RevCyn

Joel Monka recently published a blog article on the union debate titled, " Umm, Hey, can we discuss this... " in which he cites several blog articles (mine among them) and an e-mail from the UUA Congregational Witness and Advocacy director asking people to join our UUA president in signing on to a group letter in support of the unions.  Joel concludes his post by stating in an update: "But my primary point, the raison d'etre for this post, is that there is plenty of room for disagreement and need for debate on this issue- I don't want it declared a basic tenent of our religion until such debate has taken place. I don't want Boston taking a position on my behalf without such a debate. I don't want clergy out there declaring that support for the unions in Wisconsin is an extension of our faith, an inseperable part of our principles, until we have had that debate." I think this is a good point, and worth examining.  My initial response was to ag...

I was fascinated to read Rev. Dan Harper's musing , "I’m fascinated by the way Unitarian Universalists pick and choose among politically liberal causes, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on why this might be so. Specifically, why don’t we support unionism (with the exception of Cesar Chavez’s farmworkers union, but then maybe that was more about immigrants than about unions)?"  My response:  We don't support unionism?  Somebody forgot to tell me this, apparently.  I thought we did.  But perhaps he's right about the larger UU culture--there is a classism we're constantly accusing ourselves of that I can forget from my social location here in Jackson, MI, in a more working-class church.  The colleagues I see posting on Facebook are full of union spirit right now.  Perhaps we bloggers are just slow to be posting about it.  Rev. James Ford just put out a nice post today saying, "Personally I blame the short term 'in it for me' philosophy that ...