UUA opposes confirmation of Samuel Alito to U.S. Supreme Court
According to a posting on the Unitarian Universalist Association website,(December 12, 2005 – Washington, DC) The Unitarian Universalist Association today announced its opposition to the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. The UUA's opposition is based on concerns over civil liberties, including religious liberty, the right to privacy, and due process. The UUA has never before opposed the confirmation of a nominee to the Supreme Court. In a statement issued to over 1000 congregations (in PDF format Acrobat Reader Required) that make up the Association, the UUA's Washington Office for Advocacy Director Rob Keithan said:Frankly, proclamations like that bother me. It's not clear to the world outside of UUs exactly who's speaking here. My guess is that people would interpret the statement as "our church" making that statement when, in fact, it's the bureaucracy of an organization to which all Unitarian Universalist churches belong that's speaking. It would be good if they added "We do not speak for all Unitarian Universalists, nor do we speak for all Unitarian Universalist congregations". Of course, if they added that, the release would be kind of pointless.The decision to take a position on a judicial nominee is not one the UUA takes up lightly. The nomination of Judge Samuel Alito Jr. is significantly different from that of Chief Justice John Roberts or Harriet Miers, in that he has an extensive judicial record that clearly reveals his judicial philosophy on a wide range of issues. After extensive research, Unitarian Universalist Association staff agreed that Judge Alito's rulings revealed a pattern of views that were outside the mainstream and hostile to established precedent favoring civil liberties.
posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 12:09 PM
5 Comments:
Paul wrote:
-snip-
"Frankly, proclamations like that bother me. It's not clear to the world outside of UUs exactly who's speaking here. My guess is that people would interpret the statement as 'our church' making that statement when, in fact, it's the bureaucracy of an organization to which all Unitarian Universalist churches belong that's speaking. It would be good if they added 'We do not speak for all Unitarian Universalists, nor do we speak for all Unitarian Universalist congregations.'"
Paul,
You may want to check out the full statement and not the shorter summary. It's avaiable online here:
http://www.uua.org/news/2005/051212_alito/memo.html
http://www.uua.org/news/2005/051212_alito/memo.pdf
The full statement that was sent to all UUA congregations contained the following text:
"Please note that the positions taken by the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly and advocated by UUA staff represent the views of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations as a whole, as adopted by representatives of congregations. They do not represent, and are not portrayed as representing, the views of individual Unitarian Universalists or particular congregations."
I don't know if this would satisfy the concerns of those who don't agree with our congregations collectively deciding to take social justice stands through the General Assembly business process. But this does acknowledge that we make room for freedom of belief in our religious movment.
I haven't read the document. Just the press release which I find vague considering the extraordinariness of the action.
Very sad comment on the UUA and not a proud moment for UUs.
If UUA thinks Alito is going to reverse Roe and they have a problem with that, they own member ship a simple statement of fact and not the mumbo jumbo in the press release.
I think the real question is what statement is going to be read by the greatest number of people. The press release, published at http://www.uua.org/news/2005/051212_alito/press_release.html makes no reference to the text Steve quoted.
The decision to take a position on a Unitarian Church is not one the U*U Jihad takes up lightly. The Unitarian Church of Montreal is (hopefully) significantly different from that of other U*Us. . . The Unitarian Church of Montreal has an extensive media and indeed *judicial* record that clearly reveals its *religious* philosophy on a wide range of issues. After extensive research, U*U Jihad staff agreed that the words and actions of the Board and congregation of the Unitarian Church of Montreal revealed a pattern of views that were outside the mainstream and hostile to established precedent favoring civil liberties.
This is exactly the reason I decided not to join the UU "church" It has become a political organization posing as a religion.
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