Washington State Senate Bill 6239 allowing same-sex couples to marry was signed by Governor Christine Gregoire on February 13 and will go into effect June 7, 2012, unless the issue is forced to a November 2012 voter referendum.

A coalition funded mainly by out-of-state money has been formed to oppose the legislation; however, some of the strongest local opposition comes from the Catholic Church, the largest organized religion in the State of Washington. Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain asked parishes to participate in signature-gathering efforts to force this initiative to a voter referendum. However, not all Catholic churches have chosen to involve themselves in this.  In churches that will participate, some members won’t sign, choosing rather to support family and friends who might be adversely affected by failure of the bill.

Washington State becomes the 7^th state to approve marriage equality, coming after Connecticut,New York,Iowa,Massachusetts,New Hampshire,Vermont and Washington,DC. At the same time Governor Gregoire signed the Washington State bill, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey vetoed a marriage equality bill. He asked legislators to put it on the ballot as an issue for voters.

The Pacific Northwest is generally un-churched, with most residents not members of a church congregation. However, the United Church of Christ has an active presence in the State of Washington. As a denomination, the General Synod encouraged congregations to adopt equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in 2005. That made the UCC the first mainstream Christian denomination to officially support gay marriage. The UCC resolution was passed on Independence Day, July 4, 2005, and Governor Gregoire signed the legislation into law on February 13, 2012, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Opponents of the Washington marriage equality bill have until June 6, 2012, to gather 120,577 valid signatures of Washington voters to put the issue on the ballot for the November 2012 election.

Pastor Brooks Berndt is minister of the Vancouver,Washington UCC Church, one of only two Washington state churches in the Central Pacific Conference. When asked about Oregon churches taking a similar measure to their legislature, Berndt responded, “I think it would be exciting if the UCC Churches in Oregon and Idaho used the Central Pacific assembly gatherings to develop a coordinated strategy for action and advocacy. The UCC could have a huge impact with some good organizing and a series of public events throughout these states. This is a golden opportunity to be on the front lines of change.”

Editor’s Note: Take the pledge to support Marriage Equality! Advocacy organizations, faith organizations, elected officials, and citizens across Washington will be joining Washington United for Marriage in their month-long sprint to show the state, the nation, and our opponents that the people of Washington support marriage equality. Washington United for Marriage has 53,875 pledge signers so far, and that’s a good start. But to keep up with our opponents, we need 66,702 more.  Washington voters take the pledge at:  http://washingtonunitedformarriage.org/.

As we worship on Earth Day, 2012, we can take justifiable pride in the enormous improvements in the environmental consciousness of our congregations. We serve coffee in reusable cups, we insulate our buildings, install energy-efficient lighting, recycle our waste and landscape with sustainable plants. Our cars get ever-better mileage, our homes are greening, and our stewardship of the earth is enhanced with science and engineering unknown a few decades ago. We fight for environmental justice, for fair distribution of resources and strong protection of the least of these against environmental degradation, in stewardship of God’s abundant love for all the peoples on precious mother Earth.

And we rightly celebrate this abundance in our worship. Abundance is at the heart of progressive belief, giving form and force to our faith: Abundant loaves and fishes, abundant grace, and abundant water of life are the just rewards of our environmental stewardship.

Yet, as we worship on Earth Day, 2012, we’re living with a growing environmental scarcity so intense it is like we are living in a wounded wasteland named Scar City.

Loaves and fishes have mercury and genetically modified grain from drought-parched fields.
Grace is mocked by hateful religious wars and vicious terrorism in areas of environmental degradation so severe that whole villages are starving to death. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. Pollution is rising, aquifers are falling, and a third of the planet is facing severe water shortages in our lifetime.

This lack of abundance, this environmental scarcity, threatens justice in starkly basic ways.
When there isn’t enough, our society is all too easily divided into haves and have-nots.
When there isn’t enough, the weak are downtrodden in the rush for survival.
When there isn’t enough, justice falls on hard times.

Such a grim picture!  Is it any wonder that many people avoid looking at it, that some people are tempted to look only at the technical issues of environmental protection, denying the human issues of justice?  Some of us deny global warming, deny limits to growth, deny immigrants entry, deny the human sacrifice of those who live in Scar City.

Where, then, is our faith when we need it?  Where is our abundance?  If we have a mustard seed, where in our parched, sterile ground will it grow?

Perhaps … and only perhaps… the answer lies in faith itself.  If our environmental consciousness has taught us anything, it has taught us that we all are living on one planet, in Scar City together.  The miracle of loaves and fishes accompanies miracles of healing, of laying on of hands.  We have in our hands, in our faith-based action, the power to heal the unjust scars of our city.

Will we use this power?  In faith, I don’t know.  Yet I believe that, in faith, we can.  Therefore, as faithful stewards, we must.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that a right to privacy under the 14th Amendment extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion. Anti-abortion legislators have introduced legislation that would make all abortions illegal and essentially overturn Roe v. Wade. In 2011, over 1,000 pieces of legislation have been introduced and 162 bills have been passed at the state level to restrict access to abortion and/or family planning.
During the Idaho 2012 legislative session, Senate bill 1387 was introduced which would require a woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound procedure before the abortion. It would require a medical procedure on a woman already burdened with the personal decision of having to continue with the pregnancy or not.
There was a ground swell of opposition to the bill across the state of Idaho. During the public hearing on the bill, Sue Philley of Boise presented to the legislators a petition with 4,000 signatures against the pre-abortion ultrasound bill. She said, “Health care decisions are best made by patients and their medical providers, not politicians.” People felt the bill was a threat to freedom and that personal values of legislators were being forced on women. “Taking away freedom from women to make their own decisions about their own bodies, based on Mr. Winder’s (sponsor of the bill) personal beliefs, is discriminatory and wrong. It is about pursing personal preferences ahead of just treatment for everyone,” said Dan Morrow.

