Opinion

The SNP are needed in Westminster to hold Labour and the Tories to account on Gaza

Brendan O'Hara 

21 June, 2024 
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

'By not calling out Israel’s actions, the UK stands accused of being complicit in war crimes and violations of international law.'

Over the past few years, I’d like to think that the SNP has built a reputation in Westminster for our fierce advocacy for the international rules-based system and the protection of human rights. Arguably, that support for the rules-based system and an adherence to International Humanitarian Law has never been more needed than in the months since October 7.

On what feels like a daily basis, the SNP at Westminster has been that consistent voice challenging and calling out both the Tory government and the Labour Party on their reluctance to condemn Israel’s obvious and egregious breaches of International Humanitarian Law, and in the face of such destruction and loss of life questioning why they refused to call for an immediate ceasefire in a conflict which has to date, claimed the lives of 37,000 innocent Palestinians.

The willingness of both the Tory and Labour leadership to provide political cover for PM Netanyahu, while he turned off the water supply, used starvation as a weapon of war, and forced the displacement of millions of civilians, simply beggars’ belief.

By any measure, such actions taken against a civilian population is a war crime and anyone who choses to stay silent rather than unequivocally condemn, not only actively and knowingly undermines the international rules-based order, but leaves themselves open to accusations of being complicit in these crimes.

Our position as the 3rd party at Westminster gives us the space to question the Prime Minister, to quiz the Foreign Secretary at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and to challenge Ministers at the Despatch Box every time they make an announcement on Palestine.

At this moment of intense geopolitical fragility, and with the future of the international world order threatened by the negligence of the UK towards its international obligations, I’d argue that it is more important than ever for that dissenting SNP to be a voice to be heard, and for us to be the voice for the millions of people across these islands who support the rule of law and oppose what the UK establishment are doing in our name.

I’m proud to say that from the outset of this terrible conflict, our position has been consistent. In the immediate aftermath of October 7 2023, we unreservedly condemned the Hamas attack and called for the immediate release of all the hostages. We were also the first political party at Westminster to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the first to use the language of collective punishment and ethnic cleaning.

We were also the first party to say to the Conservative Government that there could not be a military solution to this conflict. We were the first to demand the restoration of UNRWA funding, and to support the International Criminal Court in seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

In the months since October 7, it became increasingly clear that had the SNP not been there, a comfortable, cosy consensus would have emerged between the Tories and Labour and there would have been no meaningful political voice demanding a ceasefire and speaking up for International Humanitarian Law.

While the actions of Hamas on 7 of October were both appalling and a clear breach of international law, it would be wrong to believe this conflict started on that awful day. So, understanding the historical context of October 7 is crucial for how we plan the next steps in securing a future peace.

The starting point must be the ending of the prolonged, illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel; an occupation which has systematically diminished Palestinian political autonomy and removed many of their basic human rights.

The creation, and international recognition of an independent Palestinian state is also a pre-requisite to securing long-term stability in the region, and it is essential that any incoming UK Government accepts the Palestinian people’s inalienable right of self-determination, and that that it is not for the United Nations Security Council, or indeed any other nation, to tell the Palestinians how they can or can’t be governed.

Anything short of this and we risk repeating the disastrous mistakes of the past, when Western states attempted to dictate borders and impose governing systems in post conflict zones from afar. That cannot happen again.

In the immediate future, and in the expectation of a change of UK government, we need to see the UK introduce genuine enforcement of consequences for the illegal Israeli occupation. This must include meaningful sanctions should Israel continue to allow the growth of settlements in the West Bank – something which the UK accepts is illegal – and does not immediately start to bring down the number of settlers from the current 700,000.

Any incoming UK government must commit to completely overhauling the system of Arms Export Licensing. The current system is deeply flawed and open to abuse, and the UK government should give parliament the ability to scrutinise arms licences to ensure there is rigorous compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law.

This is an issue we intend to return to in the next parliament as a matter of urgency, regardless of which party is in government. The SNP is committed to being a thorn-in-the-side of any UK government which tries to turn a blind eye when their friends or allies are breaching International Human Law,

We will remain a voice for the oppressed and the persecuted, and we will call it out without fear or favour, because if we don’t, experience tells us that in Westminster, few others will.

Of course, by not calling out Israel’s actions, the UK stands accused of being complicit in war crimes and violations of international law. This will inevitably encourage other malign actors to follow suit, in the belief that they too will be able to act with impunity.

If we accept what is happening in Gaza as the new acceptable standard of a state’s right to “self-defence”, then the UK Government risks undoing the last 75 years of progress of the international rules-based order, something the SNP is committed to ensuring will not be allowed to happen.


Brendan O’Hara is the SNP Candidate for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber. He was appointed as the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesperson in the House of Commons in September 2023.

Image credit: Socialist Appeal – Creative Commons

UK
How the Greens could deliver a shock victory in two rural seats

The Green Party on course for a breakthrough to beat the Tories in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire

Hannah Davenport 

21 June, 2024 
Left Foot Forward

The Green Party are hoping to quadruple its number of MPs in Parliament this general election and, as the election campaign goes on, the odds are looking more optimistic.

Polling has implied so far that the Greens are most likely to come out with two seats after July 4th, still a win, however the party’s chances in all four areas are growing as support for the Conservatives dwindles.

Sian Berry, who is standing in Caroline Lucas’s old seat was predicted in a More in Common poll to come out top with a stonking majority in Brighton Pavillion, which the Greens have held since 2010. However an Ipsos MRP poll did predict the party would lose the seat, highlighting just how varied the polls can be.

The latest YouGov MRP has put co-leader Carla Denyer on course for a win in Bristol, where she is taking on Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire.

Now, new polling done for the Greens by the pollster WeThink has suggested the party is ahead in the two rural constituencies of North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley, giving the Conservatives a run for their money and an example of where tactical voting will be key.

It marks the first time the Greens have made a significant impression outside of its traditional urban base and would prove hugely significant for the smaller party.

Adrian Ramsay is Denyer’s fellow co-leader of the party and standing in Waveney Valley in Suffolk. He told the Guardian that public anger around the issue of river sewage and concern for the environment was cutting through with voters there.

Ramsay said Tory voters were “thinking about what the future is going to be like for their children or grandchildren” and voting Green. He added that the Greens had a long track record of support in the Mid Suffolk area, having hugely increased their number of local councillors in the last local elections.

In Waveney, the poll of 500 people by WeThink has put the Greens on 37% of the vote, with the Conservatives behind on 24%.

