Given August 30,2017
I am here to speak in support of the least controversial document I’ve ever read.
The history set down here, of immigrants and refugees as part of the strong fabric of our communities, is the same history I was taught as a child, the same history my children have been taught. This should not be controversial.
This proclamation reaffirms our respect for the rule of law. This should not be controversial.
This document affirms high ideals: justice, and compassion. These should absolutely not be controversial. And therein lies the hang-up, because some read the words justice and compassion and see shadows and conspiracies.
So, I am here tonight to speak up for the necessity of justice and compassion. The justice we value is not some free-for-all, but nothing more or less than the fair and equal treatment of all people under the law – a process and not a forgone conclusion. And the compassion we strive for literally means “to suffer with,” to walk in another’s shoes, see with the eye of the heart and come to understand another; to do to others as we would have done to us. As something of a student of religion, I can attest to the fact that almost every religious tradition in the world professes some version of this familiar Golden Rule. Those institutions that exist to call out what is best in the human spirit proclaim compassion as the highest virtue. Both of these ideals are essential to humanity. Neither one ends at a border. Neither one is the sole property of any one nation and its citizens.
Are these difficult ideals to live by? Yes. Should they be controversial? Absolutely not.
What’s before you tonight is not a call for amnesty, or sanctuary, or open borders. It is a simply a reaffirmation of what should be our highest ideals as human beings, as a community, and as a nation.
And it’s a Rorschach test for the community’s soul. Because, if we can look into these words and see only monsters and shadows, that certainly says more about the state of our collective humanity here, than it does about the souls we might choose not to welcome.
If you pass this tonight, there will not be revolutionary change in Los Alamos. We’ll just have reaffirmed what we already should value.
If you do not pass this, there will not be revolutionary change in Los Alamos. But tomorrow morning there will be some in our community who wake up and wonder what their place is here, and whether or not they hold any value or worth amongst us.
That will be the morning that the fabric of this community begins to fray. And that might be a little controversial.