Unfolding Justice
A Sermon by the Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
March 28, 2004
I attended a protest yesterday morning. Julianna, Kat and I joined Sandy and Carol and Rod and Alan and Phoenix and about a hundred more, with clergy wearing their robes and stoles. We stood along Speedway in front of and across from the Southern Baptist Church there. We held signs, one of which said "Honk if you love a homo!" (and lots of folks honked) and another said "I'm straight, but that might just be a phase!" and another said "God hates faggots" with the "faggots" crossed off and the word "bigots" substituted.
We gathered in front of the Southern Baptist Church on the invitation of Rev. Brigit Nicholson, the new pastor of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, here seven weeks, who describes herself as an "out, partnered, lesbian" minister. She sent an email to many of us, including Wingspan, encouraging us to protest in the face of an outrage. The Southern Baptist church was sponsoring a conference on ex-gays, a conference whose promoter claims to be an ex-gay and who argues that homosexuals are such by choice and can be converted back to straightism (that's my word). Some of his workshops were titled "Debunking the Gay Gene, Untwisting Gay Theology, How Tolerant Was Jesus?, Counseling the Homosexual, and Preventing Homosexuality."
After standing along the street for forty-five minutes or so, waving at people driving by and having a good time, we gathered in the vacant lot across the street and the clergy formed a line, with a reading, albeit with too much Christianity in it, but, hey, we were there to make a point in the face of those Christian clergy who are preaching that homosexuality is a sin. We were there to say, and we did say, that we support each other as gays and lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, and as clergy, we bless this life-style of love for others regardless of or because of gender. We ended in a big circle and sang "We Shall Overcome!"
That song just keeps cropping up, doesn't it! We never seem to overcome injustice. Justice is something we have to fight for every day of our lives, that is if we're awake and aware, compassionate and concerned. Justice-making didn't end with Emancipation or Suffrage or the great Civil Rights Movement, or the Women's Movement, or the Sanctuary Movement. "We Shall Overcome" is a prayer that goes on and on as long as there is ignorance and fear and greed and hate. As long as there are human beings gathered in any sort of social relationship, issues of justice will be there as well.
In 1998, the members and friends of this congregation studied the Welcoming Congregation curriculum and spent a year and a half exploring our feelings and issues around GLBT concerns. We voted in 1999, with 99% saying "yes" to becoming an official Welcoming Congregation Now I know that many of you weren't there. We have grown so much that I would wager that half of you weren't there, but you may have gone through the program in your former congregation. There are some, though, who have not experienced such a process as The Welcoming Congregation, and so, to you I say that if you are unsure or struggling with your feelings around GLBT rights, learn. Study, spend time with "out" GLBT folks, and ask us to do The Welcoming Congregation II. It takes focus and experience and commitment and care and downright love to confront the twisted tales society has perpetuated, that religion has perpetuated, concerning sexuality. We are slowly unfolding Justice, decade by decade, and our sexual rights is one of the issues on our plates here in the United States today.
Today is Justice Sunday. Thousands of Unitarian Universalists are joining us today to take action for Social Justice. It is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, otherwise known as UUSC. The UUSC is an organization affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association, but independently supported. It helps oppressed peoples around the world by giving them support and some of the means to help themselves. Many of you contributed to their major fund-raiser of the year: the Guest-at-Your-Table program which we run between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. If you gave at least $25 and filled out the form, you are a member.
Social Justice is an important part of our ministry as Unitarian Universalists. Social Justice is in fact a significant part of most religions. And every Sunday, we, along with most UU congregations around the country and the world, light the chalice, a symbol of the UU Service Committee. A graphic artist named Hans Deutsch created it for the Service Committee. He had been drawing cartoons critical of Adolf Hitler and had to escape Paris when it was invaded. He was helped by the Unitarian Service Committee and later became an agent himself, assisting others to escape the holocaust. Every Sunday, we rededicate ourselves to the fight for social justice when we light that chalice and recite the words of the Haggadah:
May the light we now kindle
Inspire us to use our powers
To heal and not to harm,
To help and not to hinder,
To bless and not to curse,
To serve you, Spirit of freedom.
(Singing the Living Tradition, 453)
Other UU congregations recite versions of this covenant:
Love is the doctrine of this church
The quest for truth is its sacrament
And service is its prayer.
To dwell together in peace
To seek knowledge in freedom
To serve humankind in friendship
Thus do we covenant.
