Kathy puts her heart into it | Photo Credit: Ian Grey

Last week I painted the world, and that weekend I attended the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade 2010.
This parade, the largest in Texas, has been held for the last twenty-seven years, and is Dallas’s annual gay pride parade.

This year, as in others, NTAUUS (the North Texas Association of Unitarian Universalist Societies) had a float for the parade. This year’s theme was “One Heart, One World, One Pride.” We began creating the earth a month before the parade. Using a very large balloon, the students and teachers from the UUCOC Religious Education program built a four-foot papier mache’ globe, and painted it blue. Once the blue paint had dried, my job was to add the continents. I first tried to draw them freehand, but that was less than effective. Instead, I chalked the equator, prime meridian, and other latitude and longitude lines for reference. I used the lines as if they were graph paper, and with a smaller globe nearby for reference, outlined the continents. A week later, the continents were all in place, and painted.

At the same time I was charting the world, my mother was constructing the giant yellow heart that we all recognize from the “Standing on the Side of Love” campaign logo. The heart would also be part of our float. My mother and I arrived at church every morning, and stayed until late in the afternoon, for a solid week completing both of these projects.

On Saturday, the day before parade day, my mother and I went to the church early, to meet Marcia and the rental truck. Carefully, we loaded the globe onto the truck, and secured it as well as we could. We drove to First Church in Dallas together, with Marcia driving the truck, me in the back protecting the globe, and my mother following us in her car, with the heart. Parts of the ride were harrowing, but we managed to get everything there in one piece.

The next step was to figure out how everything would go together, test it, take it apart, and then rebuild it all outside later that day, so it would be ready for attachment on Sunday.

Lifting the Globe | Photo Credit: Kathy Grey

On Sunday, we spent three hours making the float ready for the parade. In addition to the actual float, which included PVC tower adorned with banners, the globe (which sat atop the tower) and the heart, there were more 200 people representing almost all of the NTAUUS-affiliated churches, all carrying signs, and bursting with pride, Pride, PRIDE! We found later that we were the largest delegation from a religious organization.

Officially, there were 92 entries in the parade, and we were number thirty-one, which meant it was nearly an hour of impatience and exhaustion before we actually marched anywhere. I confess, that once we were moving I was terrified that the globe I’d spent so much time on would topple off the tower, but it didn’t, which left me free to help pass out hundreds of fans to spectators and fellow marchers alike. In fact, I was so energized by everything working as it should that my exhaustion evaporated, and I was able to actually run the fans from the truck to the people.

Several hours later, after the party had ended and the float had been dismantled, we regrouped at First Church where Daniel Polk (NTAUUS president and our group’s parade leader) showed off the trophy we had been given as our award for best social commentary.

And the winner is... | Photo Credit: Ian Grey

Diane Jennings of The Dallas Morning News quoted Rev. Walz in two articles on the event: “The Rev. Mark Walz of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff said he was there both as a pastor and as the father of a Marine. ‘No one who ascribes to terrorism has the right to claim a religious motivation,’ Walz said.”

“Waltz said he is passionate about battling the tendency to ‘demonize each other as human beings.’”

You can watch a video of  Jonathan Betz reporting for WFAA (Channel 8):
http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Dallas-religious-leaders-call-for-unity–102713909.html

Arezow Doost covered the event for CBS (Channel 11) News
http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=57342@ktvt.dayport.com and featured Ministerial Intern Shams Cohen of First Unitarian Church of Dallas.

Watch/Read:

http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/jan/29/case-open/

http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/jan/28/dead-man-balking/

Please help by sending appeal letters.  I believe this man is innocent!

WHERE:
UU Church of Oak Cliff
3839 W. Kiest

Who are the Speakers?

• Bruce F. Knotts, Executive Director
• Rev. Patricia Ackerman, LGBT/SOGI Human Rights Program Officer
• Geronimo D. Desumala III, LGBT/SOGI Human Rights Program Associate

Bruce is the person responsible for getting GLBT issues added to the UN civil rights agenda- come hear about their work on our issues.

QUESTIONS:
Contact Daniel Polk

Focus on the Family’s “celebrate life” (read: anti-choice) ad features Heisman Trophy-winning college football star Tim Tebow. And CBS approved this anti-choice ad, even though the network has repeatedly rejected advocacy ads in past years including a 2004 MoveOn.org ad that went after then-President Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility and an ad the same year from the United Church of Christ showing them welcoming a gay couple who had been turned away from another church. And they just rejected a comical ad from a gay dating site from this year’s lineup of ads.

So to recap: CBS wouldn’t allow a group to criticize Bush, wouldn’t let a religious group promote its own tolerance of LGBT families and considers a light-hearted dating ad out of bounds. But CBS is perfectly happy to allow Focus on the Family to promote its conservative social agenda.

Join me in calling on CBS to kill the Focus on the Family ad before the Super Bowl on February 7!

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/superbowl_focus/?r_by=-2611598-m85tuqx&rc=confemail1

Source: Credo Action

So, for the record, I am an anti-abortion, pro-choice UU. What?? Yes. I would be happiest if there were never any more abortions. That would mean that every fetus is healthy, and every baby is wanted. Ideally, planned for as well, but certainly wanted. For all the right reasons. By a loving family (and family CAN take many forms).

Healthy fetuses would most likely mean good prenatal care was readily available. And that before conception, both mother and father took care of their own health.

Unplanned babies—that are welcomed. What’s required for that? Support from a loving family and caring community; being able to live on one income or having access to quality, affordable child care. Affordable medical care goes without saying.

Planned pregnancies? One word: education. Reality-based sex education. See OWL And whatever it takes to raise teens with hopes and dreams… you get the picture.

Oh, and I’m pro-adoption, too. That’s a no-brainer.

And the pro-choice part? It is simply not MY choice to make for another woman. All of us deserve sovereignty over our own bodies. But I do choose real education and universal health care. Might they go a long way toward preventing abortions? I think so.