Category Archives: UUA politics

General Assembly is “dramatically broken”

There’s a new article up on uuworld.org titled “Big Changes Proposed for General Assembly.” General Assembly is the annual gathering of U.S. Unitarian Universalists, ostensibly held to transact the business of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). In October the UUA Board of Trustees commissioned a report to study whether General Assembly actually provides the setting for democratic decision-making it is supposed to provide. The short answer from the report: “GA is not really democratic,” and in fact provides “faux democracy and unaccountable representation.”

The UUA Board of Trustees will hear and discuss this report at its current meeting, which begins today and runs through Sunday. Will the Board of Trustees act on this report? If they don’t, I hope former UUA Moderator Denny Davidoff carries out a threat she made at the 2009 General Assembly, when she said, “We should get serious about governing ourselves democratically, or I will move in 2010 that we rescind the fifth principle [of the principles and purpose of the UUA Bylaws, calling for democratic process] until we can prove we are democratically represented.”

In the mean time, the 2010 General Assembly Committee has scheduled only business meetings on Saturday and Sunday of this year’s General Assembly. No doubt this will annoy some who see General Assembly as one big social event, but perhaps it will keep the focus of General Assembly where it should be, to wit, on doing the business of the UUA.

Two “UU franchise” scenarios

A number of people have contacted me to ask for further clarification of Mr. Crankypants’s modest proposal for the Unitarian Universalist franchise system. I’m not sure I want to be in the position of clarifying the fulminations of my evil alter ego (mostly I just wish he’d go away), but perhaps I can clarify things a little by proposing a couple of scenarios to help us think through the issues at hand…. Continue reading →

Deconstructing “standing on the side of love”

An anonymous correspondent wrote recently about the General Assembly experience, noting in part: “…all the Standing on the Side of Love stuff about did me in….”

I realized that felt the same way about the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo as did Anonymous Correspondent. Because I feel that way, and because I am a postmodern guy, let’s deconstruct both the catch-phrase and the logo:

  • Linguistic deconstruction: Love doesn’t have sides, certainly not sides that you can stand on. This is sloppy language, which implies either sloppy thinking or doublespeak (see below).
  • Theological deconstruction: The catchphrase implies that love is on one side (our side), and hate or evil is on the other side. Instead of an “I-Thou” relationship, the catchphrase promotes an exclusivist theological position. (This is actually consistent with most Unitarian Universalist theological praxis, if not with professed Universalist theology).
  • Political deconstruction: Politically speaking, the catchphrase is applied to subjects as different as same-sex marriage and immigration reform. Thus, the catchphrase becomes a form of political doublespeak: “It means what we want it to mean.”
  • Pop culture deconstruction 1: The catchphrase is a blatant attempt to use late twentieth century modernist marketing techniques. The catchphrase, through its inanity and puerility, aims to reach a broad market segment; in its meaninglessness, it attempts to be all things to all people.
  • Pop culture deconstruction 2: The graphics for the campaign, roughly-drawn hearts, attempts to look cute (sort of like Hello Kitty for the liberal religious set). But because the graphic image is repeated over and over without variation (except in size), it comes across as a modernist attempt to force an unvarying narrative on us, with no chance of customizing it for specific and tiny segments of the population.

Feel free to add your own deconstructions of the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo. You will receive extra points for use of irony, multisyllabic-words, and “quotation marks”. Feel equally free to defend “Standing on the Side of Love.” But since this is a postmodern blog, you will be expected to express your feelings, and shy away from reason (just like the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase does… hey, wait a minute….)

Final impression of GA 2009

I’m about to go to bed, because I have to get up at three in the morning (heaven help me) to catch my train back east. Before I do, though, here are a few impressions of General Assembly 2009:

— The weather was just about perfect: dry, warm but not too hot, and a couple of thunderstorms to keep it from getting boring. I have a theory that when the weather is perfect, there are fewer major conflicts at General Assembly — and indeed, this year I have heard of no erupting conflicts.

— The schedule was grueling. I had noticed that I was feeling particularly tired, but I hadn’t thought about why until someone pointed out that the GA schedule had no consistency. Plenary happened at odd times, workshop slots got thrown in when you didn’t expect them, UU University required an exhausting commitment of six hours Thursday afternoon and four hours Friday morning. I found the lack of regularity draining.

