August 3rd, 2010 by admin
Dear Friends:
As president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA), I am constantly aware of the need for global witness in a world torn by strife, riddled by inequality and calling us to speak out for peace and social justice. To this end, all UUs can be justifiably proud of the growing stature and courageous voice of our United Nations Office (UNO) in New York.
Bruce Knotts, his board, staff, interns and volunteers have, in a remarkably short period of time, transformed our presence at the United Nations to one of activism, constructive participation and leadership on the world stage. Whether they are speaking out on human rights, demanding social justice, calling the world’s attention to climate change, advocating for women’s rights or actively seeking peaceful solutions to global problems, they are making our voices heard and speaking truth to power…always.
This critical component of our denomination needs your support. They have leveraged scarce resources and delivered results far beyond expectations. Simply put, they have earned our respect and we need them now more than ever.
Won’t you make a generous congregational commitment to the UNO? I promise you it will make a world of difference.
Sincerely,
Peter Morales
President, Unitarian Universalist Association
Visit uu-uno.org/donate to support the UU-UNO
August 22nd, 2010 by admin
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August 15th, 2010 by admin
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August 8th, 2010 by admin
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August 2nd, 2010 by admin
DEAR ABBY: I recently had a child and would like to join a church for the community, moral messages and the music. I grew up going to one and got a lot out of it.
However, exploration throughout my 20s made me realize that I didn’t believe what was being taught. I tried hard to accept the doctrines, but truthfully, I doubt I ever will. Would it be dishonest to start attending again? — NEW MOM IN ARKANSAS
DEAR NEW MOM: Many people consider themselves to be more “spiritual” than “religious.” And I’m willing to bet that in many congregations there is a range in the intensity of belief among the attendees.
I encourage you to select a denomination with which you feel most comfortable. Some — like the Unitarian Universalist faith (www.uua.org) — have no dogma or creed and support their members in following their own spiritual paths.
(Published July 26, 2010)
August 1st, 2010 by admin
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July 30th, 2010 by admin
All of us at the UU-UNO stand with our UUA President, Peter Morales, who was arrested yesterday along with many other Unitarian Universalists who stood on the side of love with the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country who face ever-increasing threats to their safety and families, especially due the clearly unconstitutional new anti-immigration law in Arizona. There are those who want to make the case that by the very virtue of being in the United States without proper documents, you are a criminal. Most of us here are. Most American families came to this country without documents and we set up residence on land that did not belong to us. Many of our ancestors were brought here by force, also without documents, to work on land that had been forcibly and illegally taken from the original owners. After a 200+ year history of our ancestors coming to this land without documents nor permission to take land that didn’t belong to them, we now want to stand on laws which we have made up to document our own presence on land that we took by force.
Today’s immigrants come to this land for the same as our ancestors did: to escape political, social and economic oppression. An area that the UU-UNO is looking at very closely involves the many immigrants who come to this country escaping homophobic oppression in other countries.
The immigrants who are here live here because we wanted them here. We hired them to do jobs nobody else wanted to do. We rent them apartments, sell them cars, educate them in our schools, welcome them in our churches and in a thousand ways, as a society, we welcome them in our country until that time comes when politicians turn our heads to make us pull back that welcome. If we never wanted undocumented immigrants in our country, they could have never existed here for so many years. They are here because we have wanted them here for so many reasons.
Continue reading ‘No Aliens Here: The UU-UNO is Standing on the Side of Love’
July 25th, 2010 by admin
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July 9th, 2010 by Andrew
This week the UU-UNO was pleased to host Karen Mosoti at our July meeting of the Faith and Ethics Network for the International Criminal Court (FENICC). Ms Mosoti is the Head of the Liaison Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the United Nations. She attended the ICC’s Kampala review conference in June and reported back to us on the results of the conference, as well as the role of her office at the United Nations. We look forward to working with her again in the future. Thanks also to the American NGO coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) for their contributions to the discussion.
Key points from Ms. Mosoti’s discussion of Kampala:
- Successful adoption of an amendment that defines the crime of Aggression.
- Considerable progress was made on mainstreaming local enforcement of the Rome statute within states’ jurisdictions.
- Addressed implementation of court commitments and voluntary cooperation with the court, as well as enforcement of sentences.
- Complementarity: states creating laws to complement those of the court, and prosecute the Rome statutes.
- Current challenges: how to follow up and make states who made pledges live up to them. The court is already working to create a follow up mechanism from The Hague.
July 2nd, 2010 by Andrew
Thanks to the work of the international campaign for Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR), the UN general assembly will vote today to create a new UN agency for women, to be called “UN Women.”
[From IPS] “After several rounds of intense eleventh-hour negotiations last week over the structure and composition of a proposed new “gender entity” and its executive board, the United Nations has cleared the last of the remaining political hurdles towards the creation of a separate and distinct U.N. agency for women.”
“The 192-member General Assembly Friday will authorise Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to launch the new entity under the leadership of a yet-to-be-named under-secretary-general (USG), most certainly a woman, holding a third-ranking job in the U.N. hierarchy.”
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More from the official GEAR website
