Sunday, March 24, 2013

Unitarians Debate Polyamory

The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade, when other established churches were shrinking. Politically progressive to its core, it draws from the pool of people who might otherwise be “nones” – unaffiliated with any church at all.

But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say “the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time,” according to a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA). The UUPA “encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory,” including the right of polyamorous people to have their unions blessed by a minister.
Read the rest here.

I can't believe the UUs are ahead of the Piskies on this one, though only by a nose. But then again the UUs are really just uber-Low Church Episcopalians. In any case I thought this was such a great story to stumble across on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

3 comments:

Anastasia Theodoridis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anastasia Theodoridis said...

Is that another word for promiscuity?

Anonymous said...

The UUA polyamory groups have been around for quite a while - I had heard of them 20 years ago. Not many UUs are interested in this group, although there never was much concern about them then.

The UUPA will eventually have their way and gain a foothold and some official status. Just as the pagans/wiccans (CUUP) did about 20-25 years ago. The rest of the UUs will eventually learn to live with their discomfort.

Steve