Our exploration into the history of the United States Constitution continues. The information is from a booklet entitled The U.S. Constitution And Fascinating Facts About It, published by the Oak Hill Publishing Company and shared with us by Veronica.

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The first constitution in our nation’s history was the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles of Confederation we took "baby steps" as a nation. The government conducted the affairs of the country during the last two years of the Revolutionary War, helped to negotiate the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and produced two monumental pieces of legislation in the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

While the Articles of Confederation was a plan of government based upon the principles fought for in the American Revolution- ary War, it contained crucial flaws. It had no power of national taxation, no power to control trade, and it provided for a comparatively weak executive [branch]. Therefore, it could not enforce legislation. It was a "league of friendship" which was opposed to any type of national authority. The Articles of Confederation’s greatest weakness, however, was that it had no direct origin in the people themselves - it knew only state sovereignty. Each state, therefore, had the power to collect its own taxes, issue currency, and provide for its own militia. The government could not govern effectively because of a general lack of power to compel states to honor national obligations. The government’s main activity was to control foreign policy and conclude treaties. Economic credibility was a major problem because the government owed $42 million (more than $33 billion in today's dollars) after the Revolutionary War, and the debt was mainly owed to American patriots. This financial obligation was not paid off until the early part of the 1800’s.

It would have been very difficult for our country to have created a stronger second constitution without learning from the mistakes of the first. The Articles of Confederation served as a transition between the Revolutionary War and the Constitution.

Los Unitarios Universalistas creemos en la espiritualidad libre, sin dogmas y sin jerarquías eclesiásticas que quieran imponerte sus doctrinas y su moral. Información www.uua.org

The remodeling is finished and our beautiful new food service/ office area is in full use. The convenience of having a sink - a beautiful deep sink - and a dishwasher continues to be marveled at and enjoyed by everyone who has helped with Sunday Coffee, Pastry, Fruit & Clean-Up duty. The luxury doesn’t end there. We also have a refrigerator (with an ice maker) and a microwave (for melting the ice). The cabinets are beautiful, there’s a small acre of counter space, and a built-in filing cabinet for the office!! Do pop in and have a goggle at our beautiful new space.

The proud partners: Huey Mitchell, Board President and

Kay Cox, Building & Grounds Chair

One of the most interesting speakers to come to the Fellowship was here, not on a Sunday, but on a Tuesday. Marc Adams came to speak on February 28th to the PFLAG group that meets in our building each month. He came to talk about HeartStrong, the national, nonprofit educational organization that he founded with two other people in 1998. Because of the discrimination against and abuse of gays that exists in schools, especially private religious schools, it is important that students are aware of the work HeartStrong does and the help and hope it offers.

Because the work of self-acceptance can be especially difficult for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, Adams has recognized the need for an outreach program for students in religious educational institutions (grade school through graduate school) where they are taught to hate themselves and their feelings. The U S Department of Education reports that there are approximately 6.5 million students attending K-12 religious educational institutions in this country. According to Adams, "HeartStrong has more that a dozen outreach programs in place to use in our efforts to reach out to those who have attended or are attending religious schools and colleges and who have to deal with being GLBT" in these settings.

continued on Page 4 ... see HeartStrong