Speaker(s): Dave Jones

UNITARIANS AND POLITICS: WHAT'S THE ATTRACTION?   A SPEECH TO THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSEMBLY BY UTAH STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAVE JONES JUNE 25, 1999

Thank you for those kind words of introduction...

And welcome to Salt Lake City, a city which was born out of the quest for religious freedom and tolerance. It may surprise you to learn that Unitarians have had a significant presence in Salt Lake City since 1891, and that we continue to play a very active role in the civic affairs of our city and state to this day. There are actually two Unitarians serving in the Utah House of Representatives at this moment, and one of our members was the Democratic nominee for Congress in last year's election. So although we are small in number, we are visible and vocal. Which leads me to the topic of our discussion this evening.

The title of my speech is "Unitarians and Politics: What's the Attraction." And the reason I've chosen that topic is because over the years, a surprising number of Unitarians have played key roles in American politics.

Although I haven't been able to track down the actual numbers, it is a well known fact that a disproportionate number of Unitarians have served as members of the U.S. House of Representatives or U.S. Senate.

But Unitarian involvement in American politics does not stop there. Indeed, a list of Unitarian political figures includes such luminaries as John Adams, John Quincey Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Millard Fillmore, William Howard Taft, William Perry, Elliot Richardson, and Adlai Stevenson - I could go on.

So what is it that attracts Unitarians to politics, or conversely, what is it that attracts politicians to Unitarianism? For me, there are two aspects of my faith as a Unitarian that seem to intersect with my passion for politics:

First is respect and tolerance for differing cultures, beliefs and ideas.

Second is faith in ability of people to collectively solve problems through government action.

At its core, Unitarian Universalism embraces the notion of respect and tolerance for differing ideas. It was born out of an age of spiritual seeking and questioning. It is a religion which considers dogma to be counter to the idea of spiritual evolution. What is important to the Unitarian is not that you embrace some specific spiritual concept, but that you are on a path towards developing your own concept. It is the path, not the destination that is important.

In fact, there is an old joke about why there are so few Unitarians in heaven.. It seems outside the pearly gates there is this sign with two arrows. One part of the sign says "This way to heaven." The other part of the sign says "This way to a debate about whether heaven exists." Most unitarians simply can't resist a good debate.

My own commitment to tolerance probably comes from early firsthand experiences with intolerance. In fact one story from my childhood will probably convey the whole picture.

When I was a boy growing up in the midwest, my father used to talk to me about Indians. He admired the simplicity of their lifestyle and the beauty of their naturalistic religion. But more importantly, he had a heartfelt conviction that the American Indian had been severely wronged by the white man. The white men had broken promises, stolen their land, herded a once proud people onto reservations, and committed murder all in the name of progress. And for my father, the personification of this gross injustice was General George Armstrong Custer. "Custer was a fool and a scoundrel," I remember him telling me. "He deserved what he got at the Little Big Horn because he was the instrument of an unjust government policy."

Little boys, of course, tend to adopt their parent's viewpoint. I too became an admirer of Indian culture and a vocal detractor of General Custer. Fortunately for me, their were not too many opportunities for an eight year old boy to say unflattering things about one of our nation's folk heros. For the most part, my comments were limited to an occasional spouting to an aunt or uncle, who just considered it cute that I would have any kind of opinion on any subject at all. But that all changed when my fourth grade teacher decided she would spend an hour a day for two weeks reading aloud to the class from a book about George Armstrong Custer. And not just any book, but a book which basically presented Custer as if he were a God.

Now my teacher, Mrs. Ashenbrenner, liked to ask us questions about the books she read to us, and on the day she was to begin reading the book about Custer, she asked the class what we knew about Custer. My hand shot up. Perhaps sensing trouble, she called first on several of my classmates. "Custer was a brave Indian fighter," one boy said. "He died at the Little Big Horn," another classmate added. "He had long blond hair," one girl remarked. Finally Mrs. Ashenbrenner came to me. "Custer was a fool and a scoundrel," I pronounced with confidence. "He got what he deserved." And so began two weeks of childhood hell, in which I was beaten up no fewer than three times and once even buried in a snowbank. (But I still say Custer was a scoundrel and a fool.)