Dan Fink, rabbi for the Ahavath Beth Israel congregation inBoise, was quoted in the paper as saying, “It is unfortunate that religious extremism and misogyny go hand in hand.  Here inIdaho, religious extremists wage war on women.  Our selectively libertarian Republican legislators and governor loathe the interference of the federal government in their affairs and yet they have no compunction when it comes to their own unwelcome intrusion into the lives ofIdahowomen.”

The Idaho ultrasound bill passed the Senate but was tabled in the House after hundreds of people demonstrated at the capitol.  Petitions were signed and e-mails were sent to legislators protesting the injustice of the law that was proposed.  Proponents for the bill promise to bring it back next year.

Other states have passed bills restricting access to abortions, adding much longer waiting periods, requiring women to listen to the heart beat of the fetus and requiring in-person counseling and other unjust limitations.

These laws and the movement to restrict abortions denigrate women by proclaiming that men are in a better position to make decisions about women’s reproductive health than women themselves.  The UCC has joined with other faith groups to call for protection of women’s equal and fair access to abortion.  The UCC will continue to speak up against state laws introduced and passed that restrict women’s health options.

Keep up to date on the issues at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice http://rcrc.org/ .

Walking While Black is Still a Crime

That certainly seems to be the moral of the tragedy in Sanford, Fla. From the news reports we’ve seen, George Zimmerman appears to have concluded that young Trayvon Martin was “suspicious” based on nothing more than his race and the fact that Trayvon was walking in Zimmerman’s neighborhood.

Sadly, such assumptions are made about black youth every day. And they play out in a million disastrous ways.

They play out in schools across the country, where black youth receive far more discipline referrals than their white counterparts for similar kinds of minor misbehavior. They’re apparent in the statistics that show black youths are much more likely to be stopped by police and to be arrested than their white peers for similar offenses.

Black youth are seen as bad kids — “combatants,” in the words of one police chief whose officers routinely mace school children as a means of discipline.

Just this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center continued its fight against such assumptions, testifying in Miami at a U.S. Department of Justice hearing on issues of violence against children.

Trayvon represents the hundreds of thousands of African-American men and boys in Florida who are viewed by our criminal and juvenile justice system as sub-human and disposable.

Sub-human. Disposable. Even in the larger world.

Trayvon was returning from buying candy and iced tea at a nearby convenience store, walking through a gated community in Sanford where his father was staying. He was presumed to be up to no good.

His assailant, George Zimmerman, has been presumed by local police to have acted in self-defense.

It’s called a double standard.

And it’s having a disastrous impact on the young people of color in our country.

In Trayvon’s name, we must do better.

I am not sure this is actual history or not, but I remember reading that at an abolitionist meeting a proslavery white man shouted out to Sojourner Truth, “You are nothing but a flea to me.” She answered, “You are right, but I am going to keep you scratching.”
My favorite editorialist is Leonard Pitts, and in a recent editorial he challenged people to read a book, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. He is even offering to buy the book and ship it free to people who promise to read it. I decided if it was that important to Mr. Pitts, I could buy the book and read it on my own.
Now I am challenging others to buy and read this book, especially people raised in a racist community and family, as I was. This is for those of us born into a “higher station” in life than others. We were born white, male, straight, and in a progressive country. (God gave us a very easy hand to play in the game of life.) Ms. Alexander is giving us her views on history and social justice from an African American’s point of view–something I feel I need to try to understand, or to realize how African Americans and other minority groups feel about the political system and society in general in our country. I can never say I know how people of other races feel when they are denied rights that should be “God given,” because I have never been in their shoes. But I can try to educate myself about their opinions and work for social justice for all people.

If we believe in a Creator, we must believe all of us were created by one being and we are all brothers and sisters.  As such, we have a responsibility to respect each other, share with one another, and to make sure that all of our brothers and sisters are treated equally. The New Jim Crow points out that our nation did not exercise equitable treatment in the past and is not doing so now. We no longer have slavery, and many may forget the old Jim Crow laws, but Michelle Alexander suggests Jim Crow has never gone away and is gaining ground in our society.

A variety of members of our society, including some raised as I was, are responsible for the continuation of Jim Crow.  As I grew older and began to think for myself, I began to change the way I thought and arrived at opinions.  I believe this is the process of God still speaking to me, through the education of myself by reading and listening to those who have different life experiences.  I challenge others to read this book. Leonard Pitts and Michelle Alexander have both made me scratch, and perhaps you will scratch a little also.

Editor’s note: To learn about White Privilege in our own backyard, please read this story by Ainsworth UCC member Bruce Poinsette:

Lake Oswego High: Racist Tweets are Only Tip of the Iceberg http://www.theskanner.com/article/2012/03/09/Racist-Tweets-are-Only-Tip-of-the-Iceberg-2012-03-09