General Assembly news roundup and a few loose ends

My news summary of the 2006 General Assembly was published this morning. It provides a relatively quick overview of the business at GA and includes a bunch of things that didn't make it into the daily reports here.

Those of you who have been following this blog may have been left in suspense about the four responsive resolutions I mentioned in the previous post. Three were offered shortly after the Actions of Immediate Witness Sunday afternoon. One urged congregations to support the UUA's new health insurance program for congregational employees. One (described at greater length in my news story) combined aspects of two proposed AIWs related to Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts that the Commission on Social Witness did not put on the agenda. The third responsive resolution praised moderator Gini Courter's facilitation of the plenary sessions.

At the very end of Sunday's plenary, a delegate improvised a fourth responsive resolution. (I had left the plenary hall by this point.) Earlier in the day, Courter had set aside her prepared report and instead invited a group of youth of color and their allies to tell the delegates about their experiences of being treated differently than white people at GA. Courter asked delegates not to applaud or seek out the youth afterward, but instead to sit together in silence after the youth spoke. She then offered some personal reflections about the difficulty of antiracism and antioppression work and asked delegates to consider how fully they were committed to making their congregations and the Association a truly welcoming and inclusive place. Several hours later, as Courter was about to gavel the Assembly to a close, a delegate offered a responsive resolution to the moderator's report. As adopted, the resolution declares that "Delegates to General Assembly are charged to work with their congregations to hold at least one program over the next year to address racism or classism, and to report on that program at next year's General Assembly." And with that, GA came to a formal close.

Be sure to visit the extensive (and still growing) coverage of GA over at UUA.org. The plenary notes are quite thorough.

Finally, the fall issue of UU World will include an extended report on GA; unless something comes up in the meantime, I won't add something new here until that story goes online. Then, of course, I'll add a link.

Thanks for following GA here at the uuworld.org GA blog -- and thanks for your feedback.

Quick update on final resolutions

Sunday afternoon's plenary session of the General Assembly adopted a Statement of Conscience on global warming, passed three responsive resolutions, and adopted another resolution at the very end -- but because I had to duck out of the plenary, I'm still scrounging around for the texts of the four additional resolutions. (More tomorrow when I return to Boston.)

The Statement of Conscience incorporated many of the amendments proposed in a series of unusually vigorous miniassemblies and extended discussions in the plenary hall. One responsive resolution addresses workers' rights, another urged congregations to participate in the UUA's new health insurance plan, and a third thanked UUA moderator Gini Courter for the way she conducted -- and inspired -- the delegates throughout the Assembly. I'll get back to you about the final resolution (which involved asking congregations to engage in antiracism work in some way before the next General Assembly) when I have a chance to watch the video or get notes from my colleagues. I'll add links to the final texts of the resolutions here on the General Assembly Blog as soon as they're available.

The General Assembly was formally adjourned around 7:00 Sunday evening. Delegates and GA-goers are now enjoying parties, the week's last dance, or well-deserved sleep.

I'd appreciate your feedback about uuworld.org's first crack at daily General Assembly coverage. Send your comments to world@uua.org.

Assembly adopts five of six Actions of Immediate Witness

The UUA General Assembly on Sunday adopted five of the six Actions of Immediate on this year's agenda. They are:

• AIW-2: "End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining"
• AIW-3: "Endorse the 'Declaration of Peace' Campaign"
• AIW-4: "Pass the Stem-Cell Research Enhancement Act"
• AIW-5: "Stand Up for the United Nations Human Rights Council"
• AIW-6: "Support Immigrant Justice -- Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!"

Delegates debated AIW-1 ("Call to Establish a U.S. Department of Peace") at length, but the resolution failed to receive two-thirds of the vote.

General Assembly reforms the Statement of Conscience process

Delegates have just adopted changes to the UUA bylaws that significantly modify the Statement of Conscience process. The new process will require the participation of at least 25 percent of the UUA's member congregations in introducing study/action issues into the process that generates Statements of Conscience. Opponents and supporters of the changes both observed that far less than 25 percent of congregations have participated in the process in recent years: Oppenents said that the changes would effectively kill off many resolutions; supporters said that the changes would help guarantee that resolutions more truly reflect the values and commitments of the denomination.

