 |
Seeking
Justice At UU General Assembly |
| What is the General Assembly? Every year Unitarian Universalists come together in June for a five-day conference and business meeting called General Assembly, or GA. The host city changes every year. This year GA is in Boston, Massachusetts and 6,000 to 10,000 people are expected to be there!  What
happens at GA?People gather in meetings to decide how to help our religion make a difference in the world. We also worship together, listen to music, go to workshops about how to improve our churches, and hear speakers. Part of each day people go to a huge business meeting where delegates from UU churches hear reports and vote on ideas or activities that guide the work of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The rest of the days are filled with small workshops to help people learn to do church work, or to hear speakers talk about all kinds of subjects that UUs think are important, like what countries in the world still practice slavery or how we can work to have peace in the world. Working to make the world fair for more people (sometimes called social action) and seeking justice for people-these two ideas are important to Unitarian Universalists. So, each year at GA, UUs vote on which social justice ideas to study and support. How do ideas get voted on? Every congregation has an equal chance to bring an idea to General Assembly. If their idea wins the vote, it becomes a study/action issue (or SAI) for UUs all over the country to work on for two years. What happens at the end of those two years of study? The UUA writes a statement that takes a stand on the issue. This is called a Statement of Conscience. All UUs are asked to do whatever they can to support that statement. Here are some examples of the Study/Action Issues being discussed and voted on this year at GA. Write down what you think UUs should do about these issues.  What
can Unitarian Universalists do to protect people's civil rights during
our country's fight against terrorism? What can
Unitarian Universalists do to make civil unions and eventually same-sex
marriages legal? What can
Unitarian Universalists do to help get rid of weapons of mass destruction?
 What
can Unitarian Universalists do to be better neighbors and provide support
for indigenous (native) peoples?To learn more about these ideas, and all the study/action issues for this year, go to www.uua.org/csw. |
