Headline from Richmond: Guns & "Liberty"

Friends:
We UUs have got to step up and actively participate in our democracy. For further proof, look at the headline today from Richmond:


Pro-gun, states-rights rally draws 1,000 to Va. Capitol
A pro-gun, pro-states rights rally at the state Capitol this morning drew roughly 1,000 people who were encouraged afterward to file into the General Assembly Building to lobby their legislators. (Click link above for more.)

Whether you do that by VOICE, NoVA LUUP, your political party, or other advocacy group, I fear that we face a serious threat to our open democracy with the strength and big, loud turnouts the Tea Party groups get.

And note: Martin Luther King Day is the biggest citizen lobby day in the Virginia Legislature's year. There are all kind of groups in Richmond today vying for attention, and look who grabbed the headline: the Tea Party participants.

According to UUA figures, Northern Virginia UUs number 2,813 members (that number doesn't count "Inquiring Friends"). Imagine a headline that read: "Pro-Choice, LGBT-Rights Draw 1,000 to Va. Capitol."
That could happen if just a little more than a quarter of us rallied in Richmond for GLBT rights & Choice & Economic Justice.

Imagine how we could add to, or maybe even balance, the dialog and shift the conversation from a focus on the individual to our greater community that attends and cares for the vulnerable, that doesn't discriminate, and that values ethics, science and medicine.

Last week on NPR I heard a Tea Party leader talk about the spike in ammunition sales that he said was proof that his group is so fed up with the government that it is getting ready to use bullets as well as the ballot box to change our country to fit their vision of it. He was from my home state of Michigan, where the highest rate of unemployment exists. There were already many right wing extremists there before the recession (remember the Reagan Democrats from the 1990's? They were first found and often interviewed in Macomb County, Michigan.)

Revolution? Are we going to let this Tea Party movement roll on to that? Do they have realistic concerns? Are their solutions ones you can live with? Does it concern you that so many people are engaged by the Tea Party message?