The Green Party’s housing spokesperson Ellie Chowns is standing in North Herefordshire where she came fourth in 2019. Now however, the polling has put her ahead this election with 39% of support against the incumbent Tory candidate on 28%.

With the backing of a huge, targeted campaign, the former Green MEP could just beat the Tory MP Sir Bill Wiggin who has held the seat since 2010.

With two weeks to go until the election results, the Greens could be on course for a breakthrough to gain their loudest voice ever in the Houses of Common.

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

UK

The election debates need to interrogate politicians about the human cost of their policies

Prem Sikka 

21 June, 2024 
Columnist Left Foot Forward  Opinion

Party manifestos are disconnected from the lives of the people.

An interesting feature of the debates leading to the UK general election is the almost total absence of any discussion of human consequences of the policies proposed by parties. People have been made invisible as parties focus on taxes, public debt and cuts in public services.

Party manifestos are disconnected from the lives of the people. The average real wage is lower than in 2008 and the result is misery. Due to low incomes, some 12m Britons live in poverty, including 4.3m children. People are increasingly relying upon charity. In 2023/24 there were nearly 3,000 foodbanks compared to almost none in 2007. In 2023/24 Trussell Trust, the largest chain with nearly 1,700 food banks, provided nearly 3.1m food parcels compared to just 25,809 in 2008/09. Life expectancy in Britain has flatlined in the last ten years. Yet no major party is promising to alleviate poverty by redistributing income and wealth, adoption of progressive taxation, increasing workers’ share of gross domestic product and maintaining real value of social security benefits.

To appease corporate interests, major parties promise deregulation but ignore the resulting social cost. For example, some 1.8m workers were suffering from work-related ill health, with approximately half of the cases down to stress, depression or anxiety. Deregulation of the finance industry is mooted again without any mention of the social cost. After the 2007-08 crash the state had to find £1,162bn of cash and guarantees (£133bn cash + £1,029bn of guarantees) to bail out banks, and millions suffered from the resulting austerity.

Both Conservative and Labour want to maintain the two-child benefit cap which deprives 550,000 households of at least £3,455 each year. The removal of the cap would cost £2.1bn in 2024/25, rising to 790,000 households and £3.4bn by 2029-30. Children as young as 11 are being sectioned for mental health problems. In 2023/24, 36,000 children were referred to mental health services for urgent attention. Yet child welfare is just a financial number to major parties as they remain silent on the human cost of this policy. Would more children and their families be forced to live in poverty? Would the resulting anxiety and insecurity stunt children’s and the nation’s future?

Political automatons recite the mantras of self-imposed fiscal rules to justify further cuts in public spending though none ever obstructed corporate bailouts and subsidies. Fiscal rules are seemingly there to curb aspirations of the less well-off. Spending cuts always result in loss of hard-won rights and lower real wages which reduce people’s access to good food, housing, healthcare and welfare. If people are undernourished and ill, how can that help to reinvigorate the economy? How will low wages and cuts in spending impact the supply of skilled labour? Political elites seem unwilling or unable to connect the dots and explain the human impact of their policy choices even though the last 14 years have shown that austerity, low wages and failure to invest in public services have delivered deadly consequences. Here are a few examples.

Underinvestment in the National Health Services (NHS) means that people can’t get a timely access to family doctors, dentists, ambulances and hospitals. This also makes the healthcare system less resilient. Such fears were confirmed in 2016 by an investigation codenamed Exercise Cygnus. It concluded that the NHS would not be able to cope with a flu pandemic. The government, focused on reducing public spending, responded by reducing the stock of personal protection equipment and the number of hospital beds. Some areas in England lost 40% of the hospital beds. Today England has an average of around 2.3 beds per 1,000 of population. Some have considerably less. For example, Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has 0.9 beds per 1,000 people. Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has just 1.7 hospital beds per 1,000 people. The average for Japan is 12.6; 7.8 for Germany; 6.9 for Austria; 5.7 for France; 5.5 for Belgium; 5.2 for Latvia and average of 4.3 beds for OECD countries. The lack of investment had tragic consequences. Some 232,000 people died in the Covid pandemic, considerably more per capita than most European countries.

At the end of April 2024, there were some 7.57m unfulfilled NHS England hospital appointments, compared to 2.5m in 2010 and 4.5m in February 2020 just ahead of the pandemic. Some 2.7m working-age adults are chronically ill and unable to work. If the current obsession with low wages, austerity and reducing public services continues that number is expected to rise to 3.7m by 2040.

Between 2018 and 2022, some 1.5 million people in England died whilst waiting for a hospital appointment in England. That is a staggering 300,000 a year. The victims are mainly people suffering from delays and cancellations to hospital appointments and the less well-off. Some 14,000 people a year die whilst waiting in poorly resourced accident and emergency departments in hospitals.

Britons die sooner from cancer and heart disease than people in many other rich countries, partly because of the NHS’s lack of beds, staff and scanners. The number of people dying before the age of 75 in England from heart and circulatory diseases is at the highest level since 2008. 39,000 died prematurely of cardiovascular conditions including heart attacks, coronary heart disease and stroke. Delayed health checks for people with diabetes have caused 7,000 excess deaths a year.

A study published in a peer reviewed scholarly journal reported that between 2012 and 2019, government imposed austerity caused 335,000 excess deaths in England and Scotland i.e. nearly 48,000 a year. One-third of these deaths were among people under 65. Another study reported that each year some 93,000 people, 68,000 pensioners and 25,000 people of working age, die from poverty. Evidence shows that 28,655 older people died in 2022/23 before ever receiving the social care for which they were waiting. This is an average of 79 deaths a day, 550 a week, and 2,388 a month. 1,300 people died while homeless in UK during 2022.

In 2023, some 800,000 patients were admitted to hospital with malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies, a threefold increase on 10 years ago. Children born to undernourished parents are likely to have low birthweight and suffer from ailments throughout their life. Infant mortality rate in the UK is nearly 4 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 1.7 in Japan, 1.8 in Finland, Slovenia and Sweden. Children from poorest families are almost 13 times more likely to experience poor health and educational outcomes by the age of 17. They are less likely to go for higher education and have lower social mobility. In later life they are more likely to suffer from heart attacks, cancer, diabetes and other debilitating health issues which lead to greater pressures on welfare and healthcare services.