From experiences like this I learned that people don't like to have their cherished beliefs challenged. Even more important, I learned that challenging such beliefs can be hazardous to one's health.

And yet, exposure to differing ideas and cultures is, I believe, essential to our survival and progress as a species. Biologists and geneticists will tell you that the larger the gene pool the better adapted a species will be to its environment. And in psychology there is actually considerable research which demonstrates that groups exhibiting a diversity of viewpoints tend to make better decisions.

I have personally witnessed the benefit of diverse viewpoints in the Utah Legislature. I have proposed many bills to the legislature and I can honestly say there is not one which did not benefit from the scrutiny of people who did not necessarily share my views. And conversely, I have witnessed the negative effects when narrow minded people have shut down or disallowed meaningful debate on important issues. The term "Olympic scandal" somehow comes to mind.

The bottom line is, tolerance for differing ideas, cultures and lifestyles is not only polite, but it is also essential to our future evolution as a species -- our social and spiritual evolution, if you will. And I suspect this belief partially accounts for the disproportionate number of Unitarians who find their way into political life. Because we sense the need for more tolerance, we seek out bully pulpits from which to argue for that need. And because we ourselves have experienced intolerance for our own ideas, we seek a forum from which to make them heard.

Another aspect of my faith which intersects with my passion for politics is my faith in the ability of people to collectively solve problems through government. The Unitarian faith is a faith which embraces the concept of democracy in its own governing principles This implies a belief that collective problem solving is both possible and desirable, and that democratic government can be a positive force for improving the lives of citizens.

The political and religious right are very suspect of this idea. They tend to subscribe to the public choice theory of government, which holds that politicians are fundamentally self interested, and therefore incapable of putting the public interest ahead of their own. In their view, government action is really a vehicle for self-interested politicians to impose their will on the public. It is a synonym for tyranny and, therefore, should be limited to the bare minimum.

But I have a different view. I believe there is a transcendent motivation behind the acts of many politicians. There have been too many times when I have seen the public good put ahead of personal political advantage for me to accept that all politicians are in the game solely for there own benefit. After all, there is very little political advantage in supporting programs for the poor. Study after study shows that low income people don't vote. And yet we have a plethora of programs like Medicaid, aid to families with dependent children, school lunch and breakfast, low income housing subsidies. The very existence of these programs suggests that politicians frequently respond to something other than narrow self interest.

In addition, I believe our democratic government is one of the crowning achievements of the human race; not just because it limits the ability of government to impose on the rights of citizens, but because it provides a vehicle for collective action. If you think about it, individual action is very simple. You simply choose a direction and go for it. What is hard is for us to work together, for us to agree upon a common purpose then take steps together to achieve that purpose.

Patterns of urban development provides a good example. A few pioneers come together and form a new settlement. Each one develops his own farm the way he wants and no one cares much what his neighbor does, because they are spread out far enough they don't have to look at it if they don't want to. The externalities are marginal.

But as the settlement grows, as those early farms are subdivided, then subdivided again and again, people become more impacted by their neighbor's actions. My neighbor's decision to build a sawmill adjacent to my bedroom window has a direct impact on my quality of life. And in a more macro sense, unbridled growth leads to the consumption of more and more land further and further away from urban centers, more and more reliance on the automobile and ever more air pollution and noise.

I'm describing, of course, the phenomenon of urban sprawl, a phenomenon where the aggregate of a million or so individual decisions leads us to a diminished quality of life, which, if we could peer into the future, none of us would chosen for ourselves and our families.

And yet, taking collective action to avoid such a future is difficult. It involves passing restrictive planning and zoning laws that limit to some extent what individuals can do on their own land; it involves tightening up automobile emission standards that dictate the kind of vehicles we must drive; and it involves creating incentives for the development of transit oriented communities, which make urban living more affordable and feasible.

In short, it involves acknowledging that the decisions I make in my own self interest often have a negative impact on my neighbors, and that there must be some mechanism for balancing out the rights of individuals and the rights of the public at large. That means, of course, is democratic government.

Our democratic government has also played a pivotal role in the lives of millions of U.S. citizens through such programs as compulsory public education, the GI Bill, Affirmative Action, student loans, medicare and medicaid, federal highway assistance funds, rural electrification programs, low income housing tax credits, not to mention national defense and humanitarian aid abroad.

