Silence in response to our social justice election survey
Regardless of who you support politically, we think we can agree that it isn’t a good thing when candidates don’t engage in debate, especially during an election. As you’ve read, a number of local candidates skipped debates, one of the main ways we get to judge who deserves our vote.
And we had our own experience with skipping debate.
The Social Justice Team created a list of questions, many with a local focus, on issues related to housing, climate and poverty. We intended to publish the answers. Gail Rappolt did a lot of work to send them to each candidate and Joan MacNeil went the extra mile to track down email addresses (they shouldn’t be hard to find but they were) and to follow up to try get candidates to answer our queries.
No candidate answered our questions. Not one. A couple said they would respond but didn’t. One sent in the party platform. From the rest, silence.
In future, we might have fewer questions and get them out earlier. Perhaps that would have helped.
Our disappointment is rooted in our faith. Our fifth principle commits us as Unitarian Universalists to affirm and promote the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large. As a faith born of dissent, democracy and the right of conscience are bedrock stuff for us UUs.