A study by the Institute of Health Equity reported that between 2011 and 2019 England experienced nearly 1.2m excess deaths due to a combination of Covid, poverty and austerity. A poor English girl could on average expect to live 7.7 years less than a rich girl; and a boy 9.5 years less. Public services are a key part of the tragedy. The Economist reported that “during the 2010s, spending per person decreased by 16% in the richest councils, but by 31% in the poorest. Benefits were also cut … places with the largest relative declines in adult social-care spending and housing services were the ones that suffered the greatest headwinds to life expectancy”. Yet major parties reel-off fiscal rules and more austerity without a word about human consequences.

This election, in common with the last few, has lots of radio and televised debates. Politicians well coached by PR experts come and read their rehearsed lines, and interviewers add their tuppence worth. However, there is little discussion of the human cost of policies. People are treated as invisible casualty of politics. It is the same in parliament too. Government bills are routinely accompanied by an ‘impact assessment’ but none ever refers to the human consequences of regressive taxation, austerity, cuts in public services or tax handouts to the rich. We need to change political debates so that the stark consequences of political choices are discussed and human life is prioritised over the interests of markets and corporations.

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

The American Presidential election is perhaps the last opportunity to preserve the Republic

Mark Bergman 21 June, 2024

Left Foot Forward columnist Mark Bergman gives his latest in-depth look at the US Presidential election

Filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, speaking at Brandeis University’s graduation ceremonies last month, as reported by Jennifer Rubin (“The media and sullen nonvoters should listen to Ken Burns”), could not have been more blunt: “Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.” In fact, said Burns “[t]here is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment, or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route.”

And there we were, marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. While President Biden walked the sacred ground of the American Cemetery at Normandy, then Omaha Beach, and honored the sacrifice of American heroes who died on the beaches of Normandy, Donald Trump was in Phoenix accusing America of being a “failed nation” and a “very sick country,” invoking the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, praising Viktor Orban and pledging to “seal the border” and carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in American history. On Sunday, the President will visit Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where 1,800 US Marines killed during World War I at Belleau Wood are buried – Trump refused to visit the cemetery during the 2018 Armistice Day commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI because it had been raining, and defended his decision to his then chief-of-staff John Kelly (whose son also a Marine died in Afghanistan), by saying, “why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” Trump would shortly thereafter call the 1,800 Marines “suckers” for getting killed.

On May 30, the first American president without prior government or military experience, the first president to have been impeached twice, the first president to incite a coup against his own government, the first president to be found liable for sexual abuse (and but for a quirk in New York Penal Law would have been found liable for rape), the first candidate for president to refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and the first former president and candidate for president to say that political violence depends on whether or not he wins, is now the first former president and candidate for president convicted of a felony. That verdict underscored the strength of our democracy and one of its central tenets, that no one is above the law.

But no sooner was the 34th guilty verdict announced than the full weight of the Republican Party machine came crashing down on the judicial system, and with it the fundamental tenets of our democracy. The former “party of law and order” found that a verdict it did not agree with warranted threats against judges, the DoJ and the FBI, the jurors and individual prosecutors. And as Trump threatened to prosecute his enemies if he is again president (reminiscent of pre-Watergate times when presidents weaponized the FBI and IRS for partisan purposes), there was hardly any pushback from Trumpworld. In fact, in a sign of the complete surrender of Republican lawmakers to the Trump narrative, during an appearance at the Pennsylvania state House by two former Capitol Police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th, the officers were met with jeers and walkouts by certain Republican members. Really?

And Trump has amped up his grievance narrative replete with, in the words of Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, a “gusher of falsehoods about the trial.” As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank summarized (“As Biden rallies the free world, Trump serves a higher cause: Himself”):Trump’s campaign website proclaimed him to be a “political prisoner” (no surprise after Trump compared his plight in February to that of a real political prisoner, Alexei Navalny).

In a Fox & Friends Weekend interview, Trump said that if he were imprisoned or put under house arrest, he is “not sure the public would stand for it. You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.” This, lest we forget, from the man who repeatedly called for Hillary Clinton to be “locked up.”

At a Phoenix campaign event on Thursday, Trump warned “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way.”
Trump has called Judge Juan Merchan a “crazed” “devil” who “crucified” defense witnesses. If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. There are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”

On Fox & Friends Weekend, Trump, echoing Senator Joe McCarthy 70 years ago, warned about the “enemy from within” doing more “damage to this country” than Russia or China. He is completely right, but for a very different reason.

Referring to the DoJ, he warned on Newsmax that “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.” It is a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question.”

In private, according to reporting by the Washington Post, Trump has told advisers and friends he wants the DoJ to investigate former allies and officials who criticized him, wants to appoint a special prosecute to investigate President Biden and his family and wants to prosecute officials at the DoJ and the FBI.

But should we be surprised, since this is the party so many of whose adherents have spent over three years seeking to discredit our election system? As Jennifer Rubin pointed out in an op-ed earlier this week (“Democrats must defend Trump’s guilty verdict against MAGA jury denial”), it was an easy jump from defaming election workers to defaming jurors. And we have seen the broader playbook before – if Trump loses an election, it is because the election was fraudulent, and so if he loses a legal case, it is because the process was corrupt and rigged. And to put this into the broader context of a presidential candidate bent on crushing democracy, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat reminded us, whenever authoritarians are ascendant, discrediting judges, prosecutors and the courts is to be expected, because authoritarianism thrives when the rule of law is converted into “rule by the lawless.”

So, can Trump prosecute his enemies? Adam Liptak, in his analysis (“Trump’s Vows to Prosecute Rivals Put Rule of Law on the Ballot”), quotes former counsel in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush David B. Rivkin Jr. in noting that, while Trump’s threats challenge long-established norms, “[a]s a constitutional matter, the president has broad law enforcement discretion to prosecute anybody. You don’t get immunized because you are the enemy of a president.”

 Liptak quotes Brennan Center President Michael Waldman who posits that for “Trump to be able to abuse power … would require prosecutors to cooperate, would require the FBI and others to shed their independence, and for juries and judges to go along.” More concerning, notes Litvak, is that Trump’s threats serve not only to provide “the red meat of prospective retribution to his base,” but also to undermine faith across society in the criminal justice system.

Unpacking the False Claims

As Trump and his enablers are likely to make the “rigged” trial and “unfair judicial system” central pillars of Trump’s campaign (at least until another target of his ire appears), I offer some thoughts on the falsehoods: “Just so you understand, this is all done by Biden and his people.” No, Trump was prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney, who inherited the case from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance, and there is zero evidence that the President was involved. This is classic Trump – projecting on to others the actions he would have taken in the same situation.

“When I announced I was running for president a long time later, they decided to revive this case.” No, the case predates Trump’s November 2022 announcement he would run.
“I would have loved to have testified, but [I was told by my counsel] I would say something out of whack.” This speaks for itself.

“We just went through one of many experiences where we had a conflicted judge, highly conflicted.” The New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics found no conflict of interest, and the New York Appellate Division upheld Judge Merchan’s decision not to recuse himself.

“We weren’t allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances.” As Kessler notes, Judge Merchan did not bar the expert, but limited his testimony on federal campaign finance law. The defense elected not to call the expert as a witness.

“I wasn’t allowed by the judge to use, in any form, the standard RELIANCE ON COUNSEL DEFENSE (ADVICE OF COUNSEL!).” The defense decided not to serve up the advice of counsel defense because it would have required Trump to waive attorney-client privilege and Judge Merchan rejected their “presence of counsel” defense .

“The judge hates Donald Trump. Just take a look. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from. He can’t stand Donald Trump. He’s doing everything in his power.”

 “Witnesses that were on our side … were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil.” So said Trump. We have seen this before – an attack on a Latino judge. Recall Trump’s attack on Federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who oversaw the Trump University fraud class action. These bigoted attacks are nothing short of an attempt to undermine faith in the judicial system. 

 As Adam Serwer noted (“Trump Wishes His Trial Were Rigged”), Trump was not treated unfairly, as any other defendant would have been jailed for contempt for engaging in the conduct that Trump exhibited throughout. Judge Merchan “bent over backwards to overlook his antics. Trump violated gag orders by attacking witnesses and attempting to intimidate Stormy Daniels during testimony that ‘at times seemed to be describing nonconsensual sex’ and attacked the judge’s daughter as a ‘rabid Trump-hater.’”

 Trump “received special treatment precisely because he is an important figure.” Had the case been televised, Trump and his enablers would have had a far tougher time characterizing the process as skewed against Trump.“The case against Trump was politically motivated.” As this was ultimately an election interference case, it by definition would ensnare a politician. Prosecution of any politician of a different party can seem partisan. And the fact that district attorneys are elected can often lead to characterization of cases as politically motivated if they advance the electoral fortunes of the district attorney.

 But even if the case against Trump can be said to have been politically motivated, as David A. Graham pointed out (“If Trump Is Guilty, Does It Matter If the Prosecution Was Political?”), that criticism has no “bearing on whether Trump actually committed the crimes with which he was charged.” 

Political motivation did not determine the verdict, the jury did. Graham noted:Trump was indicted by a grand jury.Trump’s counsel had the chance to challenge jurors, introduce evidence, cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and call their own witnesses, including Trump. And incidentally many legal experts questioned the strategic value of attacking the judge and the legal process, and questioned tactics that could have had only one explanation – Trump insisted on them.

Conviction required a unanimous decision by 12 citizens who had to conclude that a crime had occurred “beyond reasonable doubt.” They did so in two days.

As for the Trump apologists, Quoting David S. Bernstein, Julia Azari and Jonathan Bernstein (“Guilty, They Say”):They should answer the following: Do you think that falsifying business records to deliberately conceal a hush-money payment to influence an election, if true, should be legal? And if not, then which parts of that do you truly believe Trump did not commit? If Trump defenders are unwilling to argue he did not falsify records or that it should not be a crime, they are saying he should be exempt because he is a former president. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump said, which is exactly the point, no one is above the law.

Serwer makes a related point: the apologists do not contest that Trump committed the acts charged, but instead that Trump should be free to commit those crimes, because “anything less would be political prosecution.”

And lest we need a reminder, Republicans have unabashedly failed to hold Trump accountable when they had the chance – Trump was impeached twice for interfering in the 2020 election, once for trying to blackmail Ukraine into falsely implicating his political opponent in a crime, and once for inciting an insurrection to prevent the constitutional transfer of power.

 And as Serwer crystallizes the reality so clearly, aside from House Democrats who impeached Trump twice, Trump has only been held accountable by ordinary Americans – the jury in the E. Jean Carroll case and the 12 members of the jury in the case brought Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, as well as by Judge Engoron in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letita James (as there was no jury). The jurors “showed more courage in convicting Donald Trump, knowing that they could be hounded for doing so, than nearly the entire conservative elite has in the past decade. 

Small wonder that this same elite is so terrified of the possibility of Trump facing another jury of his peers, an American institution that has so far proved itself resistant to Trump’s corrupting influence.”The Alvin Bragg case was the weakest case. This is beside the point. The other three cases are in limbo. 

Jack Smith’s case awaits a ruling by the Supreme Court on immunity. In the meantime, the credibility of the Supreme Court has been further eroded as Justice Alito has refused to recuse himself following reporting that an inverted American flag associated with the insurrection was flown outside the Alito home days after the insurrection and later reporting that a second Appeal to Heavan flag associated with insurrectionists flew above the Alito vacation home as recently as 2023. And yesterday, it was reported that Justice Thomas had belatedly disclosed further travel paid for by a Republican donor. 

As Brennan Center President Michael Waldman has noted (“What Comes Next in the Trump Legal System”), the fact that the conviction is a matter of state law raises a number of federalism and Supreme Clause questions, highlights how damaging it is that the Supreme Court has delayed the Jack Smith case. He also notes that the “speed and calm dispatch” with which the New York state court was able to hold and complete the case highlights the disfunction in the federal system.

And Trump’s enablers, among others, had this to say:Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, called the verdict “the most egregious miscarriage of justice in our nation’s history.” Obviously, he is not much of a student of American history.

Senator Marco Rubio: “The public spectacle of political show trials has come to America.” Rubio should know better as Cuba has had first-hand experience with authoritarianism, military tribunals and political show trials, and the total absence of due process.
House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to the “weaponization of our justice system” and the “absurd verdict.” On Fox & Friends he called for the Supreme Court to “step in” to overturn the jury verdict, notwithstanding that the appeal would have to go through two levels of appellate courts (the Appellate Court and the Court of Appeals) in New York first. Trump has limited remedies in federal courts.

As Susan Glasser reported (“The Revisionist History of the Trump Trial Has Already Begun”), when House Democrat Jim McGovern had the temerity, while lamenting the failure of the 118th Congress to accomplish anything (which as she notes is on track to be the least productive congress in recent memory), he speculated that House Republicans were trying “to distract from the fact that their candidate for President has been indicted more times than he’s been elected,” and that “the leader of their party is on trial for covering up hush-money payments to a porn star for political gain,” he was admonished by the presiding Republican and, after enumerating the various cases against Trump, his comments were struck from the official record.
Concluding Thoughts

Trump has a history of weaponizing his victimhood. We continue to face the devastating consequences of election denial, attacks on electoral systems and election workers, which continue to this day in the form of continued pressure on election administrators and election officials. The Big Lie also will underpin deepfake and other forms of disinformation intended to sow distrust in electoral systems, keep voters at home and serve as the predicate for massive legal challenges of election results. So too do we face potentially devastating consequences of sustained efforts to delegitimize judges, juries and the judicial system.

Expect this theme to dominate the Trumpworld narrative. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg, quoted by Kessler, notes that “Trump is going to run on rigged courts and rigged elections. I don’t think he can help himself even though it would be better for him to talk about inflation. Biden is going to run on democratic norms, women’s rights – especially abortion – and the rule of law and be able to ask voters if they want a convicted felon as their president.”

There is though one more dystopian angle to this, which former Governor Chris Christie recently spelled out. Trump, who has long threatened an administration driven by revenge and retribution, will get angrier and more paranoid as we get closer to the election. Longtime Trump observer and political correspondent Maggie Haberman has made the same point – he is serious about revenge; “it’s very much a focal point for him right now.” This obviously poses an existential danger to the Republic should Trump win, but in the meantime there has been a spike in online threats that have migrated from election administration only to a broader range of targets that now include anyone associated with the prosecution of Trump, including jurors, judges and prosecutors. We are coming dangerously close to the tipping point where doxxing and threats of sexual violence and death on social media and web forums beget offline violence.

What is needed is an all-of-society response to counter the firehose of disinformation about the trial, about the impartiality of the judge, about the process, about the prosecutors, about the jury. By the way, compare and contrast the reaction across the political spectrum, starting with President Biden, to the Hunter Biden case and the verdict reached a week ago. This is the time for trusted voices in the business community, trusted voices in the legal community, trusted voices in popular culture and trusted voices in sports to set aside partisan identity to urge respect for the judicial system, for law enforcement, for elections and for democratic institutions.

While it may be easy for many to dismiss a future blighted by political sectarian divisions and violence, let alone civil war, history provides ample warnings. Yes, the 2024 ballot will present us all with a choice, but, no, we do not have a real choice as to what that future of America should look like. As between democracy and authoritarianism, the answer should be clear. We all need to convey that message and we must not shy away from characterizing this election from what it is – perhaps the last opportunity to preserve the Republic.

Mark Bergman seeks to capitalize on a series of networks he has developed while based in London for two decades and more recently in Washington, D.C. He convenes and connects constituencies and has established himself as a thought leader on political, geopolitical and regulatory developments and trends, with a particular emphasis on the resilience of democracy; extremism/disinformation/weaponization of hate; transnational repression and kleptocracy; and climate change. His written analyses – as part of his briefing notes series — are available on his website: 7Pillars Global Insights.

‘Loyal to the Oil’: Finding religion in the Stanley Cup finals

THEY WERE SHUT OUT BY THE PANTHERS 

The Edmonton Oilers are more than a hockey team. In some ways, they symbolize devotion to a way of life − and one of Canada’s major industries.

OIL  PRAYER; PLEASE LORD GIVE US ANOTHER OIL BOOM, WE WON'T BLOW IT THIS TIME

June 21, 2024
By Cody Musselman, Judith Ellen Brunton


(The Conversation) — Hockey’s biggest prize is the Stanley Cup, and for the first time in nearly two decades, the Edmonton Oilers are vying for it. Hoping to stage a comeback against the Florida Panthers, the Oilers are two wins away from becoming National Hockey League champions.

The finals are bringing new attention to Edmonton, former team of the legendary Wayne Gretzky. But they’re also bringing attention to some of Canada’s biggest exports: hockey and oil.

Novelist Leslie McFarlane once observed that for Canadians, “hockey is more than a game; it is almost a religion.” Now that the Oilers have a chance to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time in nearly 30 years, prayers and superstitions abound, from wearing special clothing to fans averting their eyes during penalty shots.

The Oilers also evoke another aspect of Canadian society with almost religious importance: resource extraction. In American and Canadian culture, oil has long been entangled with religion. It’s a national blessing from God, in some people’s eyes, and a means to the “good life” for those who persevere to find it.

We are scholars of religion who study sports and how oil shapes society, or petro-cultures. The Edmonton Oilers showcase a worldview in which triumph, luck and rugged work pay off – beliefs at home on the ice or in the oil field. The Stanley Cup Final offers a glimpse into how the oil industry has helped shaped the religious fervor around Canada’s favorite sport.

Edmonton Oilers fan Dale Steil’s boots before the team’s playoff game against the Los Angeles Kings on April 26, 2024.
AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

Boomtown

Edmonton is the capital of Alberta, a province known for its massive oil, gas and oil sands reserves. With five refineries producing an average of 3.8 million barrels a day, oil and gas is Alberta’s biggest industry – and a way of life.

This is especially true in Edmonton, known as the “Oil Capital of Canada.” Here, oil not only structures the local economy, but it also shapes identities, architecture and everyday experiences.

Visit the West Edmonton Mall, for example, and you’ll see a statue of three oil workers drilling, reminding shoppers that petroleum is the bedrock of their commerce. Visit the Canadian Energy Museum to learn how oil and gas have remade the region since the late 1940s, and glimpse items such as engraved hard hats and the “Oil Patch Kid,” a spin on the iconic “Cabbage Patch Kids” toys. Tour the greater Edmonton area and see how pump jacks dot the horizon. Oil is everywhere, shaping futures, fortunes and possibility.


Pumpjacks near Acme, Alberta, Canada – a regular sight.
Michael Interisano/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Set against this backdrop, the Oilers’ name is unsurprising. It is not uncommon, after all, to name teams after local industries. Football’s Pittsburgh Steelers pay homage to the steel mills that once employed much of the team’s fan base. The Tennessee Oilers were originally the Houston Oilers, prompting other Texas teams such as the XFL’s Roughnecks to follow suit. Further north, the name of basketball’s Detroit Pistons references car manufacturing.

Teams with industry-inspired names play double duty, venerating both a place and a trade. Some fans are not only cheering for the home team but cheering for themselves – affirming that their industry and their labor matters.

