Advancing UU Values and Justice

By Audra Friend

When Unitarian Universalists are surrounded by fear and hate, our response has been to love bigger. Expand sanctuary. Remind ourselves of the beautiful theology that anchors our prophetic ministry.

In the spring of 2017 the UUA and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) launched Love Resists to provide financing, technical assistance, and organizing support to bolster grassroots resistance led by vulnerable populations.

Love Resists guiding principle is to keep our hearts, ears, and eyes open to the needs of, and the guidance of, those most at risk. Grounded in the UUA’s commitment toward dismantling white supremacy, Love Resists looks to support groups led by people of color and those directly impacted by criminalization. The result is a rich, compelling campaign that is responsive to current political situations while holding a long-view vision of radical, prophetic change.

Through the recommendation of our partners and our commitment to beloved community, Love Resists is focused on two aspects of criminalization: the need for expanded sanctuary and ending money bail.

Unitarian Universalist congregations have a long history of supporting sanctuary and expanded sanctuary is a much needed, community-wide response to the criminalization of immigrants today. While there are many aspects of expanded sanctuary, Love Resists, with guidance from our partners, has focused on physical sanctuary and accompaniment.

Physical sanctuary has been a tactic supported by our congregations since the 1980s, and currently, more than 85 UU congregations are publicly committed to offering physical sanctuary. A number of them are currently hosting an undocumented immigrant in danger of immediate deportation. Many are providing secondary support to families in sanctuary.

There are also a handful of congregations offering sanctuary without making their intent public to ensure the safety of the families in sanctuary. During Hurricane Harvey, UUs in Texas—aware of the misinformation circulating about access to shelters for undocumented families—offered safe shelter and resources during and following the storm.

In addition to physical sanctuary, Love Resists focuses on seeding and supporting accompaniment programs. This intentional focus is based on the desire to help UUs take on new, courageous forms of creating sanctuary in radical ways. Accompaniment programs offer partners, witnesses, and companions for individuals who must go to court or Immigration and Customs Enforcement hearings—events where undocumented immigrants are often seized, detained, and deported.

Every UUA region has engaged with Love Resists in committing vocally, radically, and deeply in resisting the criminalization of people. UUs around the country have joined sponsorship networks to support asylum seekers, and mini-grants have be offered to accompaniment networks in every UUA region.

Along with our work supporting immigrant justice, our campaign to combat criminalization has also supported local efforts focused on stopping the over-policing of communities. Partnering with the Church of the Larger Fellowship, our program worked with esteemed civil rights attorneys Al and Adam Gerhardstein, coaching eight congregations in how to do a power analysis of their local police departments, document where and to whom arrests are happening, get accountability meetings with their local police, and develop grassroots relationships.

The newest area of focus for Love Resists is partnering with Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) to put an end to the inhumane system of money bail, which disproportionately affects poor, immigrant, and people of color. On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States who have not been convicted of any crime are locked up simply because they don’t have enough money for bail. Universalism means no one is disposable and interdependence means that none of us are truly free as long as people are in jail.

Ahead of General Assembly 2018, Love Resists hosted a webinar on the growing movement to end money bond and pre-trial detention. Love Resists and BLUU offered multiple opportunities at General Assembly for attendees to gain a better understanding of #EndMoneyBail movement. Subsequently, BLUU and Love Resists piloted the use of an #EndMoneyBail toolkit with five congregations for later nationwide release.

With the campaign’s foundation firmly in prophetic, transformative justice ministry, UUA staff working with Love Resists has created original spiritual resources for congregations and individuals to use.

Audra Friend is Communications Coordinator and the Love Resists project lead for the UUA. The UUA’s Love Resists team includes Marchaé Grair, Janice Marie Johnson, Susan Leslie, Elizabeth Nguyen, and Rachel Walden.

Learn more at UUA.org/loveresists