I grew up reciting that covenant, but I like the Haggadah one better. It isn't written over against the Christian liturgy like the covenant is, and is therefore more welcoming to all faith orientations. But no matter how we phrase it, service is our prayer, and healing, helping and blessing are our tools of the spirit in the fight for justice.
The promoters of the UUSC Justice Sunday want us to focus this year on the civil rights abuses in Burma, to learn about what is going on in that far away land and to join in supporting the struggle for justice in that country. I will tell you a little about Burma, but it is far away, and we have social justice issues here which call to us more visibly. We can't really see Burma, can't personally witness the abuses going on there, but we can touch our brothers and sisters here in this room whose rights are being denied at this very moment. On the other hand, it is also important to remember that we are not just powerful human beings, but a powerful country, and we do need to reach out to the hurting around the world, especially when we are asked to, as the UU Service Committee is asking us to, so I will tell you a little about Burma, and how you can help.
For those of you who are as geographically challenged as I am, Burma is sandwiched between Thailand and Bangladesh across the Bay of Bengal from India. They used to be under the rule of the British, but gained independence in 1942. At first, they succeeded in having a democratically elected government, but it didn't last. In 1962, a military junta took power and has retained its control ever since.
Twenty-five years later, the people held non-violent pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. In response, the junta killed more than 10,000 people in its brutal crackdown. Then, in 1990, international pressure was enough to force the junta to hold elections in which the National League of Democracy party won over 82 percent of the legislative seats. The junta ignored the results and held on to its power.
In the last fourteen years, the junta has violated human rights over and over. This is how the UUSC describes the situation:
Whole villages are subjected to forced relocation by government troops. Villages are burned and their livestock, food and land are confiscated by the army. Village people are forcibly recruited as unpaid laborers, army porters and human minesweepers…. Burma has the largest number of child soldiers in the world, and the number is growing. Three million Burmese currently are living as displaced people or refugees, many in camps along the Thai-Burmese border.
UUSC has worked to support indigenous organizations in Burma that promote education (especially for women), provide health resources, make reports on human rights violations to disseminate world-wide, and are building a grassroots, non-violent movement of marginalized people.
Part of UUSC's advocacy work here in the United States has been to confront corporations who profit from the abuses of the regime in Burma. One of these corporations is Unocal, which has been criticized for working with the Burmese government to build a pipeline whose security is provided by Burmese soldiers. The project has displaced villages, "forced residents to work against their will, and allegedly raped or murdered some who refused." With pressure from the UUSC and others, Unocal has promised to reform its employee practices and recognize human rights in the workplace. (UUSC Program Update)
One way abuses can be confronted is through the Alien Tort Claims Act, a very old law created in 1789 by the First Congress of the United States which allows people and businesses to be sued for human rights abuses in other lands. Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Radovan Karadzic of the Bosnian Serb Republic were both held liable under that law for the human rights abuses that took place under their governments. Today, corporations are being targeted for promoting, or at least accepting, atrocious labor practices in the name of profit. Texaco and Shell join Unocal in being targeted by the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). As you might guess, the Act is being attacked by multinational corporations, the U.S. business lobby, and the Department of Justice. You can help by signing the petition to protect the Alien Tort Claims Act, take it also to your friends to sign, and become a member of UUSC. Your money is a powerful tool of the spirit in the fight for justice, and UUSC will put it to very good use.
Burma is far away, but we all know that human rights are being abused all over the world. We have it very good here in the United States. Even so, those in power who think they are so concerned with human rights are denying those rights to our GLBT brothers and sisters and selves. We might not be razing villages, but our current laws are dividing families and partners, disallowing the basic civil rights that married heterosexuals enjoy to homosexual partners. GLBTs can't be covered by their partner's health insurance, can be denied visitation rights in hospitals because they aren't considered family, and can lose the right to bury their loved ones as hostile extended families such as parents and siblings rate higher than a life partner. Our laws are perpetuating a second-class citizenship, copying in a new way the justice issues we have been fighting for all time, for all human time. Prejudice is perpetual if not confronted. We must confront this atrocity on our doorstep, in our own state legislature, in Congress. The proposal of a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage must be stopped, or we are no better than human rights abusers world wide.
No matter how we phrase it, love is the doctrine of this church and service is our prayer. Healing, helping and blessing are our tools of the spirit in the fight to unfold justice in the world. Bring your hearts to the work, reach out to the oppressed in every land including ours, and you will be fulfilled.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson