So we're doing it.

[rivka]

At 5:00 tomorrow afternoon, curiousangel and I are meeting with Reverend Manwell to talk about the poly thing.

Tonight, we talked over what exactly we want to say to him. I'm proud of how we worked it through together, although I'm still really nervous. Here are the talking points we developed. Of course, the course of the conversation will largely be determined by his reactions, but here's what we thought it was essential to get across:

We had some concerns raised by the title of next week's sermon.
"Fidelity" is something we believe very strongly in - in terms of
being faithful to the promises you make in a relationship. But we
think that our culture equates "fidelity" and "monogamy" - there's an
assumption that only monogamous relationships are faithful, or
ethical. We disagree. We are faithful to the vows we made to each
other, but our vows specifically and intentially did not include a
promise of monogamy.

We know that a fundamental UU [Unitarian-Universalist] principle is
that there are multiple valid paths in life. But at the same time,
we've seen how there can be individual, or cultural, blind spots -
areas in which people don't think variation is acceptable, or perhaps
haven't fully examined alternatives to the norm. From what we
understand, the question of monogamy vs. polyamory is one of those
areas for the UU church.

We aren't arguing in favor of an ethics-free sexuality - we think that
an ethic of care, honesty, communication, and mutual respect is
critical in polyamorous as well as monogamous relationships. We
recognize that probably most people's experiences with nonmonogamy
have not been in ethical situations - for example, people have been
cheated on, or pressured into "swinging" or "free love" when they
didn't want to be. That's not what we believe in - we believe in
consensual and honest relationships, always.

What do we want?
- we want to continue to feel comfortable and welcome as members of
this church.
- we hope that your sermon on fidelity and adultery will focus on the
wrongs done by dishonesty and betrayal of trust, and not on
nonmonogamy as an inherent breach of faith, or monogamy as the only
valid relationship model.
- we don't expect you to become a polyamory booster, but we hope the
church will move towards acceptance of variation along this spectrum.

We'll be bringing, as visual aids, a copy of our wedding vows and some excerpts from the alt.poly FAQ. In the meantime, I've posted this here and to alt.polyamory, in hopes that people will have some useful comments.

I'm so nervous.

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I pass along to you the good wishes that I've gotten myself from people who work with anti-discrimination stuff within the UU congregations and hierarchy. Polyfolks are and must be welcome within UU congregations if the tradition of respecting a free and responsible search for meaning is to be truly applied. That's my opinion on it, anyhow.

And besides, confusing polyamory with unethical non-monogamy is like confusing monogamy with forced marriage. Most UUs are better logicians than that, fortunately.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I really like your comment elsewhere - that poly isn't "anything goes" any more than Unitarian-Universalism is. I think that's an excellent comparison, and likely to make things click properly into place.

Polyfolks are and must be welcome within UU congregations if the tradition of respecting a free and responsible search for meaning is to be truly applied. That's my opinion on it, anyhow.

As usual, your opinion is right on. Thanks.

Really, I'm sure things are going to go fine. But I'm still so nervous.