I believe in government and the positive role it can play in people's lives, and I suppose that belief has a lot to do with the fact that I have spent the last ten years serving in the Utah House of Representatives, and that I am today a candidate for mayor of Salt Lake City.

Now, in the time I have left, I want to talk about the special attraction which city government holds for me, and the unique opportunities it presents to promote tolerance and bring about positive change in people's lives.

City government is the government closest to the people. It is the layer of government that most directly affects people's lives. Presumably, most of us woke up this morning and took a shower. The water coming out of that tap was most likely supplied by a city. Many of the roads we traveled in our car were city roads. Our safety on those roads depended largely on the traffic management system provided by a city. And the safety and quality of the neighborhoods we traveled through is largely dependent on the planning and forethought of elected city officials. City government has nothing to do with defending the rights of people in Kosovo. But it has everything to do with protecting the rights of you and your neighbors.

City government is also government of a scale you can actually get your arms around. In my race to become mayor of Salt Lake City, it will be possible for me to walk through every major neighborhood and talk to people on their doorsteps about their concerns. And as mayor, it will be possible to develop problem solving programs and initiatives which have a direct affect on the lives of my constituents, without having to be filtered through a lot of other layers of government.

One area of concern where I think the mayor can have a significant impact is in the area of race and religious relations. In Salt Lake City today, racial and religious ties are strained. Just a few blocks from here a young Hispanic boy was recently killed by a young Caucasian boy in a racially motivated street brawl. At a highschool near my home there are bitter divisions among parents and school officials concerning whether gay highschool students should be allowed to have clubs within the school. And not long ago, Salt Lake City sold a portion of its Main Street to the LDS Church for development into a pedestrian mall adjacent to the Temple, causing accusations of violations of church/state principles. These and other incidents have polarized our community along race and religious lines to such an extent that many long time residents have a hard time remembering when community relations were so strained.

If I am fortunate enough to become the next mayor of Salt Lake City, I will want to take steps to ease this tension and promote acceptance of diversity.. One of the ways I want to do this is by emulating a program developed by the Mayor of Anchorage, Alaska.

According to Mayor Myton, Anchorage is a city with a history of racial tension. There is a large Native American population, a large black population, a large Korean population and a large Caucasian population. There is even a sizable Polynesian population (though it's beyond me why anyone from the Pacific Islands would choose to move to Alaska.)

When Myton took office, race relations were at a low ebb. So one of the first things he did was invite the religious and cultural leaders of his community to a back yard barbecue at his home. At the barbecue, he challenged these leaders and their spouses to go out and over the next year form a friendship - not just an acquaintance, but a friendship - with a couple of another racial or religious background. The idea then was to bring this couple back one year later to a follow up barbecue, at which time all present would be challenged to repeat the process.

The Anchorage Bridges program has been in place for approximately five years now, and according to the Mayor, you can now go to a movie on just about any given night and see couples of different races out for an evening together. This is something that simply did not occur before.

The point I am trying to make, is that this kind of a program, requiring direct leadership within a compact and well defined community, would probably not succeed if a President or a Governor tried to implement it. The scale of their jurisdiction is simply too large and the intimacy of leadership required would simply not be possible. But at the city level it is very possible. And that is what is so exciting about city government. The directness of the impact on people's lives, and the intimate nature of policy decisions make city government unique. They also make city government a beacon of hope for social change in the new century immediately ahead of us.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that there are strong reasons why Unitarian Universalists have played, and continue to play, a peculiarly active role in the affairs of our government. One reason is our respect for different cultures, beliefs and ideas. When Unitarians see or experience a lack of tolerance, we try to correct it through various forms of social activism, including running for public office.

Another reason is our belief that democratic government can be a strong force for positive change in the lives of citizens. Unitarians have an abiding faith in the ability of human beings of different beliefs and backgrounds to reason together and solve problems. It is only natural then, that people of such faith should find their way into the ranks of American government, which, after all, is the greatest problem solving institution ever invented by human kind.

Finally, as a Unitarian, a current participant in State government, and a candidate for mayor, I would like to say that I believe the greatest opportunity to promote tolerance and solve civic problems today lies in city government. It is the government closest to the people. It is the government that most directly impacts the lives of its citizens. And it is the government that offers the most hope for social change in the future.

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