 congregational delegates from 530 congregations in all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 333 ministerial delegates, and 3 certified religious educators with delegate status. (Three delegates representing the UUA’s two associate members, the UU Service Committee and the UU Women’s Federation, and 25 delegates serving as UUA trustees also attended.)

With 301 youth registered this year, almost twice as many youth came to GA this year as have come to GA in any year since 2007.

For the first time this year, votes cast by off-site delegates were counted and included in all General Assembly votes. Seventy-two off-site congregational delegates and 13 off-site ministerial delegates, representing 56 congregations in 22 states, registered for GA this year.

Morales: Justice GA ‘like a dream come true’

Peter Bowden — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:30:06 +0000

After the Sunday morning worship service on the final day of the 2012 “Justice General Assembly,” UUA President Peter Morales told UU World that the Arizona GA had exceeded his expectations. “It is like a dream come true,” he said.

(UUA President reflects on Justice GA from UU World on Vimeo.)

Video: UCC leaders reflect on General Assembly

Peter Bowden — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:15:27 +0000

Three leaders of the United Church of Christ—a liberal Protestant denomination with 5,600 congregations and 1.2 million members—attended the UUA’s 2012 Justice General Assembly in Phoenix. The Rev. Geoffrey A. Black, the UCC’s general minister and president, toured the Maricopa County “Tent City” jail with UUA President Peter Morales and other ministers on June 23; in this video, he describes his experience inside the jail to the Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo, executive minister of the UCC’s Justice and Witness Ministries:

(UCC President describes ‘Tent City’ tour from UU World on Vimeo.)

Black also participated in the Sunday morning worship service, reading from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1966 Ware Lecture to the UUA General Assembly.

In this video, Black and Jaramillo, who attended GA along with Karen Georgia Thompson, the UCC’s minister for ecumenical and interfaith relations, share their impressions of the General Assembly and talk about their hopes for closer partnerships with the UUA:

(UCC leaders reflect on GA from UU World on Vimeo.)

(Read about the visit UUA senior staff made to UCC headquarters in Cleveland in February 2012: “UUA and UCC seek ways to collaborate,” by Michelle Bates Deakin, 2.10.12.)

Video: Youth group shares highlights of Justice GA

Peter Bowden — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:54:04 +0000

UU World talked to the youth group of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka in Wayzata, Minn., who traveled to Phoenix as part of a 15-day pilgrimage. The teens, their minister, and the adults who traveled with them talk about the impact of the candlelight vigil at the “Tent City” jail and about the experience of being at a UUA General Assembly.

Youth group pilgrimage to Justice GA from UU World on Vimeo.

Board to review Fifth Principle Task Force report

Michelle Bates Deakin — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:02:03 +0000

After the close of the Justice General Assembly, the Unitarian Universalist Association Board of Trustees met Monday for a half-day meeting to reflect on last week’s events and discuss upcoming board business.

Board members were abuzz with the just-released U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Arizona S.B. 1070 immigration law. Lawyer-board members Nancy Bartlett and Catherine Cullen briefed the board on the ruling. “I’m thrilled by the ruling. It is really a victory for us,” Cullen said. Even though the “show your papers” provision was upheld, she noted that the court indicated it would likely review that provision with more specific facts. “It really wasn’t technically ripe for judicial determination by the Supreme Court,” she said.

UUA President Peter Morales pointed members to his press statement on the case. “As Unitarian Universalists, we applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down several portions of SB1070, a law we have held as immoral and unjustifiable since its inception. It is heartening to see this unjust law begin to crumble, and for the Supreme Court’s decision, we are thankful. However, I am deeply disappointed that the Court has chosen to uphold the ‘check your papers’ portion of SB1070,” he said in the statement.

The board took just one vote, approving changes to the monitoring report schedule.

Members also welcomed the new youth observer, Katherine Allen of Unity Church in St. Paul, Minn.

The board discussed its process for determining which current members will sit on the smaller board, when it is reduced to 14 members in 2013. The board will be naming four current trustees to serve two-year terms on the new board.

The Nominating Committee will present a slate for the other positions, including some trustees to serve one-year terms and some to serve three-year terms. (People can also run by petition.) This will create a staggered cycle, so eventually four new trustees will be elected each year.

