New Religious Right 1981 Business Resolution

THAT, while the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association supports the right of religious leaders of whatever persuasion to comment on political issues, we wish to express our concern regarding the authoritarianism of those groups such as Moral Majority, Inc., Christian Voice, and others loosely dubbed the New Religious Right. Specifically, we object to the assumption of such groups that human beings can know with absolute certainty the will of God on particular public policy issues. We submit that to charge one's opponents (as these groups have) with being "anti-family" or "anti-God" merely because of divergent views inflames and polarizes our society. We are particuarly concerned that the public schools appear to be a prime target of the New Religious Right's attention and that the teaching of "secular humanism" has been singled out for special attack. We affirm that the separation of church and state mandates the independence of our public schools systems from the pressures of any particular religious perspective. We call upon all religious bodies to avoid abusive language in dealing with those who disagree with them and to affirm the principles of freedom and tolerance upon which the United States was founded.