Courter apologizes for missing post-election event

UUA Moderator Gini Courter apologized to the General Assembly during her annual report Sunday afternoon for not attending a post-election celebration Saturday night. Some delegates had interpreted her absence as a slight on newly-elected President Peter Morales, since she had endorsed his opponent, the Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman, but she told delegates that was not her intent.

Courter told the plenary session:

Being moderator is a great honor for me. The care that you entrust me with when I'm paying attention puts me in awe. So I want to begin with an apology for not being here with you last night. . . . My nights at GA are pretty short, so I got in the habit several years ago of not attending the Ware Lecture. I simply go and work on the things I'm doing today, and it's an evening I have off. . . .

So last night I came over for that wonderful worship service when the election results were announced, and then I scooted backstage and picked up my backpack and headed back to my hotel room and set up my computer and got some email and started typing and writing some things some things that you're going to hear later this evening, and then I went down to hotel lobby and somebody said, "There you are!" And I said, "Where did you expect me to be?" And they said, "Well, there were several thousand people waiting for you to show up with the other candidates afterwards." It is never my intention to no-show you, and it is so unlike me to do it at night. . . .

You have my deepest apologies for not being here with you yesterday evening. I wish I had been here for that celebration. (Flash video; Courter's report starts at 2:31:00)

She also posted an apology to her blog Monday evening.

(Full disclosure: This reporter had expected the candidates to speak during the 8:00 post-election worship service, and also didn't realize that the candidates were going to speak at 10:00. I had to run from the Electronic Communications Center to the convention center ballroom when someone close to one of the campaigns informed me that the candidates would be speaking.)

Morales: 'We have this amazing potential'

In a brief conversation with UU World and members of the UUA's Communications staff shortly after he was named President-Elect on Saturday, June 27, the Rev. Peter Morales praised his opponent and identified some key goals of his administration.

Morales said, "To get to where we want to go requires all of us, and we need [the Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman's supporters'] commitment, their enthusiasm, their passion, and their vision. I also particularly want to say that I fully appreciate Laurel's consistent emphasis on spiritual depth, on the creation of profound covenant in communities, and also her deep passion for retaining our youth and young adults."

Asked where he would like to take Unitarian Universalism in the next four to eight years, Morales said, "I want to grow our faith, to reach all those people who are looking for nondogmatic, liberal religious community. I look forward to working with partners in many other progressive and justice-seeking religious groups. There are tremendous issues that we'll be facing in the coming years and we're going to need one another." He pointed to Friday's interfaith rally for immigrant families as an example, which brought Mormon, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and Unitarian Universalist leaders and laypeople together.

Morales described what Unitarian Universalism has to offer to the world. "The number of people who are already in agreement with us—not just in an intellectual sense, but in complete harmony with our core values—is enormous. The breadth of our message is very appealing, but we need to become more culturally diverse in our forms of expression in order to reach the millions of people who share our theology and values. We've tended, because of our particular history, to have a narrow range of expression. I so want to see our faith become much more multicultural and open to other ways of expressing the same fundamental values."

Did he expect to win? "I had no idea," he said. "We thought momentum was on our side," but he said the final vote count "really surprised me."

"We were underdogs for sure," Morales continued. "I started out a good year and a half after Laurel, and understood that she was very well funded, and also that four or five other people had considered it and declined to run. So it was a daunting undertaking, we had no illusions about that."

"I hope, and believe, that people resonated with the call to take our faith to a place it has not yet been, although we have this
amazing potential. The consistent message of our campaign was that we could be much, much more. We need to
make some adjustments because we live in a time of tremendous change. There's an enormous demographic shift going on."

Laurel Hallman's speech at election celebration

The Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman, who lost to the Rev. Peter Morales today in her bid to become president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, addressed the General Assembly Saturday night. Her comments are transcribed below:

Thank you. I congratulate Peter and his campaign staff for all they have done and for their success. I thank all of you who have paid attention to this election, participating in candidate forums all across the country—Peter and I are bonded forever: We have been to thirty-three of them—reading and commenting on Election-L and various blogs. I believe that you've heard what we've been saying, and that each campaign, in the appropriate process that is the democratic process, each campaign has been influenced by the other.

So we have each been forced through the implications of what we have been saying and what the other candidate was saying, and we are both different because of it. This can only be good for our beloved faith. [Applause]

Well, this campaign has mostly been a joyful journey. [Laughs] It has had some harrowing moments. But I will be happy to put it behind me now, to regather our liberal religious movement together from two hard-working campaigns back into one free faith, one association of free congregations, all of us united by our love for Unitarian Universalism. We are united by our determination to widen its reach and strengthen its impact, and by our wish for as many people as possible to experience the saving power of our free faith that has saved so many of us.

I am grateful to Peter for lifting up the issues he has, and for being good company as we've toured the country, all over, telling all of you our dreams for this faith that all of us love.

Many people have told us that they feel lucky that Unitarian Universalism had two people this year so dedicated to our faith that we were willing to campaign and possibly serve as president.

