Title: Marginalized Groups | UUA.org
Headings: Marginalized Groups
Marginalized Groups
The "Non-discrimination" Clause: Bylaw Ambiguity
Majority and Minority Norms in Conflict
A Challenge to the Historic Unitarian Universalist Identity
The Canadian Unitarian Council
Four Marginalized Groups
1. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community
Certification as a Welcoming Congregation
2. People of Color
Open Membership
The Black Empowerment Era
The Racial and Cultural Diversity Initiative
3. Children and Religious Education
Congregational Polity and Religious Education
Affirmative Action—Yes or No?
4. Marginalization and Theological Identity
A Non-Christian Religion?
Theological Biases
Comfort or Values: Which Do We Hold More Dear?
The Challenges of Democracy and Unitarian Universalism
Using Theology to Guide Polity
Balancing Power, Identity, and Difference
Summary
Recommendations
Sources
Notes

Content: Marginalized Groups | UUA.org





Marginalized Groups
Marginalized Groups
How power is used in negotiating difference is among the most difficult of all issues faced by institutions-particularly those that choose to be in voluntary association such as religious institutions. In fact, the major pressure points of conflict in our understandings of congregational polity revolve around the dilemma of power and difference. This section explores how prevailing understandings of congregational polity may enhance or inhibit our well-being as an association of congregations living with the reality of differences in power and identity in our multitheological and increasingly multicultural religious movement. Like most groups, Unitarian Universalists define themselves in terms of demographics, values, lifestyle, associations, modes of behavior, social, and theological orientation. These factors, which exist at the center of our movement and characterize our dominant cultural ethos and identity, are what sociologist Robert Bellah refers to as a group's "habits of association." We might better understand Unitarian Universalism as a social system if we consider not only the characteristics, values, and patterns that are normative for those at the center of our movement, but the characteristics of those at the margins-those who do not fit the Unitarian Universalist norm. William Connolly has explored group identity in relation to difference. Just as heresy is defined in relation to orthodoxy, identity (both individual and social) is defined in relation to other identities. [ 1] Similarly, marginality exists only in relation to centrality. Theologian Jung Young Lee reminds us that "marginality and centrality are so mutually inclusive and relative that it is imbalanced to stress one more than the other." [