Ales Hemsky of the Edmonton Oilers skates out from under the oil derrick for a game at Rexall Place in 2008 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images

In a recent TikTok video, a man overcome with joy at the Oilers’ victory over the Dallas Stars claps his hands and hops around his living room. The caption reads, “My first-generation immigrant oil rig working Filipino father who has never played a second of hockey in his life…happily cheering for the Oilers advancing in the playoffs. Better Bring that cup home for him oily boys.” He appears to be cheering for the Oilers not because they are a hockey team, but because they are an oil team.

And indeed, the Oilers are an oily team. The Oilers’ Oilfield Network, for example, describes itself as “exclusively promot[ing] companies in the Oil and Gas industry,” allowing leaders to connect “through the power of Oilers hockey.”

The Oilers’ connection with industry is further underscored by their logos. The current one features a simple drop of oil, but past designs featured machinery gears and an oil worker pulling a lever shaped like a hockey stick.
Liquid gold

There is a long tradition of pairing hockey with oil – and with Canada itself.

After the British North America Act founded Canada in 1867, the new nation searched for a distinctive identity through sport and other cultural forms.

Enter hockey. The winter game evolved in Canada from the Gaelic game of “shinty” and the First Nations’ game of lacrosse and soon became part of the glue holding the nation together.

Ever since, media, politicians, sports groups and major industries have helped fuel fan fervor and promoted hockey as integral to Canada’s rugged frontiersman character.

The Montreal Amateur Athletic Association posing with the first Stanley Cup in 1893.
Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images

In 1936, Imperial Oil, one of Canada’s largest petroleum companies, began sponsoring Hockey Night in Canada, a national radio show that reached millions each week. Several years later, Imperial Oil played a major role in bringing the show to television, where the Imperial Oil Choir sang the theme song. Imperial Oil and its gas stations, Esso, also sponsored youth hockey programs across the nation. In 2019, Imperial inked a deal to be the National Hockey League’s “official retail fuel” in Canada.

Striking it rich

Connections between hockey and industry in Alberta’s oil country aren’t just about sponsorships. Central to both cultures is the idea of luck – historically, one of the many things it takes to extract fossil fuels. “Striking it rich” in the oil fields has become entangled with the idea of divine providence, especially among the many Christian laborers.

Philosopher Terra Schwerin Rowe has written about North America’s “petro-theology,” explaining how many perceive oil as a free-flowing gift from God meant to be taken from the Earth – if you can find it.

A Canadian oil worker kisses his wife and daughter goodbye as he sets off to work in northern Alberta in the 1950s.
John Chillingworth/Getty Images

Oil represents fortune, and who wouldn’t want to borrow a bit of that for their team? Sports are thrilling because sometimes talent, team chemistry and the home-field advantage still lose to a stroke of good luck. Oil culture pairs the idea of divine favor with an insistence on rough-and-tumble endurance, similar to hockey.

Right now, fans from around the world are joining Edmonton locals in rooting for the Oilers. They’ll throw their hands up in despair if captain Connor McDavid enters the “sin bin” – i.e., the penalty box – or dance in celebration to the Oilers’ theme, “La Bamba.” They’ll be cheering, too, for oil.


(Cody Musselman, Postdoctoral Research Associate of Religion and Politics, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Judith Ellen Brunton, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Canada Program, Harvard University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Signs of the Times

How to maintain hope in the face of global warming

‘We are the luckiest generation,' said one leader, 'to have something that is so meaningful to fight for.’
Thousands of fishermen fill a large muddy pond and cast their nets in the southern Mali town of San, June 6, 2024, for Sanké mon, a collective fishing rite that begins with animal sacrifices and offerings to the water spirits of Sanké pond. For several hundred years, people have gathered for the rite, which is on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage. Heat waves in Mali in recent years have caused the pond to start drying out. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

June 18, 2024
By Thomas Reese

(RNS) — I am tempted to depression and despair when faced with the reality of global warming, and I fear that I am not alone.

Carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, followed by rising temperatures around the world. Sea levels are rising as ice melts, droughts are spreading and storms are getting stronger, leading to catastrophic floods.

And it is not just the weather that is affected. Coral reefs are bleaching and dying, leading to a depletion of sea life. Forests are drying out and burning. Rivers are drying up and aquifers are being pumped dry. Wildlife species are dying and going extinct, never to return.

And this is just the beginning. If the ice on Greenland and Antarctica melts, say goodbye to coastal cities and low-lying areas like Florida. If mountain glaciers melt, rivers will disappear. There will be millions of climate refugees.

Yes, the data and climate models lead me to depression and despair. But spiritual writers warn us that despair is a temptation from the devil, who tries to get good people to give up the practice of virtue.

Likewise, communal despair leads to political paralysis as good people cede the political arena to selfishness and greed.
RELATED: Global warming is here and it is getting worse

“Depression is our enemy because it leads to passivity which leads to a lack of action, which means you lose what you care about,” warns Jay Inslee, governor of the state of Washington, a leader in the fight against global warming.


FILE – Washington Gov. Jay Inslee delivers his annual State of the State address to a joint legislative session in House chambers at the Washington state Capitol, Jan. 9, 2024, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

“There is an antidote to that, which is action,’’ he told host David Roberts on a June 14 episode of the podcast Volts. “If you want to feel better, if you want to get over that darkness and despair, go take some action.”

Any action will do, “blogging, tweeting, talking to your neighbor, voting, anything,” said the governor. “Any action you take is good for you and your mental health.” And, I would add, your spiritual health.

Rather than seeing our time as the worst possible days, Inslee, like Winston Churchill during the Second World War, thinks the opposite.

“These are the greatest days,” Inslee argued. “There’s no other time in the history of our species where so much was at stake, where the whole shooting match was at stake, where the whole future of all multiple generations are at stake.

“We are the luckiest generation in human history to have something that is so meaningful to fight for,” he said. “That’s a blessing. That’s what I wake up in the morning thinking. I wake up feeling great. I hope everybody else does, too.”

Like the “Greatest Generation,” which responded to the challenge of fascism, those living today are called to respond to the challenges of climate change. If we do it, history will extol us. If we fail, future generations will curse us for ushering in a new dark age.

Winning the Second World War took individual sacrifice, governmental action and technological innovation. Likewise, winning the war against global warming will take all three.

As individuals, we need to accept a simpler lifestyle with a smaller carbon footprint. We need to support government programs like the Inflation Reduction Act, which, despite its name, is really a series of programs to limit climate change. Our most creative minds have to focus on new technologies that will help us eliminate fossil fuels, the principal source of greenhouse gases.

A man looks out at wind turbines in Livermore, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Volts describes itself as a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind. It is unflinching in its realism in the face of global warming, yet it is also hopeful in its examination of the technological innovations that can help us reduce our carbon footprint.

