The Moscow Climate Change Group is second on the agenda, with 15-20 minutes, of the City of Moscow Health and Environment Committee, Tuesday, December 19, 2006, 7:15 PM, Mayor's conference room, 1st floor, city hall. Several UUCP-SAC members are individually active in this group. For more information about the group's local efforts against global warming, email .

The Purple Paisley Quilters (PPQ) will be having its second Holiday Bazaar of the season in the church basement on Sunday, December 17, 2006, after the first service during the coffee hour, AND after the second service.

Buy interesting and exotic hand made gifts, support your local quilt group, and donate to many good causes all at the same time.

Bring yuour check books and shopping lists to church.

(See the Dec 3 post regarding the first 2006 PPQ Holiday Bazaar.)

Wednesday,December 13, 2006, 6:00 PM, members of the UUCP will be helping Christmas For Kids to wrap presents at the Food Booth at the Latah County Fair Grounds (entrance on Harold Street). Call Peggy Jenkins if you need additional information.

The Social Action Committee met Thursday, December 7, 2006, in the UUCP church basement, with a potluck at 6 p.m., followed by the meeting.

Christmas for Kids

report by Mary Jo Hamilton

UUCP church members bought and donated presents for 4 families with a total of 10 children. The Purple Paisley Quilters (PPQ) bought and donated presents for 2 families with a total of 5 children. Also $75 cash was collected. 5 tags are left on the Christmas for Kids tree. This weekend Carol Casavant will shop for the gifts for these, with the help of the Junior High youth group.

Hunger Projects

Report by Ellen Thiem

The University of Idaho War on Hunger group is part of a larger national group. They held a food drive during the fall semester that collected 6000 lb of food. The student projects are pretty well wound down for the semester. They plan to start meeting again in February. Some of the students plan to attend a hunger conference at Emory University next spring. There will be a Hunger Seminar in Lewiston the first week in February, which we might consider attending.

CommUnity Walk

No report. Consensus to wait until closer to the date to get involved.

Climate Change Group

Report by Peggy Jenkins, Mary Jo Hamilton, and Louise Ashmun

The group met on Monday, December 4. Leslie, who is a high school student and president of the environmental club, attended the meeting. She is interested in working on the walk/bike to school program.

The Adult RE series on climate change, to be offered in the spring, was discussed. We envision a reading list, a talk of 20-30 minutes, with guided discussion groups to follow. Suggestions were made as to the individuals to give talks at the workshops and as to their topics.

The Climate Change Group will meet Monday, December 18 at 5:30 PM at One World Cafe to work out the details of the series of climate change workshops -- how many sessions, what night of the week, what time, what topics.

The Climate Change Group is scheduled to meet with the City of Moscow Health and Environment Committee 12/19/06 at 7 PM. Everyone is invited to attend. We need to come up with a list of questions and a list of what help we can offer.

Sponsoring Jill Seaman's Work

No report. We agreed that a program in the spring would be best, with a slide show. We will check if Jill might be in the country and available to meet with a group.

Sir No Sir

Agreed by consensus to put off until after January 5, 2007, an in home showing of the DVD of the documentary movie Sir No Sir.

Peace Film Series

Brian Leekley reported hearsay that a person in this area wants to organize a peace film series. Without knowing any further details, Brian suggested looking into the possibility of SAC joining with the Palouse Peace Coalition (PPC) to also sponsor the series. We all liked this idea, but Jill pointed out the difficulty and expense of dealing with the copyright issue. Tabled for now. We still could show Sir No Sir just to the congregation.

Social Action Sunday

Mary Jo Hamilton added to the meeting agenda the possibility of having a Social Action Sunday in the spring. We agreed that 4/1/07 would be good. We could do a summary of what we learned in the climate change series. Or possibly we could tie the service in with one of the issues being discussed at 2007 Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly. Brian will look into what the issues will be.

Next SAC Meeting

The next meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse Social Action Committee will be Tuesday, January 9, 2007, at 7 PM, in the church basement.