The bylaw amendments also slowed down the study/action process. The current process involves a two-year cycle of congregational review, with new issues introduced each year. (This year, for example, delegates are voting on the global warming statement of conscience at the end of two years of congregational review. Congregations are one year into the "moral values in a pluralistic society" study/action process. And delegates have adopted the "peacemaking" study/action for the next two years.) The new process extends the study/review period to four years and allows the introduction a new study/action issue every other year.

The amendments were supported by the Commission on Social Witness (the elected commission that shepherds the resolutions process), the UUA Board of Trustees (24 to 1), the UUA advocacy and witness staff, and the Youth Caucus and Young Adult Caucuses. The youth and young adult vote was tied in part to a provision of the new process that allows YRUU (the denominational youth organization) and C*UUYAN (the denominational young adult movement for 18- to 35-year-olds) to sponsor study/action issues.

More local news coverage of General Assembly

Saturday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch features a story about the General Assembly: "'Proudly liberal' Unitarians gather here" (6.24.06). A few key passages from the story:

"It's a joyful, exuberant, spirited gathering of people of faith who are not ashamed to be called religious liberals in an era when liberal is considered by many to be a dirty word," said the Rev. Suzanne Meyer, minister of the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis. "We are proudly religious and proudly liberal." . . .

The Rev. William Sinkford, elected president of the association in 2001, says "it's very important to me and to the association to offer an alternative religious voice in the public square."

"The public square has been dominated for too long by the voice of the fundamentalist religious right," he said.

"Although they have an absolute right to have their voice present, we don't want theirs to be the only religious voice that's in public discourse on important matters of the day. We want to offer our liberal religious point of view in the public square so that the discourse is more complete."

Six Actions of Immediate Witness added to agenda

Six of the ten Actions of Immediate Witness proposed by delegates were added to the agenda this morning by the Commission on Social Witness. Charlie Clements, the president of the UU Service Committee, complained in his plenary report that a resolution sponsored by the UUSC was not among them.

The six resolutions delegates are considering are:

• AIW-1: Call to Establish a U.S. Dept of Peace
• AIW-2: End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
• AIW-3: Endorse the 'Declaration of Peace' campaign
• AIW-4: Pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act
• AIW-5: Stand up for the United Nations Human Rights Council
• AIW-6: Support Immigrant Justice -- Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!

The resolution sponsored by the UUSC, "Gulf Coast Workers Deserve Justice Now," was not among them--nor was the Gulf Coast-related "Rebuild New Orleans" resolution. (The other resolutions not admitted to the agenda were "Protection for Farm Worker Children in the Fields" and "Provide Living Wages and Promised Benefits to Armed Services Personnel.")

Delegates are now gathered in miniassemblies to consider amendments to each draft resolution. Delegates will debate and vote on the Actions of Immediate during Sunday afternoon's plenary.

The UUSC's Charlie Clements told delegates during his report that the UUSC will sponsor a "responsive resolution" in support of Gulf Coast workers in place of its rejected AIW. (The UUA Bylaws define a responsive resolution as "a resolution made in response to a substantive portion of a report by an officer or committee reporting to a regular General Assembly." Such resolutions require a two-thirds vote.) That vote will likely take place on Sunday afternoon, too.

Another global warming statement miniassembly

At the end of Saturday morning's plenary session, UUA moderator Gini Courter announced a moderated miniassembly to continue the discussion of the global warming Statement of Conscience. The conversation will be led by UUA vice-moderator Ned Wight in Room 267 beginning at 11:00.

St. Louis NPR station interviews Sinkford

Our news blog, Unitarian Universalists in the Media, picked up a story about the General Assembly from KWMU, a National Public Radio affiliate in St. Louis. Matt Sepic interviewed UUA President William Sinkford on Wednesday. Among other things, Matt Sepic asked him why Unitarian Universalists celebrate "liberalism."

