A Homily by Rev. Dr. Nina D. Grey

First Unitarian Church of Chicago

January 24, 2010

In 1920 women won the right to vote in federal elections. My mother was 8 years old. She voted Socialist for Norman Thomas, and as a Democrat for Adlai Stevenson. I was raised as a Socialist and as a Democrat. It’s not that I have never voted Republican. I have. I voted for Ed Brooke as Senator of Massachusetts and the first black Senator of our country. I voted for Arlen Specter when he was a Republican Senator of Pennsylvania, because he was strong on women’s rights and especially the right to make our own reproductive choices.

And I have learned something about the Republican Party and women’s political history. According to Infoplease.com, a Republican woman, Jeannette Rankin, from Montana, was the first woman elected to Congress. On November 9, 1916, she became Montana's Representative-at-Large to the 65th Congress; she served from 1917–1919. She served in Congress before women were allowed to vote! And Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, holds the record for being the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress. Originally elected in 1940 to fill the vacancy left by her dying husband, she was then elected to the Senate in 1946 Edith Nourse Rogers, a Republican from Massachusetts, holds the record for the longest service by a woman in the House of Representatives.

The first Cuban woman representative was a Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But it is Democrats who made more room in congress for women of color: Patsy Mink, Asian-American, in Hawaii, Shirley Chisholm, African American, and Nydia Velazquez, Puerto Rican, in New York, for example.

Mostly I have voted for and given money to Democrats.

So I am wondering … why am I getting mailings inviting me to participate in a certain Republican Circle? I’ve gotten such mailings more than once in the last year.

Is it because I went onto John McCain’s website once during the campaign? Is it because the Democrats have been fighting so much with each other and having trouble finding their own common ground let alone common ground with Republicans? Does the Republican Party think I am weakening in my resolve? Or in my belief in what change might still be possible? I don’t give up that easily!

This is not a partisan sermon. I am not encouraging you to vote for anyone in the upcoming primaries or in the 2010 mid-term elections. This is a sermon partly about how politics affects women’s lives and partly about how women and all of us can affect politics. And mostly this is a sermon about staying faithful to our ideals in the face of discouragement. This is a sermon about not giving up, because the stakes are too high.
 
It is easy to get discouraged. Democracy is messy. Money’s influence makes it messier still. We can work hard for issues and candidates, we can have moments of triumph and hope. I certainly have. Many of you have, too. You may be long-time and stalwart supporters of environmental transformation to alternative energy in the face of climate change. You may be faithfully and deeply immersed in seeking just peace for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East or other war- torn regions.

You may be an activist intensely aware of inequities that hurt the poor, people of color, and women more than anyone else. You may see, as Melissa Harris-Lacewell pointed out last week, that the new front for civil rights is the freedom to marry whom one loves, equal rights for same sex couples to secure all the legal benefits that come with marriage.

Or like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was, you may be profoundly concerned about justice in health care. He wrote: "Of all the forms of inequalities, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."    

In the fall of 2008 and early winter of 2009 you may have felt, as I did, full of hope and energy and even optimism, for people were brought into political office that we prayed would be committed to the changes we seek.

But the challenges have been immense. Where to begin? How to bring people together across differences? How to counter the forces of polarization and incivility and sometimes even deception? Politics is messy. Governing is messy. And in this kind of troubled economy, despite some signs of positive economic movement, the level of frustration for change is high, the tenor of political discourse is obstinately partisan, and the possibility of cooperation is elusive. Bi-partisan agreement is rare.

Money and the desire for re-election negatively impact political vision and shared commitment to the common good.

We see how our political system works to discourage rather than encourage the finding of common ground. And in the case of health care reform, women’s freedom and lives and health are betrayed by the compromises that progress exacts, by amendments that most likely discourage most private insurers from offering abortion coverage and would further restrict women’s right to choose. These amendments would negatively impact the access of poor women to abortion when they feel they must make that difficult choice!

If you see no progress, only slow progress, or even regression, in areas of your passionate concern, whether it be responses to climate change, or peacemaking, or equal rights for same sex couples, or health care justice, it is easy to get discouraged. I can feel that discouragement sometimes in my own bones. I want to give up, turn to escapist activity. I say to myself, what difference will it make 100 years from now. One thousand years from now. How important is it anyway. But then I remember what I have known for a long time.  We live between the boundaries of birth and death. And in the words of the late Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, long-time Unitarian Universalist minister and author, "Religion is our human response to that dual reality of being alive and having to die." He also said that “we owe our living to the world.”

To me that means we have just these years to make a difference, we are here now, and we are responsible to take what we are given in this life ~ our intellect, our reason, and intuition, our gifts, talents, and ethical insights, our commitments and passions ~ we are to develop these and offer them to life. We are to engage rather than escape, even if the occasional moments of escape do help us to engage more fully.

To give up, to do nothing, is not to be a bystander to events. Our silence is assent to the status quo or to further movement in a direction that grieves us. Our voices count.

I am vulnerable to despair, when the Supreme Court gives more power to corporations including health care corporations. I am vulnerable to discouragement when another voice for political conservatism ascends and puts the human and humane agenda at greater risk. Then I remember Forrest Church’s words. I remember the words of Albert Schweitzer, who wrote, “at times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” I think of Jeannette Rankin, first Congresswoman, adamant suffragist, advocate for women’s rights and of peace. I think of my mother, a fighter for women’s rights, who helped 3 family members who needed abortions get them, when it was still illegal.

I think of Margaret Sanger, who risked jail for the cause of accessible birth control ~ Sanger’s courage changed the lives of many women and families ~ and of Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, standing up for the rights of elders; I am learning more about today’s witnesses for justice: the Rev. Carleton Veasey, director of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which brings together progressive faiths on behalf of women’s rights to choose, and Jim Hobart, who has been a steadfast supporter of that right, and I think of all the leaders and supporters of NARAL and of Planned Parenthood through the years. I think of health caregivers who risked their safety and lives to work at clinics that offer abortions. I think of all the women and men who voted for all the resolutions of our faith and its dedication to women’s right to choose. And I think of the women who founded the Older Women’s League, and their current leaders including our own Margaret Huyck, who is our worship associate today.

Margaret is the vice president of National OWL, Older Women’s League, the voice of midlife and older women. Margaret and the other members of OWL, many in our own church, see the links between political decisions and women’s lives. While her national organization focuses on the concerns of women midlife and older, it has also stood in solidarity with the right of women and all persons to remain in control of decisions throughout their lives. That national organization stands firmly for universal affordable, accessible health care for all, for the closing of the donut hole in drug coverage, for elimination of discrepancies in insurance premiums because of age, and against discrimination of any kind. Most importantly, OWL leaders and members don’t just talk among themselves. They bring their voices to seats of power.

There are so many people and groups working really hard, for the sake of progressive, life affirming values!

Let their work inspire my heart and yours; let their example lift up my courage and persistence, and yours. In the face of discouragement let us not give up, but keep on keeping on, standing for the values we hold dear. That means playing politics, I guess, playing politics not with women’s lives but for women’s lives. That means engaging in politics for the sake of justice for all, continually seeking a high quality of life for all people and beings of this earth. Margaret Mead wrote, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Maybe we make contributions sitting all by ourselves at a computer, we sign petitions emailed to us about issues we care about, we do some of this advocacy alone. But we also need each other. Together we are stronger, and we need to ally ourselves with other dedicated women and men who seek justice, equity and compassion for all, day by day, month by month, year by year, not alone and never giving up, never giving up. Amen.