— The election for the next UUA president seemed to dominate everything else. I didn’t hear many people talking about their workshops, but everyone seemed to have something to say about the election.

— UU University (UUU) got mixed reviews this year. Some people liked their UU University track, some people thought it a waste of time (Doug Muder says much the same thing). Two years ago, I heard nothing but glowing reviews of UUU; maybe it didn’t scale up very well? It will be interesting to read summaries of the evaluations of UUU.

So ends another GA. Now off to bed.

Crossposted.

Bzz bzz bzz

“Bzz bzz bzz” go the little sounds of rumor.

Last night from 10:00-10:45 p.m., there was a “Post-Election Celebration,” described in General Assembly Program Book as an “opportunity to meet and congratulate the newly elected UUA officers and trustees, and to hear from the new President.” Peter Morales, the newly-elected President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) spoke. Several other people spoke, congratulating him. However, Gini Courter, the just re-elected Moderator of the UUA did not show up.

Gini Courter had endorsed Peter Morales’s opponent, so her non-appearance started people talking. “Bzz bzz bzz” go the little sounds of rumor.

Or maybe she was running a little late, and just happened to miss the 45 minute event. Or maybe some crisis came up to prevent her from coming. Who knows? (Update: Now we know. Gini Courter’s real simple explanation is up on her blog. It was a scheduling snafu — which has happened to all of us at GA.)

But this does raise a larger issue, the issue of endorsements. I don’t like the idea of endorsements in a denominational election. (I don’t look at endorsements, either; I don’t care who is supporting whom, I want to know what the candidates plan to do if they get in office.) I particularly don’t like it when an elected officer or Trustee of the UUA endorses one candidate or another. Stop the “bzz, bzz” of rumor before it starts: don’t endorse.

So I’m surprised…

Peter Morales has just been elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association with 59% of the vote. And I’m surprised.

I was pretty sure Laurel Hallman would win, since she seemed to have higher-profile people endorsing her candidacy, and she seemed to have the better organization and more money at her disposal. But she didn’t win.

I thought it would be a close vote. I was expecting Laurel Hallman to win by two or three percentage points, or even less. But it was what Chris Walton of uuworld.org is calling “a decisive vote.”

Not only did this result surprise me, I was surprised to discover that I was relieved. I saw Laurel Hallman as offering more of the same — back to the same thing the UUA was doing before Bill Sinkford started to change the UUA’s direction ever so slightly — and I wanted a new direction. I don’t know if Peter Morales will be able to institute the kind of organizational change that I’d like to see, but at least I have some hope that there might be a little organizational change.

I’m still skeptical, but I’m relieved. I’m feeling a little more hopeful for the UUA.

So what are you feeling? Do you think it even matters who’s president of the UUA? Do you even care? Are you depressed that Laurel Hallman didn’t win? Conversation in the comments, if you feel so moved.

Heading off to Salt Lake

Tomorrow morning I start traveling to the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. I’ll get up early and catch the 7:20 Acela train out of Providence. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll take the Capitol Limited from Washington DC to Chicago. Monday afternoon I’ll climb on board the California Zephyr in Chicago, and get off Wednesday night in Salt Lake City. When I get to General Assembly in Salt Lake City, I won’t have jet lag, I will have seen some spectacular scenery, I won’t have had to take off my shoes and hat for security guards, and I will be able to lord it over the people who flew to Salt Lake because my carbon footprint will be half of theirs. Physical comfort, beauty, moral superiority — what more can I ask for?

Once I get to General Assembly, I’ll be doing some text-based reporting and some live blogging of plenary sessions for the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). I’ll also be posting here (saving up all my snark for this blog, since snark won’t be appropriate on the UUA Web site). I plan to do some videoblogging, too, if time permits.

So what about you: Will you be going to General Assembly this year? or do you have better ways to spend your hard-earned time and money than by going to some denominational meeting? Will you be following the online coverage of General Assembly? or will you be watching the Red Sox instead? And finally, do you believe General Assembly is worth the thousands of dollars the denomination spends on it each year? Discuss freely. (And if you’ll be blogging General Assembly, don’t forget to plug your blog in the comments.)

P. S.: While traveling, I’ll be able to update this blog in Washington and Chicago. I’ll also be posting to my Twitter feed, http://twitter.com/danlharp, while en route.

