GA 2025

Visit us at Booth 301 and on Whova!

We look forward to seeing folks in Baltimore and on line for General Assembly 2025. We have endorsed a CS/AI, have two on-demand workshops, and will have a discussion of Peace for Intergenerational and Climate Justice in the Exhibit Hall. There is also a very important election this year, for the UUA Moderator. We have not made an endorsement for moderator, and encourage all to consider carefully the credentials of the candidates.

Congregational Study/Action Issues (CS/AIs)

The UUJEC has endorsed the Congregational Study/Action Issue Housing: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The 2025 CS/AIs (listed alphabetically) are

• Abolition Is Faith Formation
• Fat Liberation: Building Justice and Inclusion for Larger Bodies
• Housing: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion UUJEC is endorsing this CS/AI. We’re caught in a  difficult era for the United States.    Federal support for housing justice is being reduced.  Support for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs is being reduced.     People come to our congregations to ask for sanctuary and other forms of assistance.  The list includes undocumented migrants,   homeless (unhoused) people, climate-change refugees,  people who are being evicted from their homes, and others.  How can congregations help? This is designed for a long-term discussion and actions, unlike an AIW, which is a timely response to a critical immediate issue. A CS/AI and an AIW can work to complement each other. Don’t miss the housing-justice exhibit that the Commission on Social Witness will have in the Exhibit Hall on Wednesday evening, June 18th.

Actions of Immediate Witness

There were 5 AsIW proposed for consideration by GA 2025 delegates in the week before General Assembly. Here is the list of the 5 topics, with links to their discussion pages on discuss.uua.org:

• Bringing a Feminist & Womanist Lens to Resistance & Activism
• Faithful Defiance of Authoritarianism, a Call to Action: Reaffirming Our Covenants for Democracy & Freedom
• Funding Global LGBTIQ Freedom amid Crisis: A Call for Immediate Action and Solidarity
• Voter Justice and Racial Equity for the Citizens of the Nation’s Capital
• We Declare and Reaffirm: All People Have Inherent Worth and Inalienable Rights

On-Demand Workshop

Bread and Roses: Mutual Aid and Food Justice

One Island Family (Key West) Are you curious about mutual aid organizing? Start with community gardening and community meals. This delicious workshop provides resources that your congregation can use in its social justice work. The speakers are mutual aid activists in Florida. Video produced by the Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community. Terry Lowman; Helen (Lyn) Dalzell; Rev. Robert Murphy

Meet-Ups

Any UUJEC-sponsored workshops that are recorded will find their way to our YouTube channel and then will be embedded on this site.

• Mutual Aid Meet-Up, Thursday, June 19, 10:30–11:30 a.m., Room 318: This is an informal event to discuss housing and food justice organizing, with an emphasis on the concept of mutual aid, which is important for many Unitarian Universalists.   Presentations will include information about the CS/AI Housing Justice: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This Meet-Up is sponsored by the Mutual Aid Collaborative.   This will be the  “founders’ day” for a new working group that will continue beyond the General Assembly.  Tenant union organizing,  disability rights, building resistance centers, emergency services,    and support for such groups as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are important topics in mutual-aid organizing.
• Organizing for Housing Justice, Friday, June 20, 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Room 318: This Meet-Up is sponsored by UUs for a Just Economic Community. We will meet to discuss “what happens next” in housing-justice work for Unitarian Universalists. The goal is to provide all people with safe, affordable, and appropriate shelter. How can congregations be helpful? Work with low-income tenants, homeless (houseless) people, undocumented immigrants, and others who are oppressed. Speakers Rev. Ben Atherton-Zeman, Elias Poore, Imari Nuyen-Kariotis, and Rev. Robert Murphy provide resources and best practices information. UUJEC cochairpersons Terry Lowman and Sally Jane Gellert will moderate this meeting. What does your organization bring to the housing justice  program? What do you need for support?  
• Peace for Intergenerational and Climate Justice: Join us for this discussion of how to motivate our fellow Unitarian Universalists to take stronger action on this critical issue. Rapid climate change is CODE RED for Humanity. It requires urgent action to keep global temperature rise to a liveable 1.5°C by 2100. Governmental action is needed immediately, as the Department of Defense is the world’s largest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions. Peace and diplomacy must outweigh the call to war. Instead, we seem to be sliding quietly into WWIII, with violent conflicts in so many countries.

UUA Resources

We encourage folks to check out the discussion board on the UUA Web site. There are videos of feedback sessions for each of the proposed Actions of Immediate Witness, Congregational Study/Action Issues, general and business questions, and more, in the “General Assembly 2025” category. We encourage all to create an account, sign in, and discuss (posts can be read without an account).

If you want to discuss here among UUJEC folks, head on over to our forum, read what is there, and then log in or create an account if you have not yet, and chat with us!