Local minister rides the bus for equality

10/8/04 - New Times, San Luis Obispo

The Reverend Helen Carroll, a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Luis Obispo County, began an eight-day cross-country bus adventure on Oct. 4 to promote national marriage equality.

The bus left Oakland on Oct. 4 and will make 14 designated stops along the way. The trip ends Oct. 11 with a rally held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Upper Senate Park, which is about a block from the U.S. Capitol building.

This is the first venture of the “National Marriage Equality Express,” which hopes to raise awareness and support for same-sex marriages. Several advocacy groups helped raise the $1,800 needed in order for the Rev. Carroll to make the journey.

Forty-two others — including a helicopter pilot and a world-champion kickboxer — are making the trip as well. The common thread binding them together is the belief that equality applies to all people. The Rev. Carroll, a straight woman and mother of four, realized the injustice of discrimination growing up in the South during the civil rights movement, and has been advocating for equality ever since.

“It is a moral and ethical issue that comes out of my religious training,” she said. Her training comes from the Episcopal Divinity School, where she received a master’s degree, and from Harvard University Divinity School and Andover Newton Theological School, where she continued her graduate education. Her reading of the Bible leads her to a different interpretation than the more conservative approach that condemns homosexuality.

“Discrimination is against my religion,” she added. Her hope for this venture is that same sex marriages will one day be considered a legal civil union.

“I have always held the idea that marriage is a commitment between two people that love each other,” said Carroll.

She will be maintaining a daily blog throughout the journey, which can be accessed at www.uulmca.org.

UU Ministers Join Marriage Equality Caravan to Mobilize Support for Equal Rights

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