This year, this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my right to engage in values based advocacy and for the opportunity to educate and mobilize UUs toward a more just democracy. I feel blessed to work providing UU Advocacy in the Nation’s Capital. Conflicted as I am about the historical underpinning of this holiday, I am deeply, sincerely, grateful that so many of you have joined UUSJ in our work as supporters, volunteers, thought leaders, rally participants and volunteer policy advocates.
For example, in August 2018 UUSJ membership voted to engage on the health of our democracy as a new and priority issue area. Subsequently you helped form our new defending our democracy task group. This has permitted UUSJ to more fully participate in interfaith campaigns such as the Faithful Democracy, declaring that a just democratic system is an assertion of every human’s dignity and worth, as well as our own UUA’s “UU the Vote.”
President Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray says “For Unitarian Universalists, this is faithful, moral action because democracy and the right of all people to have a voice and a vote are at the very heart of our Seven Principles.”
Through these efforts, I am regularly reminded of lessons from earlier in my career as a campaign organizer, that:
- I am thankful I live in a democracy, however imperfect it currently is.
- The best version of our democracy is forward looking and inclusionary.
- Each generation can do its part to help form the “more perfect union.”
- We the people provide consent to be governed and in that consent we are endowed with the claim to a right, the right to hold our governors to account.
- We must be shoulder-to-shoulder, eye-to-eye in our struggles for justice. Only that way can we place a beloved community at the heart of our democracy.
This means each of us should cherish that claim to right and seek to exercise it fully, with full throated vigor. Also, that we are beholden to help our communities strive to achieve full and authentic participation. Only together can we pursue a democracy that centers love (Agape) and prioritizes justice.
Earlier this year, we made UU voices heard calling on Congress to support the Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4)! And just last month we urged the Senate to properly fund election security in advance of the 2020 elections.
Your presence at rallies, your voter registration, your policy analysis, your letters voicing concern for our democracy–they all matter and make a difference.
Yet more remains to be done. We UUs are called to do our part to ensure all citizens have the right to vote freely and fairly.
For me, the calling is what former UUA President Rev. John Buehren articulated in his vision of UUs having “a loud, unified voice on public policy issues.”
To achieve this goal, throughout 2020, we will continue defending our democracy, working towards a just democratic, inclusionary system of government. We will help show UUs are present and accounted for on this most important venture, during this most important year.
I invite you to join us and I thank you for all you have done. Please know, you are deeply appreciated by all of us at UUSJ.
We are thankful for the blessings of your time, talents and treasure. We are grateful that you have joined your spirit to ours in raising a loud unified UU voice.
In gratitude,
Pablo DeJesus
* Please consider making a donation to UUSJ to support our work into 2020 *
(Pablo) Pavel DeJesús is the Executive Director of Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (UUSJ). He has been a Unitarian Universalist since 2009. Pablo has a background in government affairs, advocacy, voter mobilizations, and non-profit development. He’s worked on issues such as Vieques, Economic Development, HIV/AIDS, Medicaid/care, Census errors, MD’s Marriage Equality & Dream Acts, Fracking, Reproductive Rights, Immigration, Arts & Culture, and school partnerships.