Thirty Days of Love, Day 12: Chat with SSL
Date: Friday, Jan 27, 2012 – Participate in a Facebook Chat with SSL Campaign Manager.
Staff Member: Campus Ministry Associate Kayla Parker
Today’s questions: What does the Standing on the Side of Love campaign mean now? What could it mean? How might the campaign hold all of the issues you are concerned with today? What should be ‘Next’ for Standing on the Side of Love?
The Occupy Movement has many critics, and one of the loudest complaints about it is its perceived schizophrenia. Because the movement is broad, different people can use it for a variety of different issues connected to justice and equality. Watching the State of the Union and observing that U.S. President Obama had to discuss the current inequality of our financial system seemed to be a big win.
I think that this big-picture nature of the Occupy Movement is a great strength. And I think that this is also a strength of Standing on the Side of Love. It’s an open source movement of loving voices joined together to end oppression.
Standing on the Side of Love should continue using it’s presence on issues of immigrant justice, Islamophobia and LGBTQ equality – and it can even more fully live into its open source nature. When individuals and individual communities take on the campaign we can use the recognizable image and message of Standing on the Side of Love to address the oppressions unique to our environment.
For example, in my geographic neighborhood I could use the campaign slogan to unite people for fellowship gatherings where the folks at the top of the hill in houses and the bottom of the hill in low-income apartments gather for simple relationship-building.
What would you do in your community?
– Kayla.