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by Stella Dubish
You want to help, but you are strapped for time. You want to do something, but you are overwhelmed by the number and complexity of causes out there in the world. You want to take action, but overt political protest is not the right fit for your capabilities or personality. No problem! The Social Action Committee of this very UU congregation wants you to know that there are many ways to advance justice right here in our congregation, right here in our community. First, your presence in our services bears witness to justice and injustice and creates a community of trust, love, and support. Second, if and when you contribute to the Sunday collection, you are supporting justice at multiple levels. In the last fiscal year, this congregation sent $3,400 to organizations that sustain and respect the Earth, uphold the dignity and rights of our neighbors far and wide, and eliminate racism. Third, every time you bring a canned good or household supply to this food pantry, you are contributing to food justice for more than 700 individuals in the region. Finally, did you know that members of this congregation, over the last year, have volunteered hundreds of hours to support immigrant rights, voter rights, and environmental justice in our community? Examples include distributing food, teaching citizenship classes, and serving as poll workers on Election Day. The Social Action Committee wants you to know two things: Your very presence in this community strengthens the collective work toward justice. There are many ways for you to get involved, even if your time is limited, your spirit is burdened, or your proclivities are for quiet actions. Here are a few ways to get involved.
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by Brian Dugas
There’s a lot going on in the world, but I figured I’d provide you an update on the current situation with mail in voting across the country. Until I started doing some research for this Social Action Minute, I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it’s important for us to stay informed so we can make the right choices. In March of this year the President issued an Executive Order with new mail in voting guidance, and directed the USPS to create new rules:
Of course this started a flurry of lawsuits challenging this Executive Order, and a federal court temporarily blocked the requirements of the states but it is expected to go to the Supreme Court before the November elections. A whistleblower has come forward and reported that the USPS has continued to plan for the Executive Order in spite of the court order, and that the planning is rushed and sloppy, which is particularly dangerous because of the directive to reject an entire batch if they include just one unverifiable ballot. “As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state.” Meanwhile in Pennsylvania:
What you can do:
by Dave Nichols
Good morning. I have been a member of this UU for about five years, and I sit on the board — so let me say at the start that this morning I am speaking for myself. Not for the board, and not for this congregation. I want to speak about something I have been working on. I am not asking you for anything today. There is a national party called the Justice for All Party. It is new. It is small. I am part of a group that is forming its Pennsylvania affiliate. Right now, the Pennsylvania group is four people. Two in Luzerne County, one in Philadelphia, and one in Pittsburgh. That is the honest number. The party organizes around three words. Truth, Justice, and Love. Truth means saying plainly what is being done to people, and by whom. Justice means ending the harm and undoing it. Love means the people who are harmed matter — including the ones you will never meet. You might ask why start a new party instead of working inside the two we have. The reason is that there are things large majorities of Americans want that never happen. Eighty-six percent of us want to bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks. Eighty-seven percent want term limits. Seventy-two percent want limits on campaign spending. Those numbers hold among Republicans and Democrats alike. None of it gets done. Look at what those three have in common. Every one of them restrains the people who would have to pass it. That is the problem I am most interested in. Not any single issue, but the arrangement itself. Both parties share an interest in staying in charge, and what the public wants comes second to that. Neither of them will let the public take charge. That is what a new party is for. Some of the specific things we stand for are housing as a human right, Medicare for All, a living wage, serious action on climate, protecting reproductive rights, and protecting LGBTQ rights. That is six of the fourteen points our state group adopted last week. I would rather go through the specific programs with you in conversation than read a list from up here. Our goal in Pennsylvania is to build a state party large enough to be recognized under the state's election law. That hurdle is higher than most people realize. Then we plan to put candidates on local ballots. We are looking for people across Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties. We are small. What we need is not money and not your vote. We need people willing to come to a meeting and find out whether this is something they want to be part of. We meet every two weeks. If you are curious, ask me. I am here most Sundays, and I will tell you anything you want to know, including the parts I am still unsure about. Thank you. Sources for the three figures: Program for Public Consultation, University of Maryland (congressional stock trading, 86%)· Pew Research Center, "Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics", September 2023 (term limits 87%, campaign spending limits 72%). by Stella Dubish