Sinkford replied: "Unfortunately, the fundamentalist religious right has tried to give liberalism a bad name. And I'm one who believes that the liberal religious tradition is one that needs to be preserved in this country--a tradition which allows for religious freedom at its heart and religious depth at its best."

That's the only news coverage of the Assembly so far.

First round of Actions of Immediate Witness

In theory, Statements of Conscience adopted by the General Assembly speak the will of the denomination as a whole because they're rooted in two years of congregational engagement. (This morning moderator Gini Courter pointed out, however, that very few congregations actually took part in the process that led to the global warming Statement of Conscience under consideration this week. Only 10 percent of the Association's member congregations, she said, gave any input to the global warming statement in the past two years.)

Each year, the General Assembly also considers a handful of more time-sensitive resolutions that are understood to speak only for the General Assembly itself. Actions of Immediate Witness are proposed at GA and placed on the agenda by petition. Earlier in Friday morning's plenary, the Commission on Social Witness took an informal poll of delegates to gauge their interest in the 10 proposals submitted so far.

From where I was sitting, it looked like four of the proposals clearly generated overwhelming interest:

• "Pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act"
• "Protection for Farm Worker Children in the Fields"
• "Stand up for the United Nations Human Rights Council"
• and "Support Immigrant Justice -- Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!"

The other six proposals currently being circulated among delegates are:

• "Call to Establish a U.S. Dept of Peace"
• "End Mountaintop Removal Coal mining"
• "Endorse the 'Declaration of Peace' Campaign"
• "Gulf Coast Workers Deserve Justice Now"
• "Provide Living Wages and Promised Benefits to Armed Services Personnel"
• and "Rebuild New Orleans"

Up to six of the proposals will be placed on the agenda in Saturday afternoon's plenary, pending the CSW's prioritization and completed petitions from each resolution's sponsors.

Global warming statement takes a complex turn

Whew. Friday morning's plenary schedule included time for a debate and vote on the global warming Statement of Conscience, but we never got to the vote. Instead, faced with some 50 unincorporated amendements from Thursday's miniassembly, a shortage of printed copies of the texts under consideration, and confusion about the process, delegates nevertheless moved the statement forward -- sort of. Additional debate and discussion time will be added to one of Saturday's plenary sessions to continue the debate.

What happened?

Many delegates -- working in partnership with the UU Ministry for the Earth, the UU Service Committee, and other environmental and human rights advocacy groups -- thought the CSW's draft statement was too timid and did not adequately express the urgency many Unitarian Universalists feel about global climate change. More than 200 delegates attended a lively session to hash out their differences with the CSW on Thursday morning. My colleague Tom Stites attended the three-hour miniassembly and reports that it broke up into seven subgroups to talk through sections of the draft statement and fashion amendments to it. The CSW then met late into the night organizing the 70 or so amendments into a sequence to offer to the full Assembly today. That's how 50 amendments appeared on this morning's schedule, where (in theory) delegates had about an hour to consider them.

The first amendment brought to the floor -- Unincorporated Amendment 19 -- actually worked its way through the normal process and was approved before procedural confusion set in. (What about Unincorporated Amendments 1 through 18? Why were the amendments that many activists felt were most important so far down the list of amendments when time was so short?) Former moderator Denny Davidoff moved that the Assembly refer the inadequate statement back to the Commission on Social Witness -- she said she had never seen a resolution arrive for its final vote with so many unincorporated amendments -- but moderator Gini Courter replied that this would mean referring the statement back to the congregations for another year. Davidoff's motion failed.

As the clock kept ticking and activist delegates tried to figure out how to get their amendments through the process, Courter tried a new tack and moved the delegates into a "committee of the whole." This moved the process out of the constraints of formal motions and votes and into a more informal review of the amendments. In the end, Courter polled delegates about a dozen amendments that advocates seemed especially eager to approve, and an overwhelming majority of delegates concurred.

