Social Justice – Heritage UU Church

UU the Vote Meeting and Webinar

Thursday, February 6, 2020, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Bringing UU Values to the 2020 Elections.

The stakes couldn’t be higher in the 2020 elections. All our values—our work for justice, the communities we love, and the beloved community we seek to create—are under attack. Our religious community must speak and act with moral courage.

The meeting will start with an hour of discussion and brainstorming. Then we will watch a livestream webinar from the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on what churches are and are not allowed to do in the political realm. We’ll take the last ten minutes or so to check our plans against what we learned in the webinar, and to set a next meeting date.

We will meet on Thursday, February 6, at 7:00 p.m., in the Heritage Room. This meeting is open to all Heritage Church members and friends, regardless of whether you were at the first meeting in January. If you were not at the first meeting and would like the meeting notes, contact Russ Araujo. Childcare available if requested early.

UU the Vote is a program created by the UUA. Here are some resources available for review before the meeting:

A good blueprint and idea source for congregations is contained in the UUA’s 53-page UU the Vote Launch Guide.
An understanding of what churches can and can’t do politically is contained in the UUA’s 21-page guide The Real Rules: Congregations and the IRS Guidelines On Advocacy, Lobbying, and Elections.

Webinar description from the UUA:

Topic: Prophetic, Not Partisan: Understanding IRS Non-Profit Regulations for your Congregation

Description: As we dive into the work of UU the Vote in this election year, many congregations have questions about how to act boldly on behalf of our values while also remaining compliant with IRS non-profit/501(c)3 regulations. Join us for this interactive session with Attorney Davis Senseman, Esq. (Davis Law Office) and Rev. Rob Keithan (All Souls Church – DC, author of “The Real Rules”) where we will talk about some of the most commonly asked questions about congregational civic engagement and electoral work, interesting real-life case studies, and wonderings from our congregations as we head into UU the Vote 2020.

If you have any questions, please speak with Tracey DuEst or Russ Araujo, or send them an email at:

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UU the Vote: Your Help Needed!

On January 12, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is launching UU the Vote, its campaign focused on the 2020 elections.

We at Heritage UU Church have been involved in some great work in the recent past to create change in/through our government. Among other things, these efforts have taken the form of letter-writing campaigns to elected officials in 2017, an in-church voter registration/confirmation campaign in 2018, and a religious education letter/picture campaign to elected officials in 2019.

Now we have the 2020 election before us. We rightfully feel that many of the values that we as UUs hold dear are under attack. It is time to mobilize again — this time to bring about positive social change through the electoral process.

As nonprofit religious organizations, the UUA and Heritage Church cannot campaign for specific individuals, but we CAN take action on issues that matter to us as people of faith.

The goal is to integrate many of the things we care about—climate change, LGBT equity, reproductive rights, immigration, racial justice, food and shelter security, affordable medical care for all—into action in the electoral sphere. This is to enhance the ways we work on all the things that already move us.

In UU the Vote, areas of electoral engagement work could include:

Mobilizing voters,
Challenging voter suppression,
Holding values-based conversations to persuade our neighbors on the issues that matter,
Opening the doors of our congregations to the activities of frontline communities and justice partners, and
Providing the spiritual sustenance and movement chaplaincy to ground our faith and respond to the injustices we confront through the work.

To learn more, you can explore the links below.

UUA main page on UU the Vote.

UU the Vote Mailing list signup page.

Rev. Susan Frederick Gray’s article in the UU World on UU the Vote.

UU the Vote Registration for Online Launch.

UU the Vote Congregational Toolkit.

Please consider becoming part of a team at Heritage, engaging with others in this work.

If you have questions or want to express your interest, please see Tracey DuEst or Russ Araujo, or email them at:

January 2020.

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