Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst Congregational Resolutions

Resolution on the Nuclear Weapons Danger

WHEREAS, we, as religious people, believe human life to be sacred and the earth to be beloved and stand witness to the triumph of life over death, love over hatred, and hope over fear;

WHEREAS, humanity has lived in the shadow of nuclear weapons for sixty years too long;

BEARING IN MIND, the nuclear weapons danger has grown recently due to the risk of terrorists acquiring such weapons, the spread of weapons capacity to North Korea and beyond, and efforts in the U.S. to develop new nuclear weapons and lower the threshold of nuclear use;

WHEREAS, we cast a cold eye on the history of nuclear weapons, and see with utter clarity their indiscriminate destructive power;

WHEREAS, sixty years of putting our faith in nuclear weapons has resulted in a legacy of terror;

WHEREAS, our country cannot rightly seek to halt the spread of nuclear weapons while at the same time developing new weapons capabilities of our own;

WHEREAS, we have stood by too silently as our fellow citizens have been gripped by a kind of fatalism, unable to believe that eliminating nuclear weapons is possible;

WHEREAS, we, as religious people, vow no longer to remain silent;

WHEREAS, we stand with scientists and military leaders who believe that eliminating nuclear weapons will make our country and the world safer;

WHEREAS, the first step to eliminating nuclear weapons is to develop a detailed plan for how to lockdown, reduce and eliminate such weapons;

WHEREAS, there is no better time to begin than now;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that The Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst calls on the U.S. government to lead the way for the global abolition of nuclear weapons by immediately making a plan for how to lockdown, reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons in a step by step process with ever increasing verification.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, until this plan is developed and implemented, The Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst will work with all people of goodwill to ensure that there will be no new nuclear weapons, no new materials for nuclear weapons, no testing of nuclear weapons, and no chance that a nuclear weapon can come into the hands of anyone wishing harm to another.

Resolution on Constitutional Rights

The Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst is concerned that actions of the Attorney General of the United States and the U. S. Justice Department since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks pose significant threats to Constitutional protections in the name of fighting terrorism. Such undermining of basic civil rights and liberties runs the serious risk of destroying freedom in order to save it.

The Attorney General asserted before the Senate Judiciary Committee that civil libertarians who criticized the Department's policies "aid terrorists, erode our national unity and diminish our resolve." We disagree. We believe that respect for Constitutional rights is essential for the preservation of democratic society.

The members of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst go on record in support of Constitutional rights for all residents of the United States, regardless of their citizenship, religion, ethnicity, or place of national origin.

We encourage citizens as well as state and town employees of Western Massachusetts, to the extent legally possible, not to cooperate with federal investigators seeking to interrogate people on the basis of their ethnicity, their religious beliefs, or the beliefs of their families and friends -- following the example of police departments in Oregon, California, and Texas, among others, that have refused to carry out such interviews.

We believe that we are still a nation based on laws and that a threat to any one person's Constitutional rights is a threat to the rights of us all.

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