Dear [FNAME],

For those sorting out the ballot issues here in California - please take a look at our Virtual UU Meeting House - a place where you can read pros & cons, and share your reflections from a UU perspective.

Asking questions gets as many points in UU heaven as providing your point of view. Please be courteous toward all, especially toward those with whom you may disagree. I have changed my vote more than once by learning from thoughtful UUs in the Virtual UU Meeting House. Enjoy!

Quote of the Day

"Voting is but one note in the symphony of democracy."
   -Archbishop Oscar Romero, El Salvador

So....pick a candidate or a cause; bring a few friends to volunteer at a phone bank; adopt a precinct; write a letter to the editor; gather friends to study and discuss the ballot initiatives; deliver lawn signs, take November 7th off and help get out the vote. Show the kids in your life that democracy is not a spectator sport!

Prop 89: Clean Money for Fair Elections

" I've been pretty cynical about politics and quite uninvolved for over 20 years. Many times I've thought, 'We can't get anywhere on this [health, environment, education, whatever] issue because the monied interests are too powerful, the priorities all wrong. What we really need is campaign finance reform...(groan)!'

Clean Money takes out the 'groan' and replaces it with 'aha!' It is really possible to have government by the people and for the people, and my eyes fill with tears as I think of the promises of democracy that we deeply wish to make real for our children and grandchildren. I’m proud to be a member of a church that prizes democracy. Passing Prop 89 is crucial to the recovery of democracy in California..... We have less than 3 weeks left until the election and I hope that every UU in California helps to seize this historic moment and work for the passage of Prop 89."

"... right now 22 states prohibit corporations from contributing to candidates from their corporate treasuries. Most of these states allow corporations to sponsor and solicit funds for a political action committee, but not contribute corporate funds to the PAC....

In upholding these laws, the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that state laws grant corporations special advantages saying, 'These state-created advantages such as limited liability, perpetual life and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets, not only allow corporations to play a dominant role in the nation's economy,

but also permit them to use resources amassed in the economic marketplace to obtain an unfair advantage in the political marketplace.'

The list of opponents to Proposition 89 reads like a who's who list of the politically influential. The insurance industry, HMOs, oil companies, utility companies and banking corporations have already spent over $2 million opposing Proposition 89. The groups that support Proposition 89 range from the Sierra Club and AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) to the California League of Women Voters -- probably the most passionate advocates for 'a level playing field' for ideas and equal access to legislators for all people. These organizations simply don't have the ability to 'pay to play' at the corporate level. Their voices are in danger of being drowned out by corporate influence."

Thomas Starr King

We are not to live outside the world, but in it,
feeling its passions, working in its interests, striving to do our duty in its trials. And yet large districts of our life and feeling should be above the world on the Sierra heights from which the world and our toil and our home cares and our surroundings look noble, precious, bathed in light.

If thou doest catch at times some gleams of the divisings of charity,
of the glory of sacrifice, of the grandeur of faith,
of the sky piercing power of prayer, like mountain peaks
jutting through fogs, or slopes afar off in the horizon light,
believe in them with more enthusiasm
than in the stupid dust of the beaten roads;
make your home where they will inspire you,
and where you can easily ascend their slopes,
and see the world from a higher point,
and feel the everlasting presence of God.
Believe in them for they are the mountain-principles and altar-piles of life.
Breathe the air that is freshened on their heights.
Drink from the streams that flow fresh from the channels in their sides.
And in every season of doubt, temptation, or despair,
lift up thine eyes to the hills from whence cometh thy help.
  -Thomas Starr King

For more Starr King Quotes, see Arliss Ungar's excellent paper .

Starr King is remembered for his tireless work and impassioned oratory helping to keep California in the Union during the civil war, his prolific fundraising for the Sanitary Commission the precursor to the Red Cross, helping to found what become UC Berkeley, and his important writings on Yosemite.   Historian and Starr King biographer Glenna Matthews, Ph. D. says that

" nine years before John Muir arrived in the Sierra, King had begun teaching the rest of the country to value the California landscape.  In August 1860 he gave a talk to the African American community in San Francisco in which he stated that 'wherever we find many races brought together, there God had his greatest work to do'—in the process becoming one of the intellectual fathers of the idea that diversity is positive.  This was a radical statement at that moment and would be for many years to come."

UULM Action Network Executive Director Rev. Lindi Ramsden is working with CA Senator Debra Bowen (our only UU state Senator. and the lone vote against removing the statue), who has drafted an excellent letter to Governor Schwarzenegger asking him to withdraw this request and, give this decision the respect, time, and opportunity for community input it deserves.


Read Senator Bowen's letter. (updated October 24th)

Glenna Matthews  organized an excellent statement from 18 historians from leading universities from California and beyond.

You can help by writing a letter of your own, or volunteering to help us educate your congregation and California about the value of history and the part Starr King played in shaping the character of California.

Voter Information

By the numbers
Think your vote doesn't count? Think again.

36 million people live in California
22 million are over 18 and eligible to vote
16 million register to vote
8 million (50%) typically go to the polls
4 million plus 1 can pass a proposition that impacts the lives of 36 million, ripples across the country, and changes history.

Time’s a Ticking: Register to Vote by October 23
Haven’t registered to vote yet? In order to participate in the upcoming November election, registration must be postmarked by October 23, 2006.

View UULM Action Network Board's Recommendations, in a chart alongside those of other groups - from the ACLU to the Chamber of Commerce.

For information about the fastest way to register, Click here

Marriage Equality Work Continues

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