Roberts, the host, interviews analysts, technologists and politicians about the transition from fossil fuels. On the podcast, Inslee spoke of the innovative programs his state has enacted, making it a leader in responding to climate change. He is now fighting a ballot initiative funded with $5 million by Brian Heywood, a hedge fund billionaire who wants to roll back the state’s efforts.
RELATED: Billions of federal dollars available for churches and nonprofits to go green

Other Volts episodes look at battery technology, upgrading the electrical grid and alternative sources of energy, as well as the political strategies needed to get them implemented. Volts goes into geeky detail in a way that is understandable and entertaining. It is inspiring and hopeful to listen to so many smart and dedicated people grapple with the science and technology of responding to global warming.

Yes, the devil is working hard to lead us to despair over global warming, but the Spirit is also alive in many dedicated people doing exciting work in response to climate change. “Fear not,” the Lord says in Isaiah, “for I am with you.”

GEOGRAPHY 101

 

 

Opinion

How Christian nationalism is going under the radar in this election

As the nonreligious population grows, many Americans are socially insulated from crucial political realities.

An attendee holds a “One Nation Under God Indivisible” poster during a Stop the Steal protest in Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 6, 2021

. (Photo by Anthony Crider/Flickr/CC-BY 2.0)

June 20, 2024
By Paul A. Djupe

(RNS) — Some far-right Christian lawmakers have proposed that nonreligious Americans are not fit to govern because, without Christ, they are “evil.” Is it possible, given their relative lack of concern about such statements, that nonreligious Americans don’t know what Christian nationalism is?

In fact, it may be expected. As the nonreligious population grows, and as people increasingly choose where they live based on religion and politics, this group has less exposure to conservative Christian politics. While many nonreligious Americans today are aware of the political stakes and players, substantial minorities are socially insulated from religious forces and their effect on political realities as we head toward the 2024 election.

Mobilizing groups into politics can mean introducing terminology that helps people quickly make sense of the political world. Christian nationalism, a worldview seeking and legitimating Christian dominion in the U.S., is the crucial term here. While it may seem obvious that the nonreligious would have interests at stake were Christian nationalists to gain power, it actually comes as a surprise to a number of the nonreligious that they are combatants in a war for America.

A good example of Christian nationalism at work is the Texas Republican Party. As Texas Tribune reporter Robert Downen put it on X recently, “The [2024] Texas GOP convention was one, long and open call for spiritual warfare.” Speaker after speaker reinforced the theme that “they” — a loosely defined set of tags like liberals, globalists and LGBTQ Americans — “want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God.”

  
RELATED: At Florida homeschool convention, an education in MAGA politics

This “they” also certainly includes anyone who isn’t a Christian: “People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts,” said one participant, according to the Tribune.

Proposals passed in the Texas GOP convention have required teaching the Bible in public schools and changing election procedures to protect the interests of rural, largely white, conservative Christians. These measures are designed to allow the government to force Christianity on others and to reinforce the privileged position of white Christians in power — a canonical case of Christian nationalism.

With such blatant Christian nationalism on the march, why aren’t more nonreligious Americans concerned?

The simplest answer may be that they don’t know about it. A recent report by Pew Research Center showed that in February 2024 slim majorities of Americans (54%) said they had not read or heard anything about Christian nationalism. Of those who identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular,” Pew found that a substantial minority (44%) had not heard of Christian nationalism.

But on examination the answer appears to be more complicated. Many nonreligious left a Christian congregation at some point in their lives to become nonreligious, often as the result of the visible, alienating presence of the Christian right in American politics. Such leavers, in fact, are the main source of growth of the nonreligious since 1995. Surveys show that those who left a Protestant church to become nonreligious were more likely to have heard of Christian nationalism, while estimating evangelicals to be a significantly larger group than the nonreligious.

In our May 2024 survey of 2,406 nonreligious American adults, which was funded by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, nonreligious respondents consistently reported evangelical Christians as a larger group than the nonreligious by 6 percentage points on average, estimating the nonreligious to be 34% of the U.S. population and evangelicals as nearly 40%. (Both estimates are too high.)

This overestimation of conservative Christians’ numbers seems to result from living in states with a majority of evangelicals. Having conservative Christian neighbors drives down their sense of their own numbers. So while the nonreligious are the largest “religious” group in the U.S. by at least a few percentage points and have been for a few years, many of them wouldn’t know it.

The stakes are clearer for this group, but they underestimate their influence.

Another growing group of nonreligious Americans, however, lacks the history and direct exposure to Christian conservatives, and that lack of experience may be equally politically consequential. Plenty of nonreligious Americans were raised nonreligious and remain so. In the General Social Survey, this number has been increasing since data collection began in 1973, when 15% of religious nones indicated they were raised that way. By 2000, that figure had stabilized at about 30%. In our survey, just over a third (37%) indicated that they were raised nonreligious and continue to be.

About 7 percentage points fewer of these never-churched have heard about Christian nationalism than those who have left Christian groups. They are also 15 percentage points less interested in learning about organizations fighting Christian nationalism (compared with those who left a Protestant group).

These nonreligious were also the least likely to realize that their action might be required. Our survey asked participants whether they agreed that “To combat Christian nationalism, the non-religious need to be vigorously involved in politics.” Only half of those raised nonreligious agreed, compared with 68% of those who had left Christianity. Only 43% of those who had not heard of Christian nationalism before our survey agreed that action was necessary, compared with 68% agreement among those who had.

 
RELATED: How Trumpism has pushed a fringe charismatic theology into the mainstream

The nonreligious are growing and diversifying in ways that defy easy assumptions. They no longer are simply “exes” with an extensive knowledge of a religion left behind. Without this context, many nonreligious need to be informed about the threat that radicalized Christian nationalism poses to their fundamental rights and liberties, as well as to the democratic constitutionalism that protects us all.

Without that education, many Americans may not understand the stakes of the coming elections, nor see the efficacy that the nonreligious have to promote a more inclusive future of the United States.


Paul A. Djupe. (Courtesy photo)
(Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University. He is the co-editor of “Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics: Change and Continuity” and is the academic editor of the series “Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

WOKE BEFORE FOX KNEW WHAT WOKE WAS

Unitarian Universalists to vote on updated covenant, values at 2024 General Assembly

To Unitarian Universalists, changes to the denomination’s covenant clause are weighty, and occasionally fraught.

The 2024 UUA Greneral Assembly logo, left, and the Shared Values Flower Image.

