Weaving the Web: Protecting our partners

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Dear UUCPA folks, As people have shared their concerns about the incoming administration, from the vigil on November 6 until now, one of the most common themes has been “We have to protect the most vulnerable people.” The incoming president has issued many threats, but who knows how many he’ll actually carry out. Two, however, seem likely to become real: the threat to target both legal and illegal immigrants, including deporting people by the hundreds of thousands at the least; and the threat to transgender people.

Both groups come particularly within our circle of care. First, they are members of UUCPA, and friends and family members of people at UUCPA. Second, our values call us to “build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.” And third, we have partnerships with Outlet, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, South Bay Sanctuary Covenant, and other organizations that intersect with and serve trans, non-binary, immigrant, asylum-seeking, and refugee members of our community.

I want you to know a few ways we’re already equipping ourselves to support these beloveds. Please mark your calendars!

  • Heather Vickery, UUSC’s Coordinator for Congregational Activism, will preach in our service on January 5, 2025, and also lead workshops on organizing to protect ourselves and our neighbors (times TBD: they may be on Saturday, Sunday, and/or Monday). She has deep roots with both of these marginalized communities: she is the leader of UUSC’s CAPAS (Congregational Accompaniment Project for Asylum-Seekers) team and a core team member of the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network, and she is active with the Pink Haven Coalition.
  • We plan to have a presence at Silicon Valley Pride again this summer, as we did in 2023 and 2024. Also, when Rev. Cat and I met up at San Francisco Pride in June, we noted that the only faith-based group in the parade was Glide Memorial. We want the world to know that UU communities are great homes for LGBTQIA+ folks and that we defend LGBTQIA+ rights. So I am pulling together Bay Area congregations to share a place in the San Francisco parade on June 29, 2025–thanks to the five Sundays in June, it does not conflict with our General Assembly–and if you would like to be a part of that, please contact me.
  • Several members and staff of UUCPA have been putting their heads together about ways to protect and support immigrants, whatever their legal status. There’s no group there yet, but if everyone who is interested shares that fact with the Action Council, the AC can connect you.

As the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Leadership Council declared in “A Vision for Unitarian Universalism in a Multicultural World,” adopted October 1, 2008, “With humility and courage born of our history, we are called as Unitarian Universalists to build the Beloved Community where all souls are welcome as blessings, and the human family lives whole and reconciled.” Our vision has never been needed more than it is now.

Blessings,

Amy