The author of this letter, the Rev. Meg Riley, is the director of the Faith in Action office (of the Unitarian Universalist Association) in Washington D.C.

An Open Letter to President Bush

February 24, 2004

Dear Mr. President,

This morning you felt compelled to introduce an amendment to the Constitution of the United States defining marriage as existing only between one man and one woman.

You say that this will create "clarity." I would like you to share this clarity with my first grade daughter on her school playground, when the children, imitating their role models as they always do, will take up the issue. Because I dread those conversations with every fiber of my being.

Challenged by another child, my daughter will declare forthrightly that of course her two moms are married. After all, we have wedding photos in our home, as any couple does. They show her two moms, fifteen years ago, in front of our Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Smiling, with many of our friends and family members around us.

You see, we have not yet discussed with this seven year old, precocious as she is, the distinction between civil and religious marriage. She knowsonly that we are her parents, the only ones she's known. She knows that we got married in our church, as her aunts and uncles did, and that our neighborhood and church, her school and social circle, involves a significant number of kids with two moms and a few with two dads. She knows that we provide the only stability, the only bedrock, that she has ever known.

Of course she knows that there are people who say that two men or two women cannot be married. She knows that, not very long ago, some people said that no one could marry someone of a different race, but now of course we no longer believe that. But I haven't yet been able to break it to her that some people want to change our Constitution to say that our family isn't part of "We the people". I just haven't found a way to fit it in between soccer and karate and church.

Tonight I will sit her down, after we've done her homework, and have the conversation that I hoped I could avoid. I will tell her that you, the President of the United States, have decided that only a man and a woman can be married, and that you want to make that part of our Constitution. Yes, the document she adores from watching Liberty's Kids and reading Magic Treehouse books. I will tell her that I don't believe this change in the Constitution will happen, not enough people will vote for it. But it does mean that people may say very mean things to her at school about our family. She will be afraid. I will project confidence and good humor, but I will be afraid, too.

I do not want to teach my daughter that the President of the United States does not include our family in the people he serves and protects. I do not want to say to her that the very flag she loves will be waved by people who believe that it does not belong to our family.

Please, Mr. Bush, tell me how I should conduct myself "without bitterness or anger" at this time, as you instructed me today. Come over to my house tonight: you look at my daughter's eyes as they absorb the fact that you, the first President she has ever known, thinks she can no longer be included in the very Constitution of this land. You tell me how to "conduct this difficult debate in a matter worthy of our country." Because I am at a loss.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Meg A. Riley
Unitarian Universalist Association
Washington, DC

My comments: What can I say, really? It takes my breath away. The most amazing thing, though, is that there is no chance of it affecting in the least the imbecile we call President, even if he should read it, because I don't think he even has the ability to imagine the perspective of someone very different from himself. It's a stage of human development he's never achieved, and probably won't in this lifetime. But perhaps it could affect some other people, perhaps some people unsure of where they stand in this "debate".

It has to become about real people. Human beings, with lives, jobs, families, just like everyone else. It's too easy when it's just about ideas, traditions, doctrines, theories, politics...too easy for people to say, "yeah, this is what I believe, and I have a right to believe it", without having to consider the very real human beings and relationships and families that stand in limbo at the heart of this issue. The children and parents, the loved ones, the communities, the loving couples, they are all this issue is about. Everything else is rhetoric.

Dubya will never understand that, because he's really nothing more than a spoiled child wearing Daddy's boots and playing emperor. Nothing in his life has given him the ablity see beyond himself and his sense of the world...

But the evolution of the human race depends upon the ability of people to open their minds to uncomfortable ideas, and it's happened a million times before, with a million things most of us now take for granted, and I have to have faith that it will happen again. And it already is happening with today's young people, so it's only a matter of time. And that's what the religious conservatives know, in their hearts, and because they fear change and growth and forward movement, they want to do whatever they can to stop it, but they can't—I have to have faith that we as a human race are better than that, smarter than that, more fair, more compassionate, more able to change and grow towards greater love and greater harmony, embracing all aspects of our humanity... I have to believe that we are capable of so much more than those who believe we are "fallen" could ever imagine...

I have to believe that we are moving toward the creation of a world where all are valued, all are honored, all are encouraged to reach their full potential... I have to believe that there is more Gandhi and MLK Jr., Dorothy Day, Mother Jones, and Cesar Chavez, Del and Phyllis, Gavin Newsom, and Meg Riley, more people like Pastor Michael, this woman, and these two (people who make an effort to reach out, to seek understanding, to bridge divides) in us as a human race than there is Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, James Dobson, Jesse Helms, Dr. Laura, the Pope, Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenneger, or George W. Bush... I have to believe that we are more, ever so much more than the least imaginative among us... I have to believe all of this to go on every day. To get up and to make an effort. And I have to love the human race in spite of all of its failings, because it is in humanity that I put my faith, in our inherent wisdom and goodness, in our ability to grow and create and achieve understanding...

For the day that is coming when all will be well on this lovely blue-green paradise we call Earth will not be heralded by apocalyptic horsemen and orchestrated by a God on a throne who accepts only some and rejects others. No, it will be heralded by loving words and loving thoughts and loving deeds, by increased cooperation and decreased division, by increased understanding and decreased fear, by the laughter of children and the wisdom of sages. And it will be orchestrated by a million tiny voices calling in unison for peace and freedom and justice for all. I have seen the Promised Land in my mind, in my heart, in my dreams, and I am not alone, so I will have faith in the potential of the human race, and I will work for justice and empowerment and unity, and the Spirit of Love will guide us, somehow, and we will find our way. So mote it be.

Goodnight. :)