"Uninhibited" Marching Under Sunny Rainbow Pride Skies

Some 30 to 40 Unitarians from Westwood and UCE (and 100 per cent of our ministers!) turned out to cheer, wave and march in Edmonton's 30th annual Pride Parade. This year we followed the Roller Derby women, and just ahead of an NDP contingent, so you can bet the crowd was pretty noisy.

We saw lots of familiar faces in the crowd as well including prominent Gay activist Murray Billett who called out thanks for our continued support and participation.

As always, the crowd was as interesting as the paraders. The outrageous outfits and make-up was not confined to the marchers! Two standouts this year: One was a couple on the way to celebrate their marriage who came with groomsmen and bridesmaids in full wedding regalia to cheer on the parade. The other was a tiny Muslim woman with three children. She was wearing her hiqab (headscarf) but was out on the road waving and snapping photos of the parade with a smile on her face.

Later my daughters Lily and Elora enjoyed the post parade activities. Elora dunked herself in the pool at City Hall while Lily took part in painting a mural closer to Churchill Square.

But as much fun as it all was, the part that always moves me is something else. "Uninhibited" is sometimes a dirty word in our culture. Canadians are reluctant to be uninhibited about anything (except maybe hockey). We certainly don't spend a lot of time celebrating sexuality.

But for me, that is exactly what the Pride Parade is, a celebration of human sexuality in all of its splendour. Certainly it is also still a reminder of a minority in society that needs protection in the forum of human rights. But the way that reminder is given has changed over the years. Now parade marchers and watchers alike turn out dressed in various provocative ways not to shock, but to celebrate who they are. It's not the magazine model types dressed in fishnets, bustiers and low cut ball gowns (and that would be every gender I am describing). It's the everyday human beings of all orientations coming out and saying "Hey, I'm a sexual being too, and I want to celebrate everyone's orientation, and isn't that fun?" And it is.

Yup, if you never have been it might be hard to get one's head around the idea of skimpy, sexy outfits being the harbingers of good, clean prideful fun, but that's what it is.

Join Unitarians at the Edmonton Pride Parade, June 12

Once again Unitarians from the Westwood Unitarian Congregation and the Unitarian Church of Edmonton will be unfurling our banners and parading down Jasper Avenue in support of Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Trans Gender rights. This is the 30th year of the Pride Parade. The theme is "2010- A Queer Odyssey".

If you have never attended, you don't know what you are missing. The parade is joyous and entertaining, truly a celebration of human worth and dignity, with a little delightful sauciness thrown in for fun. I have been parading for years along with my daughters since they were babies. Now 6 and 5, they love the rainbows!

And frankly it's hard to decide where to be. The parade is fun to watch, but it's just as much fun to walk in the event and watch the crowds. They are warm and appreciative of church participation.

So, the parade starts 'promptly (yeah right)at 1 p.m. and runs from Jasper and 108 Street east on Jasper and then up to Churchill Square.

If you want to join in, look for the Unitarian banners south of Jasper on 108 before the parade starts.

See you there!
Brian

Ben Hogenson and Trans Equality

Members and Friends of the Unitarian Church of Edmonton were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Ben Hogenson in Chicago. Ben was nearing the end of the transition from female to male and had gone to the Windy City for gender reassignment surgery. Thanks to a tremendous effort from a few church members to reach out to contacts, a support system was created for Ben in Chicago for the lengthy recovery. Tragically a blood clot killed him a few days after surgery. It was a tearful moment when Docia Lysne, Audrey Brooks and Marilyn Gaa lit candles in his memory a week ago.

This past Sunday we distributed letters asking MPs to announce their support for Bill C-389, a bill proposed by NDP Member Bill Siksay that would add gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. View the proposed legislation and it's status at C-389

KIVA sign-ups

Hey folks,
This Sunday, June 13, UCE will be hosting a KIVA sign-up workshop. KIVA is an organizaqtion that lets those of us who have lend money in micro-loans to those who really need it. The Canadian Unitarian-Flames Team (now the largest religious team in Canada, has already made over $25,000 in micro-loans, mostly of $25 each.

Five people in the congregation have already signed up and taken advantage of some of the gift certificates I brought home from Victoria.

AND Team founders Lisa and Mike Greenly of Victoria have accepted an invitation to present a Sunday service at the Westwood Congregation on November 21st. They will also do an event at UCE, but that's not scheduled yet.

Brian

Kiva Loans at CUC

CUC ANNUAL MEETING VICTORIA BC

Have you ever wanted to do something about poverty in faraway parts of the world? Have you ever wanted to help someone directly? Have you ever noticed how, even if you found a way to do it, that most of your donation disappears in money transfer costs? And have you ever wanted toi do it with a Unitarian connection?

Unitarians Lisa and Mike Greenly introduced a wonderful new program at the Victoria CUC meetings this weekend that can get our dollars directly and responsibly into the hands of the people who most need it. I signed up. It was fun and felt really, really good.

Lisa and Mike have made a connection with the Kiva organization (www.kiva.org), a group that arranges and monitors micro-loans all around the world. Their slogan is "loans that change lives". They have local professionals who vet and approve proposed projects. They monitor the projects once the loan is made and collect the repayments.

So what happens if you want to get involved? First you join Kiva (it's free) and become a Lender, then you can explore the available loan projects. It changes all the time. This Sunday morning there are 1,282 projects raising funds. There is a handy search engine that allows you to shrink the field by gender, by region or nation, by project type (for example agriculture, green work, personal use etc.) You can read profiles about the people and the projects, find out how much they have already raised and then choose which project you want to support. The total size of loans run from a few hundred up to about $2500.

Now here's a fun part: Kiva only wants you to donate $25 to any one project. They believe this should be a shared experience. When was looking I found Stephen Mugambi,a 62 year old Kenyan farmer trying to raise $600 to purchase a dairy cow. Yesterday afternoon he had one donor. I thought it worthwhile and clicked the "Lend $25". Sunday morning I checked. Stephen's loan is fully raised. Yahoo!

Once you set up your account, you can follow the project, check on how your recipients are doing on their repayments and so on. When the loans are fully paid, your money comes back to you! You see you aren't a donor, you are a lender. You can take the money out or you can relend it elsewhere.

One of my daughters has her seventh birthday coming soon. I plan to give her $25 to lend and hope we can have some fund finding a person and a project she wants to support. Why do I think she will pick something to do with animals? :)

So back at the start of this article I mentioned Lisa and Mike Greenly and the Unitarian connection. When I joined up, I became part of the "Unitarian Flames" team. Thanks to a great organizational effort by the Greenlys and friends, a generous gift from a benefactor, and the willing generosity of Canadian Unitarians at that meeting, Unitarian Flames is now the largest Canadian religious lender group. Woo Hoo!

You can reach Lisa and Mike directly at unitarianflames@shaw.ca.

Now for those who are members and friends of UCE, when we get back to Edmonton, I will come bearing gifts. We will arrange a Kiva-Unitarian Flames workshop after the Flower Communion service on June 13 for anyone who wants help signing up. To kick-start the program, Lisa has given us 20 gift certificates from the anonymous benefactor. These gift certificates are good for one $25 loan. In other words, you can make your first loan using . How cool is that!

It's easy, it's fun, and most importantly it's a way to directly change a life of some specific individual who really needs your help.

Rev. Brian Kiely

Human Trafficking Event- personal coment

by Rev. Brian Kiely

Like many in tonight's 80 strong audience, my first reaction to the human trafficking issue and the film Sex Slave$ and another I saw on child labourers harvesting the bulk of the world's chocolate ingredients was: How can people do this to other people? What could possibly destroy our common sense of humanity so completely?

Well, history shows us that exploiting others for gain is as old as human existence. Trafficking in human life is really no different from trafficking in drugs or arms. Drug addiction causes people to do things no less degrading than slavery, indeed, it imposes a kind of slavery of its own. Arms dealing brings violence and destruction to so many parts of the world all in the service of human greed for money and power. And the victims of such violence are often forced into degrading acts just to survive.

So if you can make buckets of money tricking and selling and brutalizing other human beings, why should we be surprised? Why should we be surprised?

There is no height that human nobility cannot reach. But there is no depth that human depravity can reach either.

At tonight's event I certainly had my awareness raised - which is good. I also had my heat moved - which is even better.

I had read about the sex slaves released from the Edmonton massage parlour a few months back. I had read about some offshore workers being exploited here and there, I had even read about the abused nannies now and then. It always seemed isolated. But tonight I was forced to think about the 72,000 foreign temporary workers brought into Alberta in the past few years. I expect that the majority of their situations are on the up and up. I have concerns, though, for it seems a little weird to bring people in for a couple of years, introduce them to our Canadian society and send them packing, but I suppose I will need to look into that one more.

But 72,000 souls. Wow. It's not hard to figure that some of them are forced into really unfair conditions - into slavery of one sort or another... right here...in the country that I love, in the province where I live, in the city where I am raising my children. Yes, I know I should care about enslaved people everywhere in the world, but I am not Atlas, I cannot carry the concerns of the whole world on my shoulders.

But this isn't far away, is it?. There are probably half a dozen massage parlours within a couple of klicks of my nice safe home. There are nannies all over my neighbourhood, there are probably temporary workers in the ubiquitous fast food joints. Who is free? Who is mistreated? Which (if any) are slaves?

The list of 13 actions in the next post are helpful, but the biggest thing I know is that tomorrow, when I wake up, Edmonton will look a little different.

Poem for Trafficking Victims

Anna Rodyo wrote this poem for the victims portrayed in the film Sex Slave$ and recited it at the Women In Black/Unitarian Church of Edmonton Social Action event on May 16.

Dear Katia, Anya, Tania, Oksana, Natasha, Olesia, Eva

Your long brutal nightmare, your sorrow moves through my mind and through my heart now.

The assault on YOUR soul is unbearable, unthinkable.

Your beautiful and sacred body and womanhood ravaged and raped!

It is too much pain, too much pain, my dear sisters, it is too much pain.

So I pledge to you to not close my eyes and turn my heart from you.

To take at least one piece of this overwhelming pain and pledge my commitment to you and NOT to turn away.

I will not turn away.