Community Contacts
Maryland Interfaith Legislative Committee
UUSJ is a member of the Maryland Interfaith Legislative Committee (MILC). This well established social justice advocacy organization encompasses a wide range of religious denominations (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Christian Science, etc.) This group advocates for social justice issues before the Maryland General Assembly throughout its session in January-April. If you or anyone in your congregation is especially concerned about any of these issues, please e-mail our representative, Keith Smith at keithlsmith43(at)verizon.net You or members of your congregation may be interested in the information concerning these issues coming out of these MILC meetings.
About the Maryland Interfaith Legislative Committee…
Beacon House
Beacon House is one of UUSJ’s member organizations. The neighborhood based organization supports at-risk youth and families of the Edgewood Terrace community in Washington, D.C. and offers educational, cultural, recreational and athletic programs.
Open Door Housing Fund
The Open Door Housing Fund is one of UUSJ’s member organizations. As the largest locally based revolving loan fund in the Washington metropolitan region, Open Door helps to create economically strong and diverse communities by providing low-interest loans to mission-oriented affordable housing developers. These loans provide the early critical funding necessary to bring affordable housing plans to fruition.
Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy
UUSJ has been a member of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, which is Virginia’s oldest faith-based advocacy group. A nonpartisan coalition of faith communities working to create change through advancing progressive public policy, the Center engages people of faith, and educates the public about social issues, the legislative process and the call to advocacy.
Interweave
UUSJ collaborates with Interweave, a membership organization actively working toward ending oppression based on sexual orientation and gender identity, recognizing that we will not be free until all oppression is a thing of the past. Interweave is a Unitarian Universalist organization and UU principles guide their work. Interweave values and affirms the lives and experience of Queer people of faith, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, income level, and ability. By providing and supporting leadership and working in collaboration with other organizations of similar vision, Interweave strives to connect and nurture all Queer individuals, communities, and groups and their allies.
Equality Maryland
UUSJ works closely with Equality Maryland, Maryland’s largest LGBT civil rights group. Equality Maryland works to secure and protect the rights of LGBT Marylanders by promoting legislative initiatives on the state, county and municipal levels. Their professional lobbyists and legislative team work with our allies in the General Assembly to shape and pass positive legislation in Annapolis and to beat back discriminatory legislation.
Equality Virginia
UUSJ works closely with Equality Virginia, a statewide, non-partisan education, outreach and advocacy organization seeking equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Virginians. Equality Virginia is comprised of three separate organizations that work together to accomplish their mission: Equality Virginia Advocates, which strives to be the premier organization for GLBT Virginians advancing a legislative and public policy agenda that will move Virginia toward EVA’s vision; Equality Virginia, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization tasked with providing the research and educational foundation for EVA’s advocacy and to provide legal analysis and education on issues affecting GLBT Virginians; and Equality Virginia Political Action Committee, which seeks to elect state and local officials who will assist EV in implementing its public policy and legislative agenda, and to elect openly GLBT candidates to state and local office.
Rainbow Youth Alliance
UUSJ collaborates with Rainbow Youth Alliance (RYA), a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning teens and their allies. RYA is a safe place to ask questions, find mutual support, and learn information pertinent to their lives.
Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light
UUSJ works closely with Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light, a non-profit initiative that helps congregations, religious institutions and others in the Washington, DC area work for a more just, sustainable and healthier creation by reducing the threat of global warming.
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
UUSJ works closely with Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. CCAN seeks to educate and mobilize citizens of this region in a way that fosters a rapid societal switch to clean energy and energy-efficient products, thus joining similar efforts worldwide to slow and perhaps halt the dangerous trend of global warming.
Health Care for All
UUSJ collaborates with Health Care for All, a non-profit that was created in 1999 to educate all Marylanders about sound ways to achieve quality, affordable health care for all. Over 1,100 faith, labor, business, health, and community organizations have joined the Health Care for All! Coalition to support enactment of The Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund’s plan. This is the largest coalition ever created in Maryland and certainly one of the largest health care consumer coalitions in the country.
Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture
UUSJ collaborates with the Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture, an inter-religious membership organization modeled on the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. The Campaign advocates an end to all U.S.-sponsored and U.S.-supported torture.
UU Church of the Younger Fellowship
The mission of the Church of the Younger felloship is to foster, build and support an inclusive international faith community through Unitarian Universalist Principles, which strives to meet the spiritual and social needs of the larger young adult movement and to ensure accountability to and representation of its members.
Josesph Priestley Young Adult Network
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