I was honored to be invited to give remarks on behalf of the City of Melrose at the installation of Rev. Dr. Susanne Intriligator at the Melrose Unitarian Universalist Church on March 31, 2019. These are the remarks I gave.
I am deeply honored that Rev. Dr. Susanne Intriligator invited me here to speak today. As many of you know, my name is Manisha Bewtra and I serve the City of Melrose as an Alderman-At-Large.
Reverend, it is wonderful to learn more about your faith journey, your core values, and your vision for this church, its congregation, and for our broader community. Melrose’s clergy are community leaders that play a key role in our city – in our daily lives, in our celebrations and sorrow, in moments when we come together to reckon with events in our own community as well as beyond our borders. I’m excited that you will be a leader in our community here to provide a guiding hand, a calming word, and a motivating charge for us to keep pushing forward towards social justice and neighborly connection.
When I was in high school, in Ames, Iowa, a formative moment for me was attending a meeting at our local Unitarian Universalist church. The Westboro Baptist Church was coming to town with their hateful, homophobic-slur filled agenda, intending to protest the installation of a gay minister at another church in town. The meeting I was attending to help plan a counter protest.
I am Hindu and I have always felt the UU is a place where I can come as I am. As many of you know, I reference our city’s One Community Open to All motto in much of my own service to this city. I know that this sentiment is also core to what the UU is all about.
I have learned that that commitment to social justice, along the offering of community space is core to UU values. I’ve been inside this building many times, to attend Melrose Organizes for Real Equality meetings, to participate in panels presented by White People Challenging Racism, to sign up to volunteer for activities around town on Martin Luther King Day, and to learn more about the METCO program. I’m pleased to learn that the activism of this congregation goes even further, to include efforts such as your Green Sanctuary program and much more. We don’t have a lot of civic meeting spaces in town, and your open doors help to fill that need. For that and so much more, I thank you.