At Monday’s meeting, the board named a group of people to suggest a process for exploring the qualifications they seek in the four trustees who will be appointed to the two-year terms. They will discuss that further in the July board conference call.

Board members also reflected on their individual responses to the Justice GA, especially as it related to governance issues. The board will begin a review of the Fifth Principle Task Force report and its recommendations regarding changes to General Assembly in light of the Justice GA at an upcoming meeting.

Video: How ‘Standing on the Side of Love’ was born

Peter Bowden — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:46:44 +0000

At the 2012 General Assembly, the Rev. Jason Shelton, associate minister of music at the First UU Church in Nashville, told UU World the story of how he wrote the song “Standing on the Side of Love” back in 2004 while listening to UUA President William G. Sinkford prepare for a phone call with a reporter. Sinkford’s phrase, “We stand on the side of love”—transformed into the song lyric “We are standing on the side of love”—gave birth to the Unitarian Universalist public witness ministry Standing on the Side of Love. (See also UU World‘s profile of Shelton’s music ministry from the Summer 2008 issue.)

(Composing ‘Standing on the Side of Love’ from UU World on Vimeo.)

Shelton sang and conducted the 2012 General Assembly choir during the Service of the Living Tradition on Friday, June 22.

GA 2012 ends on upbeat note

Donald E. Skinner — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:41:23 +0000

The Justice GA closed Sunday night with a rousing final worship. After five days of learning about immigration issues and after Saturday night’s massive candlelight vigil at the Tent City jail, GA participants gathered one last time before heading home to continue justice work there.

The service opened with the group emma’s revolution inviting the congregation to sing with them a song they wrote the night before. It was called “Shut Down Tent City. No More Sheriff Joe.”

The service featured the GA choir which had been practicing all week. One piece was “Grow a Heart,” with words by the Rev. Wendy Williams. It was arranged by the Rev. Keith Arnold, minister of music at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colo. Arnold has been choir director for this GA.

The Rev. Fred Small, senior minister at First Parish, Cambridge, Mass., led the hall in learning and singing a song from the South Carolina Sea Islands, called Tree of Life. The theme: “Ain’t you got a right to the tree of life?”

A series of speakers gave homilies on various words, including humility, love, and power.

B Loewe, with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told the gathering, “What a time we’ve had together. This week we have lived that truism that those that set out to change the world will surely be changed themselves. We (here in Arizona) have found new recruits and old friends for the movement. And you have very well found some new recruits for Unitarian Universalism.”

He asked people to turn to someone next to them and hold their wrists, feeling their pulse. One person was to say “You are the one we’ve been waiting for,” followed by the second person answering “I will not fail you.”

UUA President Peter Morales spoke to the assembled delegates for the last time this year. “He described an image from Saturday night’s candlelight vigil. “I wish you all could have seen what it looked like from that flatbed truck to look out on an endless field of small lights. I was so deeply moved.”

GA was so powerful this year, he said, because “We acted out of our core spiritual convictions and out of the power of love and we brought our best selves. And we did it with partners who are not Unitarian Universalists. They got us out of ourselves in a way that was powerful and essential.” He closed with this thought, to resounding applause––“I can’t wait to see what we do next. Amen.”

Small led the congregation in a song, “Marching Into the Light,” that was sung by Unitarian Universalists on the night of July 29, 2010, as they waited outside the Maricopa County Jail for a number of other UUs who had been arrested that day and were to be released. “We could only bear witness and pray and sing,” he said. The song was written by Latin American songwriter Andres Useche after the passage of Arizona’s SB 1070 anti-immigrant law.

Another song at Sunday’s closing service was the haunting Spanish hymn “Ven Espiritu de Amor,” from the UU Spanish-language hymnbook Las Voces del Camino.

The Rev. Paul Langston-Daley gave the benediction, sending the congregation on its way with the words, “May you recall the works we have done here and know that it was good.”

Takahashi Morris: ‘Tent City’ and internment camps

Peter Bowden — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:06:19 +0000

The Rev. Leslie Takahashi Morris tells UU World about her experience inside the Maricopa County “Tent City” jail, which she toured with other religious leaders and Sheriff Joe Arpaio on June 23, 2012. She draws parallels with her father’s family’s internment—as U.S. citizen—in the Japanese internment camps in Arizona during World War II.

Reflecting on ‘Tent City’ from UU World on Vimeo.