Pack some comfortable shoes

At this past summer's General Assembly, the Unitarian Universalist Association launched a campaign called Standing on the Side of Love. The name is taken from one of my favorite UU hymns and I think is a beautiful way to express the strength which comes from human compassion over domination. Of course, I find some of the stances the campaign has taken to be less radically-inclined than I might like, but as a UU, it is practically one of our most sacred traditions to disagree with each other and certainly the official positions of the church, LOL.

The thing about the SSL campaign is in its bold attempt to be comprehensive. It is not a campaign for gay marriage, or a campaign for gay rights, or a campaign for gay and disability rights, but a campaign to stand up for the rights of all people to be free from identity-based discrimination, oppression, and exploitation. Some of us have been so moved by the possibilities that lie within such an idea that we are in the process of creating a small group ministry based entirely around the SSL idea to meet at our UUUS church. One idea we've kicked around is to have it curriculum-based. I am thinking I prefer the idea of having it left more free-flowing where people come and speak about how these things affect their lives in a space designed from the ground up to support everyone's involvement rather than have the "who is appropriating space from whom" arguments that can sometimes spring up. I am hoping it can be a model for how to get people past the "hierarchy of oppression" thinking and seeing how seemingly unrelated oppressions intersect and lead to greater exploitation of people.

Big dreams, maybe. But it doesn't cost any more than thinking small ;-)