I am more grateful than I can say to the people of First Unitarian Church of Dallas that generously gave me time and space to do this campaign, and to all the colleagues and friends who encouraged me to seek the presidency and supported me every step of the way. I couldn't have done it without you, I have been enriched by the journey, and I thank you all.

Voters line up in UUA presidential election

Today is election day in the Unitarian Universalist Association, as delegates to the General Assembly cast their ballots for president of the UUA. Polls are open from noon until 5:30 p.m. MDT; although a winner will be formally announced at 8:00 p.m. MDT, UU World will announce the winner as soon as UUA Secretary Paul Rickter and UUA Executive Vice President Kay Montgomery confirm the outcome sometime after 6:00.

Here are some scenes from the voting area this afternoon:



Signs in the General Assembly Exhibit Hall lead delegates to the polling place.



An usher divides delegates into two lines, based on their congregation's state. Long lines formed promptly at noon.



Delegates formed long lines in the Exhibit Hall as they waited to cast their ballots.



Delegates put their completed ballots in the ballot boxes. At 5:30, the ballots will be scanned and then special software will count the votes on the scanned ballots. More than 1,800 absentee ballots will also be counted at that time.

Morales, Hallman make final case to delegates

At the final candidates forum before the election of the next president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Rev. Peter Morales choked up as he began his opening statement and the Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman struck a defiant note as she responded to critics of her campaign. The candidates spoke at a Thursday evening forum at the UUA General Assembly in Salt Lake City that was also broadcast on UUA.org.

Delegates will vote for the next UUA president Saturday afternoon, June 27. More than 1,800 absentee ballots have already been cast.

Morales, senior minister of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colo., spoke first. He choked up as he told a story about his practice of standing on the sidewalk outside his church each Sunday morning, greeting people as they arrived. He often didn't recognize people, he said, which led him to conclude that large numbers of people are visiting UU congregations all the time. Yet, despite all the visitors drawn to Unitarian Universalism, the membership of the UUA's congregations hasn't grown significantly.



"The central question for our faith," Morales said, "is, What is it we are called to be in the world?" He said we are called to change so that our congregations can "feed the spiritually hungry and house the spiritually homeless" who are already attracted to our ideas, but who often find our congregations unsatisfying.

Morales reviewed his four priorities: growing UU congregations, helping the UUA as an organization do more with less financial resources, build on the public witness work of President William G. Sinkford, and develop a strategic plan to recruit a more multicultural ministry to meet America's rapidly changing demographics.

Hallman, recently named minister-at-large by First Unitarian Church in Dallas, where she served as senior minister for twenty-two years, emphasized her spiritual groundedness. "It is my spiritual practice that has made me a leader," she said in her opening statement.



She repeatedly challenged "some" who had questioned her candidacy and responded to several phrases used by the Morales campaign. "I am less concerned with being 'the religion for our time,'" she said, invoking one of Morales's slogans, "than I am with being the religion for our future."

"I care that we deal with our issues not just as smart people," she said in her opening statement, "not just as strategic people, but as smart, strategic, liberal religious people."

She said that she was less concerned with people coming through the front doors of our churches. "It is our back door where the challenge is most evident," she said, because our congregations are not spiritually deep enough to meet many people's needs.

Supporters of each candidate approached delegates throughout the convention center, handing out literature and buttons. Morales supporters wore yellow T-shirts with the slogan "We can be the religion for our time" on the back" and handed out fans with the motto "I'm a Morales fan." Hallman supporters wore turquoise T-shirts that said "It takes more . . . ."

At the start of the candidates forum, the incumbents running for reelection to the offices of UUA Moderator and UUA Financial Advisor also spoke. Moderator Gini Courter and Financial Advisor Dan Brody are running unopposed.

After the conclusion of the candidates forum, Morales and Hallman jointly lit the chalice to start the Synergy worship service and bridging ceremony.

Absentee ballots cast in unprecedented numbers

At Tuesday afternoon's meeting of the UUA Board of Trustees in Salt Lake City, Secretary Paul Rickter reported that more than 1,800 absentee ballots have been submitted for the UUA's presidential election. Other delegates will cast ballots at the General Assembly on Saturday, June 27, between noon and 5:30 p.m.

The number of absentee ballots this year is nearly double what it was in 2001, the last contested presidential election, when 947 (or 29 percent) of the 3,276 ballots cast were absentee ballots. Don Plante of the UUA's General Assembly and conference services staff told UU World in May that approximately 5,000 delegates are eligible to vote in the presidential election. He said that 68 percent of the eligible voters in the 2001 election cast a ballot.

Rickter told his fellow trustees that each ballot will be scanned before being processed by vote-counting software. He said that absentee ballots will be scanned before the end of Saturday's voting, but they will be counted at the same time as votes cast in person.

The Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman of Dallas and the Rev. Peter Morales of Golden, Colo., are running to succeed the Rev. William G. Sinkford, who is completing his second term as president. See UUA.org's election section for more information about the election.