My dad taught me how to garden when I was a teenager, and we spent hours turning soil, planting, watering, and weeding. I loved being close to the earth and coaxing something beautiful and nourishing out of what appeared to be almost nothing - a tiny seed. My love of gardening led me to my husband, Bryan, and through Bryan, I became friends with Bill Braun and Deanna Levanti, of Freed Seed Federation. “Freed Seed Federation is a farmer-run nonprofit dedicated to the preservation, adaptation, and diversification of place-based seed. Their mission is simple: to fortify regional food resilience from the level of the seed” (Freed Seed Federation, n.d.). Over the last century, 90% of our food's genetic diversity has vanished, leaving crops vulnerable to environmental upheaval. Today, most seeds are controlled by a few corporations, detached from cultural and historical roots. Bill and Dee believe seeds belong in the hands of the people. Their work focuses on growing open-pollinated, patent-free seeds adapted to our region and resilient against climate change. They advocate for food sovereignty through participatory breeding, education, and community-building, ensuring seeds remain embedded in the communities they nourish (Freed Seed Federation, n.d.). This summer, we visited their farm and saw heritage grains and vegetables grown from seeds passed down through generations. Seeing these crops makes the importance of their mission clear—whether you are walking through their fields or searching for quality produce at a grocery store. You can support this vital work in two ways:
Freed Seed Federation. (n.d.) https://www.freedseedfederation.org/ by Jenny Blanchard
What is the minimum wage in PA?
When was the last time the PA state legislature voted to raise the minimum wage?
Over the last 20 years, there have been numerous efforts to raise the minimum wage in PA. Most recently, House Bill 2189 passed the Democratic-controlled House with bipartisan support in March 2006. The bill outlined a gradual rollout starting at $11 per hour in 2027, $13 in 2028, and $15 by 2029. Senate Republicans blocked the latest minimum wage increase bill by refusing to advance it out of the Senate Labor & Industry Committee, which means the bill will never come to a vote on the floor of the Senate. When I worked at the Catherine McAuley Center, one of our clients who had struggled with homelessness came through the door excitedly to announce that she had secured a job at the Radisson Hotel in Scranton, at an hourly rate of $8 an hour. She was the mother of three children, which means she needed a two-bedroom apartment at the bare minimum. What is the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Scranton? Anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500 a month. You need to earn $3,600 a month or $830 a week to afford this apartment (your rent should not exceed 30% of your income). Assuming a 40-hour work week, how many hours a week do you have to work to afford the two-bedroom apartment?
There are many opposing arguments against raising the minimum wage that falsely insist that this will hurt the economy, lead to job losses, and increase the price of goods. But the worst and completely baseless argument is that most of the people who work at the minimum wage are teenagers, and therefore it is not meant to be a living wage. This is a lie. The vast majority of minimum wage workers are adults. Two thirds are over the age of twenty. Nearly half are over thirty. They are the home health aide, the fast-food worker, the retail clerk, the childcare provider. They are disproportionately women. They are disproportionately people of color. Many are the primary earners for their families. The “teenager” in the myth is a figment that serves as a convenient excuse to explain away the reality of adults being paid poverty wages. We commonly use expressions like unskilled labor, entry-level jobs and then refuse to consign any dignity to these jobs. The minimum wage was always about life. It is about the price of rent, of bread, of light, of heat. It is about the value of an hour of human life spent in labor. The argument that the minimum wage is not meant to be a living wage suggests that some people do not deserve to live. by Eoin Carroll
Birds need our help. Habitat loss is the number one threat facing birds and we can do something about it in our outdoor spaces, gardens, and landscapes. Reproduction success is closely tied to food availability. For 95 to 98 percent of songbirds the main food that they feed their young are caterpillars. If there are not enough caterpillars then the babies will starve. Insect populations are declining across many regions, especially the species that ecosystems depend on most. One major reason is the loss of the plants they need to survive. The vast majority of North American caterpillar species can only feed on a small number of specific plants. They cannot develop on most other types of vegetation. This is because most plants have created various defenses to keep from being eaten. Only certain caterpillars have evolved the various enzymes that are necessary to break down these defenses. If those plants are missing, caterpillars cannot survive, and the food web begins to