 (Flower image by Tanya Webster)

June 21, 2024
By Kathryn Post



(RNS) — Unitarian Universalists’ dogma-free approach to spirituality isn’t all that sets them apart from other American denominations. As the faith group gathers online this week for its 2024 General Assembly, the most pressing item on the docket isn’t women’s ordination or LGBTQ+ inclusion, but whether to adopt a revised version of the denomination’s covenant clause, otherwise known as Article II.

To an outsider, the differences between the current Article II, which includes a list of seven principles, and the proposed version may seem subtle: Both celebrate values like justice, interdependence, pluralism and inherent human dignity. But to Unitarian Universalists, the changes in emphasis, framing and wording are weighty, and occasionally fraught.

Known for its rejection of doctrine and spiritual litmus tests, Unitarian Universalism formed in 1961 with the merging of the Universalist Church of America and American Unitarian Association. Article II must be revisited at least every 15 years, per the bylaws, and was most recently updated in 1987. Still, many Unitarian Universalists have strong attachments to the current version, which can be found inscribed on church walls and in hymnals across the denomination’s roughly 1,000 congregations.

“What I’m excited about is the tens of thousands of Unitarian Universalists dedicating four years’ worth of time to expressing the values of this faith,” the Rev. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, told Religion News Service about the process for revising Article II. “We understand ourselves as a living tradition in the line of the free church tradition, and having our congregations represented by their leaders and members and in articulating what we hold most dear, to me is really, really powerful.”

The Article II Study Commission first convened in 2020 before engaging in the yearslong process of developing their proposal. Over 10,000 UUs participated in the group’s surveys, and more than 4,000 engaged in the 45 feedback sessions hosted by the commission, an effort that resulted in a proposed revision that replaces the principles with a list of interconnected values (justice, interdependence, equity, transformation, pluralism, generosity) with love at the center. Each value has a corresponding covenant outlining how those values are to be lived out.

“The update brings the covenant more clearly into the center of UU life,” Paula Cole Jones, who served on the Article II Study Commission, told RNS via email. “Our previous principles were wonderful statements, and there were no verbs. The new statement has verbs that speak to how we actively support our values.”

The Rev. Kate Walker lights the chalice during the General Assembly Opening Celebration on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo © 2023 Nancy Pierce/UUA)

Jones and other organizers have long advocated for UU congregations to adopt the 8th Principle, a covenant to “accountably dismantle racism and other oppression in ourselves and our institutions.” That commitment, which has been individually adopted by over 280 UU congregations, is also reflected in the new revisions.

In 2023, more than 86% of delegates voted to advance the proposed changes to Article II. This year, once additional amendments are voted on, the final Article II proposal will require approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly to be adopted. The final vote will be announced Sunday (June 23), and if the new version passes, it will immediately be incorporated into UUA bylaws.

Despite the broad support for the proposal at last year’s General Assembly, some UUs have vocally opposed the changes, forming grassroots groups like the Fifth Principle Project and Save the 7 Principles. These groups see the revisions as evidence of a broader shift toward a more restrictive, activist denomination that de-emphasizes logic and reason.

Though predominantly white — NPR reported in 2017 that over 80 percent of UUs were white folks — Unitarian Universalists have a historic commitment to combating racism. UUs are known for their active involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, and in 1997, their General Assembly adopted a business resolution explicitly prioritizing anti-racism. Still, the group’s anti-racist commitments have ramped up in recent years, in part in response to a 2017 controversy that led then-Unitarian Universalist Association President Peter Morales to resign over racial disparities in Unitarian Universalist Association hiring practices. In 2020, a commission published a report called Widening the Circle of Concern, which declared anti-racism to be at the heart of the UU faith tradition.

Some believe this focus has been at the expense of historic UU values like individualism, personal freedom and free speech.

“The bigger picture is that the entire legacy upon which the Unitarian Church is founded has been deemed to be historically white supremacist. All our liberal principles, all our sources, they are now white supremacist, and that stands as the fundamental reason why they are trying to remove them,” said Frank Casper, a co-founder of the Fifth Principle. “I keep asking the question, have you told people who have been practicing UU-ism for the last 50 years, that what they’ve been doing is white supremacy?”

The Rev. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, addresses the virtual General Assembly in June 2024. (Video screen grab)

Susan McWethy, a UU who helped form the Seven Principles Project, expressed concerns about the process for considering amendments to Article II as well: She noted that the Unitarian Universalist Association is adopting a technique called the “progressive stack” at General Assembly this year, which ensures that people with marginalized identities (including delegates who are people of color, Indigenous, disabled, fat, transgender or non-binary), are the first to give input during discussions.

RELATED: Unitarian Universalism revisits identity, values at 2023 gathering

Betancourt told RNS she viewed debates around Article II as a reaction to change more than anything else. But, she noted, just because the Principles and Purposes may be updated does not mean they will disappear. “Do we trust that words that have been really powerful and meaningful for us can continue on? Our history shows us that they can,” said Betancourt, pointing out that some historic affirmations, though not in official bylaws, are still treasured by many congregations.

Carey McDonald, executive vice president of the UUA, noted that the proposals were formed by what UUs themselves prioritized in feedback. “It reflects the broad and continuously reaffirmed direction of Unitarian Universalism toward greater equity, justice, anti-oppression and liberation,” McDonald said of the proposal. “That is absolutely reflected in this draft.”

General Assembly will also be voting on a new business proposal that says embracing transgender, nonbinary, intersex and gender diverse people is a fundamental expression of UU religious values and commits to condemning anti-transgender legislation. If passed, the resolution would reaffirm the work UUs have already been doing in this area, according to Betancourt, and would hold the UUA’s national staff and board accountable to those commitments.

Delegates also voted Thursday on whether to add a proposal to the agenda that calls UUs to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire and an end to the apartheid in Palestine. The result of Thursday’s vote will be announced later Friday, and, if added to the agenda, the proposal will be discussed Saturday and votes will be announced Sunday.

As the process for proposing changes to Article II comes to a close, the UUA is looking toward other initiatives, including UU the Vote 2024, the group’s nonpartisan civic engagement effort, and a September Climate Justice Revival that will combine worship and activism across UU congregations. Still, UUA leaders hope delegates and UUs across the denomination will pause to celebrate their efforts over the last four years.

“Having a faith community that is grounded in an historic tradition, but is open to what you bring to it, is really powerful and needed in this time,” said McDonald.

RELATED: Unitarian Universalists elect first woman of color, openly queer president