From Your Conference Minister

It’s not unusual for me to wake up with a song rambling through my brain. This morning, though, it wasn’t the usual fragment of a Gospel hymn, or snippet of reggae, or the odd phrase from Handel, that led me out of my dream state. For the first time ever it was a patriotic song. “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing; land where my parents died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside let freedom ring!”

[Samuel F. Smith, student at Andover Newton Theological Seminary, 1831]

Waiting for the California Supreme Court’s decision on Proposition 8 to be made public at 10, I wondered whether I would be singing that song in today’s full light with joyful tears or with wistful longing.

Now option B is checked. Our Conference Council is preparing an action for Annual Meeting this Saturday.

Meanwhile the ring of freedom sounds a bit off-key, clanking against the realization that, in California, a simple majority vote on a referendum is enough to crumble the bulwark of equal protection under the law. A simple majority vote on a referendum is sufficient to restrict human rights.

  “Our parents’ God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, to Thee we sing;
    Soon may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light;
    Protect us by Thy might, Great God Living.”
                                       [Samuel Smith’s words adapted, 2009]

Mary Susan Gast