break down. Caterpillars are especially important because they transfer energy from plants to other animals, making them a critical link between plants and wildlife. Thus you can have what appears to be a very beautiful yard that is full of healthy plants but if they are not native plants then what you have is a caterpillar desert and is no help for our hungry bird babies. The same logic holds for the rest of the insect kingdom. One example, which most people know, is the dependence that monarch butterflies have with milkweed plants. This is the only plant that the monarch butterfly will lay her eggs on as it is the only plant that will make both the monarch butterfly and its caterpillar taste really bad and thus avoid being eaten. One place that you can get native trees and shrubs is from the Master Watershed Stewards annual fundraising sale which is in progress now. There is a link to the site in our weekly announcements. The catalog on the website has lots of information on the 24 varieties of trees and shrubs to help you understand if it would do well in your yard. Proceeds support Master Watershed Steward projects and educational programs in the selected region, including stream restoration efforts, tree plantings, youth education initiatives, and other community-based conservation activities. You place your order online and then need to pick up your purchase from the site you designate. The closest sites to our church are at the Wyoming County Conservation District in Tunkhannock or at Sweeneys Beach in Scranton. If you come to the Wyoming Country site then your plants will be personally loaded into your car by either me or my wife. by Lilly Gioia
In May 2025 President Trump issued an Executive Order forming his RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION made up of 12 members, many of them his allies: 11 CHRISTIANS & 1 ORTHODOX JEW. The Commission was to hold hearings and issue a report on the history and state of religious liberty in America. Its draft report just issued in June focused on witnesses and members who basically spoke about RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE and INTIMIDATION primarily faced by CHRISTIANS! In case you were not aware of the persecution and discrimination against American Christians, you can read the 224 page Religion Liberty Commission report online containing dozens of policy and legal recommendations. It calls for establishing a Religious Liberty Violation Hotline, expanding school choice funding, appointing judges with a proven commitment to religious liberty and forming a Justice Department Religious Liberty Task Force. I watched the testimony on C-SPAN as a supporter of the Interfaith Alliance. The Interfaith Alliance filed a lawsuit forcing the administration to publish Religious Liberty Commission records that had been kept secret from the American people. The suit was a multi-faith coalition effort represented by Democracy Forward, and Americans United for Separation of Church & State, arguing the Commission violated federal law as an unbalanced, biased panel operating in near secrecy. Facing the lawsuit, the Commission allowed public comment on its draft report. 1,700 people flooded an email portal with objections. The Religious Liberty Commission is what Christian Nationalism looks like when it has the power of government and weaponizes language of religious freedom, critics said. Not only have the Interfaith Alliance, the Secular Coalition for America, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu organizations strongly objected to this Commission’s narrow focus, but also Catholic Bishops voiced criticism. Critics have attacked the Commission for ignoring issues like Islamophobia. Basic takeaways from the report are the Commission’s argument that there is a misunderstanding of SEPARATION of CHURCH & STATE. They claim the “wall of separation between church and state” has been misapplied and weaponized to restrict religion’s place in public life. They assert that the term separation of church and state never appears in the Constitution. That religious liberty is the “bridge” between church and state. They recommend that the Department of Justice issue guidance clarifying that. The Freedom From Religion Foundation was among organizations raising an alarm because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Establishment Clause bars passing any laws that favor one religion over another. Freedom From Religion Foundation said, “The Establishment Clause exists precisely because the government must remain neutral on matters of religion.” The Commission also recommends REPEALING the Johnson Amendment that forbids nonprofits, including houses of worship, from endorsing political candidates. Repealing the Johnson Amendment has the potential for turning churches into tax exempt Political Actions Committees able to endorse candidates. This Religious Liberty Commission report fails to discuss the rights or experiences of the religiously unaffiliated, who make up roughly one-third of all Americans today. The Secular Coalition for America said: The report is “not a blueprint for protecting religious freedom. It is a roadmap for expanding religious privilege.” The Interfaith Alliance (to which our congregation has donated) said: The report and the Commission behind it fail to represent and uplift the importance and tolerance for all faiths in our country—not just a special, chosen few.” On July 28 a federal judge dismissed the Interfaith Alliance lawsuit. In a statement the Alliance said that with multi-faith partners they intend to keep standing up to Christian Nationalism wherever it threatens our democracy. A coalition built to promote a true and inclusive religious freedom will outlast any single ruling. On a positive note last week we saw a meeting of the Third Annual Congressional Freethought Caucus Reception. Sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America, the American Humanist Society and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, there are now 37 members of Congress in the Freethought Caucus on Capitol Hill. Their keynote speaker was Mary Trump as they gathered to celebrate Constitutional Democracy, Reason, and the rights of non-religious Americans. They reflect increasing support for religious equality and secular government. by Brian Dugas