The Purple Paisley Quilters (PPQ) will be having its Holiday Bazaar in the church basement on Sunday, December 3, 2006, after the first service during the coffee hour, AND after the second service.

Buy interesting and exotic hand made gifts, support your local quilt group, and donate to many good causes all at the same time.

Bring your check books and shopping lists to church.

(December 1, 2006) Reverend William G. Sinkford, UUA President, spoke this morning in Washington, DC, at the "For Whom the Bell Tolls: World AIDS Day" event. Sinkford and other speakers urged Congress to pass the PATHWAY Act (Prevention Against HIV Infection for Women and Youth) and eliminate earmarks for abstinence-only global AIDS prevention funding. Immediately following Sinkford's address, bells tolled in downtown churches in remembrance of those stricken by the pandemic. Each five seconds, someone around the globe dies from AIDS or is infected with HIV.

William G. Sinkford's remarks:

World AIDS Day gives us an opportunity to educate ourselves about how we can fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A problem so large and so devastating compels us to work together for political and scientific solutions, but it also calls on us to offer a spiritual response, a response that goes beyond sectarian doctrines and embraces our shared humanity. All of the world's great religions exhort us to love our neighbors. What we religious people now must ask ourselves is, "Who is my neighbor?" The global AIDS epidemic has taught us that we are all connected—black, white, and brown; young and old; male and female; gay and straight. Our neighbors live in tiny African villages, in Russian brothels, and in forgotten places all over the world where hope grows dim. We must remember them when the bells toll.

We know now that the populations suffering the highest rate of new infections are youths aged fifteen to twenty-four and young married women. Our neighbors with AIDS are trapped in abusive marriages, and they are victims of civil war and genocide. The bells will toll for them today.

Some of our neighbors with AIDS live in relatively peaceful regions, but they are unable to protect themselves from sexual violence and coercion within their homes. We have learned that most women with HIV are infected by their husbands or intimate partners. And because of this alarming fact, we also know that some of our neighbors with AIDS are struggling for life in neo-natal care units. We mock their sufferings when we offer international AIDS relief with strings attached, such as the "abstinence until marriage" conditions on sexuality education and disease prevention funding. Marriage is no protection against HIV, and abstinence is a luxury available only to those who have complete control over their own bodies and wills . When there is no ability to give or withhold consent, what protection does the choice of "abstinence" offer?

And even in situations where consent can be given freely, abstinence education is failing to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. Our policies must reflect the realities of people's lives. We know that " just say No" didn't work in the Garden of Eden, and it isn't stopping the spread of HIV today, either in the US or abroad. The bells will toll for many of our neighbors right here in the United States.

So what can religious people and organizations do to help end HIV/AIDS? The Unitarian Universalist Global AIDS Coalition is working with seventy-five other religious and secular groups to support the PATHWAY Act and to repeal legislative earmarks such as the "Abstinence until Marriage" condition currently attached to US HIV prevention funding. The UU Global Aids Coalition is educating congregations so that they can work locally to fight the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. To share just a few examples, the UU congregation in Carbondale, Illinois, has established an ongoing relationship with a Zambian Hospice Center for people with AIDS. And a UU church in Louisville, Kentucky, has formed a partnership with children's home in western Kenya. They are providing the funding for schooling, healthcare and other necessities for ninety children who were orphaned by AIDS. The bells will toll for their parents and families today, too.

The work done by churches and NGO's is absolutely vital, and we are committed to carrying it out. But let me be very clear—the efforts of private organizations—no matter how noble or how successful—are no substitute for an adequately-funded, scientifically-grounded, and ideology-free commitment on the part of the US government to end the threat of this disease. Our nation's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic should not, and must not, be privatized.