The race for UUA president

Here’s a conversation that I have had several times (in slightly different forms) in the past few weeks:

“So, who are you supporting for the next UUA [Unitarian Universalist Association] president?” someone says to me.

“Well,” I say, “I’m not supporting either one, but I think I know who I’ll vote for.”

“I feel the same way,” says the other person. “I can’t say I’m supporting anyone….”

“So who are you going to vote for?” I say.

“I’m going to vote for Laurel Hallman,” says the other person, “not because I think she’s any better than Peter Morales — i don’t think that — but because I think it’s time for a woman to be UUA president.”

“I’m going to vote for Peter Morales,” I say, “not because I think he’s any better than Laurel Hallman — he’s not — but because I think it’s time for a UUA president who is not the choice of the UUA power elite.”

We sit in silence for a moment or two.

I break the silence: “It really is past time for a woman.”

The other person says almost simultaneously: “We really do need someone who is not part of the UUA power elite.”

Then we both agree that both candidates are perfectly capable, that neither one of them would actually change things much, that we both might change our minds before the election, and that neither one of us actually supports either candidate.

———

I have also had the following conversation a few times in the past few weeks.

“So, who are you supporting for the next UUA president?” someone says to me.

“Well,” I say, “I’m not supporting either one, but I think I know who I’ll vote for.”

“Well, I don’t really want to make this public, but I know who I’m supporting,” says the other person.

“So who are you supporting?” I ask.

“I’m supporting Peter Morales,” says the other person, “but I don’t want to go public with my support because Peter has pretty much promised me that he will implement my [insert innovative growth program here]. So I don’t want to come out as supporting him, because if Laurel Hallman gets elected, if it doesn’t come out who I vote for then maybe she will consider my [insert innovative growth program here].”

We sit in silence for a while.

“Too bad it has come to this,” I say.

“Yeah, it’s all about politics and who you know and who you support,” says the other person.

———

There’s an old saying that goes something like this: if the head of a nail sticks up, it will get noticed and hammered down; so don’t be like the head of a nail, don’t do anything to get noticed. It feels to me as though supporting one or the other of the UUA presidential candidates in this election is a good way to get hammered down. I’m not blaming the candidates, but their supporters are so rabid, and they are so insistent on asking you to support one or the other. And after the election I do have the feeling that those who support the winner will be blessed with smiles and maybe favors, while those who support the loser will be cast out away from the denominational center into the wilderness. This is what happened in the last UUA presidential election; why would it not happen once again?

Therefore, I want to avoid UUA presidential politics like the plague. I want to go off and serve in a nice local congregation, and do good things there and in the surrounding community, and nurture my own spiritual life, and spend time with my partner Carol, and enjoy life. Call me chicken, but I support neither UUA presidential candidate — listen carefully — neither one of them.

Update: Responding to a comment below, I’m adding a disclaimer: I don’t think either Peter Morales or Laurel Hallman has a vengeful bone in their bodies — but I know from experience that the system is vengeful, and has a long memory, and does not value those who speak out on the “wrong” side of an issue in denominational politics.

Conversation on UUA election continues…

I did a post a week or so ago on the upcoming election for the new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and in the past couple of days there have been three or four new comments that I think are worth reading. Start here, and keep reading down. Feel free to continue that conversation over there….

What’s going to be really interesting to watch between now and the election at the end of June is this — will the candidates have anything to say about the dire financial realities of the UUA? The financial crisis has hit the UUA hard, and from what I hear, UUA staff are slashing the budget right now, before the fiscal year has even ended — yes, things are that bad. I’m sure there will be little room for the new UUA president to start any new initiatives; instead, the new president will have to cut budgets, tighten belts, and lay off staff. Given where the economy is going, it will continue to get worse for at least a year.

So here some questions I want the UUA presidential candidates to answer: (1) Contemporary non-profit management requires increased efficiency because expenses for staff are rising faster than revenue; so what will you do to increase efficiency at the UUA? (2) A true fiscal conservative looks at both revenue and expenses; so in addition to cutting costs, how will you work to increase revenue? (3) One of the things many non-profits are doing these days is using more volunteers, and using them more effectively, especially considering how many Baby Boomers are retiring right now; so how will you work to extend the work of the UUA through volunteers?

That’s what I want to ask the UUA presidential candidates right now. What about you?