For those of you who don’t know, one of the previous duties of the CDC was to monitor foodborne illnesses through the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network. Of course this network, and 60 other programs were eliminated by the present administration. The number of pathogens being surveilled dropped from 8 to 2, with Cyclosporiasis being one them cut. This is in addition to a 50% budget cut in 2026, ¼ of the workforce being cut, and the rescinding or blocking of 600 million dollars worth of grants. Erica Schwartz was recently nominated to be the new CDC Director and has bipartisan support. She is a real physician and lawyer with years of experience in public health in the military and has served as the Deputy Surgeon General in the past. She is a black woman, and get this, she believes in vaccines. She is quoted as saying ”If confirmed, my first priority will be restoring trust in public health institutions through radical transparency and unwavering scientific Integrity,” Schwartz said, “As CDC director, my sacred responsibility is to provide the American people with public health guidance that is clear, honest and evidence based. I will never betray the science.” I don’t know about you, but I almost fell off my chair. There is some question as to whether she will be able to stand up to the pressure from her political bosses whose names I won’t mention, but it seems to be a positive step and demonstrates that pressure does work on our politicians. Now is the time to use that pressure on your elected officials. Stay informed, get active, and most important of all, get out and vote. There are a few important elections happening in our area for the November elections. They could use our help, and Ward 12 is looking for some pollworkers. by Eoin Carroll
Our love of tidiness and our desire to shape nature to be more attractive to us is killing the natural world. When I started gardening as a teenager it was constantly stressed that the good gardener should always remove dead material from the garden as soon as possible. By removing dead trees and plants we are eliminating the spaces needed by insects, birds, and bats for nesting and overwintering. We are short circuiting the carbon cycle by removing the plant material which if left would be food for many more organisms. We find large lawns to be the most attractive option for our landscape and therefore have created ecological deserts where there is no food or shelter for the rest of nature. To keep our lawns green we apply lots of water, fertilizers, and pesticides. Unfortunately most of these end up in our waterways due to over application, poor timing (applying before a rainstorm), not testing the soil and thus fertilizing when it is not needed, and the inability of most lawns to infiltrate more than a small amount of water at a time. Also by fertilizing we create the perfect conditions for most lawn weeds which prefer a richer soil and thus require us to spread even more pesticides. We spend an enormous amount of time mowing our lawns and in the process create lots of air pollution (lawn mowers produce much more pollution than cars). The constant walking or riding over the ground compacts it and makes it even less able to infiltrate water thus causing stormwater issues. We modify the color, size, and shape of flower blossoms to be more pleasing to us but most of the time these changes make the plants unrecognizable to our native insects. We abhor any insects eating our plants and unleash hellish brews of toxic chemicals to kill them which in turn kills the butterflies and fireflies that we want but wonder why they are disappearing. We plant nonnative trees and shrubs because we think they are prettier and novel and that is what is available at most nurseries and big box stores. The solution is that we must reduce our lawns and plant more natives. We need to learn to embrace the messiness of nature and stop trying to tidy it up if we want our native animal world to survive. by Joseph Czarnecki
It appears that phone calls or letters to your Republican congressman will not change their behavior, because they are afraid of being primaried by Trump’s support for their opponent. The solution seems to be to support and vote for Democratic congressmen. |
The Social Action Minute
One of the most popular features of our Sunday services is our Social Action Minute. During this time, a member of the Social Action Committee speaks on a topic of their choice in order to bring awareness and a call to action to the members of our Congregation. These are the archives of the Social Action Minutes presented at our Sunday services. If you missed a service, or are interested in the topic, you can revisit it and get information here. Archives
September 2026
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