As we confront the human tragedy that is global AIDS, we urge our leaders not to let their private commitments to specific doctrines stand in the way of saving lives. We often hear politicians invoking "moral values." As a person of faith, I'm obligated to say that it is immoral to abdicate our responsibility for the spread of AIDS. There has been a lot of talk about the "right to life." Well, the men and women and children suffering from AIDS also have a right to life. We know how to ameliorate this epidemic. We have the medical means; we can muster the economic means. The question we must ask ourselves now is whether we have the will to do it. And that becomes a moral—a religious—question.

I pray that as our leaders struggle with this question they will hear a call to compassion, that clear voice of truth that lies at the heart of all the world's sacred teachings. As we listen to the tolling of the bells, let us all hear this call. If we, and our leaders, have the courage to answer, then together we can end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

On December 1, 2006, bells in religious institutions across the United States will be ringing, not in celebration, but in solemn remembrance for those around the world who have died of AIDS. December 1 is World AIDS Day, and while bells toll to mark the occasion, the Rev. William G. Sinkford, UUA President, will join advocates from the religious and secular community in gathering at the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC, to publicly call attention to the fact that the United States has not acted responsibly in helping to eradicate global AIDS and HIV.

Sinkford will join Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and representatives of secular and religious institutions in calling for passage of the PATHWAY Act of 2006 and encouraging people of faith to responsibly advocate for human sexuality education and condom availability worldwide. Sinkford, who visited Chad in 2005 along with UU Service Committee President Charlie Clements, will also address the lack of economic, safety, and health services in Africa where AIDS is a health calamity, and the ways in which rape is being used as a weapon of war. The Washington, DC, event is being co-sponsored by Advocates for Youth, Catholics for a Free Choice, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), General Board of Church & Society of The United Methodist Church, Health GAP (Global Access Project), National Council of Jewish Women, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and the UUA.

The interfaith public witness event marking the devastation of global AIDS, For Whom the Bell Tolls, asks congregations to ring their church's bell every five seconds because an individual is newly infected with HIV or dies of AIDS every five seconds. Congregations participating in this event will also be helping to lobby for passage of the Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth (PATHWAY) Act, which, among other things, would remove the requirement that the U.S. spend one-third of its international HIV prevention dollars on abstinence-until-marriage programs. It would also require the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator to establish a comprehensive and integrated HIV prevention strategy to address the vulnerabilities of women and girls in each country receiving U.S. assistance to combat HIV/AIDS, including efforts to address such factors as sexual violence and coercion and early marriage as an integral component of prevention efforts.

Domestically, abstinence-only education is under even greater scrutiny following the November 16 release of a General Accounting Office study which found that, for the two largest federal abstinence-only programs, the Department of Health and Human Services "does not review its grantees' education materials for scientific accuracy and does not require grantees of either program to review their own materials for scientific accuracy." The UUA is hopeful that this report will help generate support for the REAL (Real Education About Life) Act, which would require medical accuracy in federally-funded sex education programs. Interested UUs can email their Members of Congress to support the PATHWAY Act and/or the REAL Act, and join the UU advocacy networks for these issues, on the Washington Office website.

World AIDS Day was first declared by the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly in 1988. Sadly, many people around the world have no idea that such a day exists, despite the fact that 4.1 million people were newly infected with HIV and 3 million people died of AIDS in 2005 according to UNAIDS.

The UUA's UU-UNO Office has also been engaged in this effort and has developed a worship packet concert with the UUA's Washington Office of Advocacy and the UU Global AIDS Coalition.

A number of Unitarian Universalist congregations and organizations are active in AIDS/HIV advocacy. They include the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church in Louisville, Kentucky; the Carbondale, Illinois, Unitarian Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania; Juneau Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Juneau, Alaska; the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene, Oregon; and First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon, where the UU Global Aids Coalition originated.

Marking another milestone in Unitarian Universalist engagement with the fight against AIDS, the UU Global AIDS Coalition will present its first Red Ribbon Award on December 3 to First Parish in Lexington Massachusetts, for their ongoing support of Communities Without Borders, a Zambian program helping that country's AIDS orphans through education and housing.