Progressive Patriot Girl
A little old, but better late than never…
Richard Adams, who nearly four decades ago legally married his male partner in Colorado and, in the first lawsuit of its kind, tried unsuccessfully to have their marriage recognized by the federal government, died on Dec. 17 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 65.
Mr. Adams died after a short illness, his lawyer, Lavi Soloway, said.
In April 1975, Mr. Adams and his partner, Tony Sullivan, wed in Colorado, one of a half-dozen gay couples granted marriage licenses there by the Boulder County clerk’s office. Though Boulder County stopped issuing such licenses almost immediately, the couple’s marriage, which lasted until Mr. Adams’s death, was never legally voided.
Their 1975 wedding ceremony was performed at the First Unitarian Church of Denver.
Congratulations, Washington State!
On Saturday Todd Eklof, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, Wash., will perform his first marriage in almost a decade.
Eklof was a part-time minister at a church in Louisville, Ky., in 2004 when the state voted to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Eklof responded by announcing that he wouldn’t perform marriages until same sex couples could wed.
“I had really looked at this as a free speech issue as much as a human rights issue,” he told Salon. It was a violation of the “First Amendment guarantee to religious expression…It would be the equivalent of someone coming into my restaurant and saying you can no longer serve blacks.”
Eklof’s stance cost himhis job as a video producer for the Kentucky Farm Bureau, a lobby representing and supporting agricultural interests. Hesued and the Bureau eventually admitted to firing him for his views. The lawsuit settled for an undisclosed sum, “Enough to make my attorneys and Uncle Sam happy,” Eklof said. (The Kentucky church has continued to follow hisexampleand does not “allow weddings of non-members to be held on its premises until it can open its doors equally to all couples, including gays and lesbians.”)
Eklof, who is married to a woman, continued to live in Kentucky until 2011 when he became a minister at a Universalist church in Spokane, Wash., in the state’s more conservative east. Soon after, Washington emerged as a same sex marriage battleground. In the interview, Eklof said he believes that being an activist of faith helped make it safe for religious people in his community to vote for marriage equality.
This is what conviction, looks like!
S.F. Bay Area Chalice Camp! My kid always has a blast!
uuca:
Love without exceptions. Unitarian Universalism.
It would be hard to sum up my religion, Unitarian Universalism, in one song, but Peter Mayer’s “Holy Now” comes strikingly close.
Oh, how I am in love with this song.
Cannot you conceive that another man may wish well to the world and struggle for its good on some other plan than precisely that which you had laid down?
Ah, an ode to this Presidential campaign…
Unitarianism. Universalism. Abolition. Women’s suffrage. The Democratic process. Elections. Unitarian monarch, King John Sigismund of Transylvania and the Edict of Religious Toleration. National identity.
As Unitarian Universalists, two of our maternal “saints” were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who lived nearby in Seneca Falls, and Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester. Their efforts, first for the abolition of slavery and then for women’s suffrage, are an inspiration to us all. I have been thinking of these two courageous women recently as I have followed efforts to make voting more difficult, particularly for the poor, the young and those who are forced to relocate in their search for work. Anyone who has ever moved in late summer or autumn knows how difficult it can be to obtain the necessary identification documents to vote. I have often thought that the best argument for eliminating the Electoral College would be to simply provide everyone with a national identification card, one that could identify you, regardless of where you live in the country. Obviously, such a plan would take years to implement, and it would be “mutually inconvenient” for all of us. For now, it is mainly the poor and those who live in rural areas who are being impeded in states where selective photo IDs are required. How bad is this problem? One study in our neighboring state of Pennsylvania estimates that nearly one million potential voters may be disenfranchised because they do not have the required photo IDs!
Read the whole thing. It’s a wonderful post, written from a wonderful part of the country. And it’s about a lot more than just – elections.
For those of us from Unitarian Universalist congregations doing this sort of thing! And, for those that don’t…
Under the direction of Bob Bakert and volunteers from Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Sandy Springs, the Hungry Ear has been revitalized and is at the forefront of the increasing popularity of acoustic music. The performance venue, sound system and lighting have all been upgraded. Some of the best regional singer-songwriters have been playing to sold out houses of over 150 audience members.
Hungry Ear Coffee House features folk, smooth jazz and acoustic music at the Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation 1025 Mt. Vernon Highway, N.W., Sandy Springs, GA 30327.The Hungry Ear Coffee House continues a tradition begun in the 1950s by the beat generation, shades of Jack Kerouac, Woody Guthrie and others. It is the oldest continuing coffee house in Greater Atlanta!
Enjoy wonderful folk music, smooth jazz and other exciting acoustic musicians as they perform in a beautiful wooded setting.
Best wishes to the folks in Sandy Springs as they move forward!
An interesting piece pointing out the tie-ins between religion, culture, religion – and sometimes (or perhaps) – ethnicity.