After the straw poll, other advocates complained that they had been waiting in line to ask for the committee of the whole to consider another half-dozen amendments. By this point the plenary had run over its allotted time. I won't bore you with the details, but it looks like a somewhat similar process will take up those amendments as a group. It is entirely unclear how the amendments referred out of the committee of the whole will be addressed, although it seems that the general view of the delegates is to support a "strong" statement about global warming.

Notably, amendments to the study/action process itself are on Sunday's agenda.

Peacemaking study/action issue adopted

With only one study/action issue on the agenda this year, delegates heard from the sponsor and four supporters of the "Peacemaking" resolution (S-1) -- but with no competing study/action issues on the agenda, there was no debate. Delegates overwhelmingly approved the study/action issue, which means that congregations and districts will have two years to develop a denominational Statement of Conscience in response to the question: "Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?"

Later in this General Assembly, delegates will consider slowing down the study/action issue process, which the Commission on Social Witness's Susan Smith told delegates could "release us, and the congregations, from what has turned out to be a social-witness hampster wheel." The current process (adopted in 1997) introduces a new two-year study/action issue and adopts a new finished Statement of Conscience each year.

[Posted by Christopher L. Walton]

We have a quorum

As the first real business gets underway here in St. Louis with the Thursday afternoon plenary, UUA secretary Paul Rickter reports that 2,043 delegates are present. This includes 1,662 lay delegates representing 601 congregations, 4 delegates from associate member organizations, 332 ministers currently serving congregations, 13 ministers emeritus/a, and 6 masters-level religious educators (a new professional designation given delegate status at last year's General Assembly). The 26 members of the UUA board of trustees are also voting delegates. (The associate member organizations are the UU Service Committee, the UU Women's Federation, and the UU United Nations Office. I don't know which of these groups has a second delegate.)

In addition to the 2,043 delegates, there are also 2,001 non-delegates and 271 youth registered at GA with a total registration of 4,315.

[Posted by Christopher L. Walton]

Global warming resolution heating up?

After two years of congregational study and review, the General Assembly will be voting on a "Statement of Conscience" about global warming during Friday morning's plenary. (See (page 12 in the Final Agenda.) The draft statement prepared by the Commission on Social Witness, however, has generated dismay among the denomination's coalition of environmental activists.

The UU Ministry for the Earth (the group formerly known as the Seventh Principle Project, which has pushed for greater denominational attention to the problem of global climate change) has drafted alternate language and an action plan for replacing the CSW's draft statement. At UU Ministry for the Earth's website, the group explains:

We felt [the CSW's draft statement] did not accurately state the threat of global warming, did not adequately articulate the serious ethical and justice issues connected with the issue, did not adequately connect the issue with our Unitarian Universalist spiritual values and principles, did not adequately call for action from the Unitarian Universalist Association as well as from congregations and individuals, and did not give UUs and their congregations clear guidelines for implementation.

A complete replacement of the draft statement can't be brought to the plenary, so the advocacy group has developed a plan to amend the text during Thursday morning's miniassemblies (8:00-9:15 and 9:45-11:00).

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Keeping up with General Assembly

Hundreds of people have already gathered in St. Louis for pre-GA events, including Professional Days (for ministers, religious educators, and other professional groups) and the first-ever "UU University" mini-conference for congregational leaders. The formal program of the General Assembly kicks off with Wednesday evening's Opening Celebration, Banner Parade, and perfunctory opening plenary session. By then, a couple thousand Unitarian Universalists will have arrived in St. Louis. I fly in first thing Wednesday morning.

A few handy links for following the proceedings this week: If you're trying to keep up from afar--or get tired of sitting in the plenary hall and think you'd rather watch GA on your computer screen--here's a schedule of programs that will be broadcast live on the Web. High-tech GA-goers can load the General Assembly schedule onto their PDAs for easy reference. And UU bloggers are already testing the convention center's free but not especially strong wireless Internet access. True gluttons for information overload can track the blog commentary about GA here (UUpdates), here (Google), here (Technorati), and here (Blogpulse).

More to come!