“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”― Ernesto Che Guevara

Social justice activism is my life’s blood. I have been an activist ever since I came out as a lesbian at the age of 16. My first rally was a Take Back the Night march in Topeka, KS when I was 16. Over the past 40 years I have shown up and spoken up on a variety of issues facing our world. I used to say I was an ally for different marginalized groups, but the word “ally” sounds as if I’m helping someone with an issue that is theirs, not mine. I now realize that, as Emma Lazarus said, “until all of us are free, we are none of us free.” I now say I’m aiding and abetting. I’m aiding and abetting people of color, I’m aiding and abetting women, I’m aiding and abetting queer folks, I’m aiding and abetting workers, I’m aiding and abetting refugees, and I’m aiding and abetting immigrants in their struggle for equality and justice. Here are just a few images of how I show up.

Immigration rights is a key justice issue, particularly in this time. I was at the forefront of this movement in Colorado Springs. As I said at a rpress conference to introduce a new Sanctuary guest, “the true crisis is not at the border, but rather within the borders of the United States. Beyond hard-working government employees being put on furlough, and services shut down, harming those who carry out the function of government and those who need its services, the true crisis we face is the moral one of our not honoring the country’s history of providing a safe haven for those fleeing violence. "

Since 1988 I have actively dedicated myself to being aware of, and rooting out, my own racist beliefs and attitudes as well as seeking to create a racially just society. Clearly this is something the UUA is grappling with as well. The work is never-ending and neither is my commitment to it.

I have been honored to speak at several rallies in Manhattan (New York, not Kansas!) Here I spoke to a large crowd on the first anniversary of the attempted coup

My approach to social justice activism is based in the teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi: non-violence, peaceful protest, using privilege to aid and abet those who don’t have it. In Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham jail, he writes expressly to white clergy, ”Moreover, I am cognizant of the inter-relatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” More than 50 years after his assassination, these words still compel me to activism.

Part of my understanding of our first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” is that no one is beyond redemption. We each have the opportunity to find our own core inherent worth and dignity and begin to live into it, regardless of our past. Additionally, the racist practice of sentencing exponentially more people of color to death, many of them wrongfully convicted, also creates an imperative to abolish the death penalty.

Doing the work of social justice isn’t always about protesting what’s wrong with our world; sometimes it’s about celebrating what’s right. Each year, I organize a rally to celebrate National Abortion Provider Appreciate Day outside my local Planned Parenthood. We first deliver flowers, balloons, boxes of candy and a card of appreciation to the staff inside, then we show our support outside. This celebration was begun following the assassination of Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider. He was shot down in church on March 10, 1993. Three years later this celebration was started in his memory. Locally, this celebration became even more poignant following the November 27, 2015 domestic terrorist attack on the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in which three people were killed.