Saturday, June 06, 2009

UUA President election

No, I'm not endorsing a candidate.
I will state that on another blog, I did suggest "none of the above" as a suitable option.
It's not that they would be bad Presidents, it's just that neither of the two candidates seem (to me) to have a grasp on what problems the UUA actualy faces, and neither strikes me as being bold enough to shake the UUA out of its decades long slumber.
And to a certain extent, that makes sense; non-boldness is working. Most religious denominations are shrinking, the UUA is at least holding its own.
To make bold steps also means that one will alienate somebody - the UUA consists of a large variety of congregants, many of whom think that their religious and other views are the right and best and only good way to live. Look at the Pagan vs Humanist wars (mostly settled now, but still flaming in some congregations), or the ethical food folks vs the cheap food for the masses folks, etc, etc. I could go on, but I don't want to alienate anybody left reading this ;-) To point out the emperor's new clothes is to alienate folks. To look at a previous post, to make the UUA more culturally diverse, I think we would have to change things - and I suspect many of those things that we would need to change are things that the majority of today's UUs really really like. And therefore we "can't " change them. We can (and will ) follow the same apparent failed policies that have yet to work. How many years has the UUA tried the current plan of attempting multi-culturalism in our congregations? How successful has that particular plan been? Can we come up with a different plan?

And while I'm at it, can we make our elections democratic. A lot of our congregations allow those who can afford to travel to GA to represent the congregation and to vote however they want. How is this different than the old fashion political smoked filled back rooms?

At least I dont see either as a bad candidate, I suspect they will both be mostly status quo, which is what UUs mostly want.

2 comments:

Steve Caldwell said...

SC Universalist wrote:
-snip-
"And while I'm at it, can we make our elections democratic. A lot of our congregations allow those who can afford to travel to GA to represent the congregation and to vote however they want. How is this different than the old fashion political smoked filled back rooms?"


This probably doesn't help too much but every congregation can vote in the UUA Presidential Election even if they don't send delegates to GA.

Congregations can cast some or all of their alloted votes in these elections via absentee ballot.

Of course, the rest of GA business is done by those delegates who travel to GA. For instance, the revision vote on Article II ("Principles and Purposes") is one that is not done by absentee voting.

Bill Baar said...

My Church is casting absentee ballots...seven of them I think.