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After the owners of a market stall at the Bloomington, Indiana, farmers market were outed as members of a white supremacist group, community members began staging protests at the market. Officials responded by protecting the stall owners’ First Amendment rights, and curtailing the rights of the protesters, who call themselves the Purple Shirt Brigade. The new rules have led to increasingly creative forms of protest. Over the weekend, the Rev. Forrest Ian Gilmore, a UU and member of the brigade, was arrested while wearing an inflatable pink unicorn costume and “removed from the market by two police officers, each gripping one of his purple hooves.” (Daily Beast, November 11)
Congregation hosts U.S. Representative and constitutional scholar
Cedar Lane UU Church in Bethesda, Maryland, invited U.S. Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), to speak about impeachment as hearings are set to begin this week. Raskin, who is also a constitutional scholar, said, “Generations to come will marvel in disbelief at what we’re living through right now.” (Maryland Matters, November 11)
UU minister concerned about megachurch’s outsized influence
In the liberal college town of Moscow, Idaho, a local megachurch is unabashedly trying to take over the town. The Rev. Elizabeth Stephens, minister of Moscow’s UU Church of the Palouse, chooses not to support businesses with close ties to the megachurch and is concerned that if its members win seats on the City Council, they may try to restrict the rights of LGBTQ residents. She is hopeful, however, saying, “I have a lot of faith that the majority of people in this community support human rights and respect their neighbors’ rights to worship, love and live as they choose.” (Religion News, November 6)