Fort Lauderdale GA Has Issues

    No New Yorker living in the post-Sept. 11 world is the least bit surprised by the often over-the-top security measures in place here.  Residing as we do in the eternally orange zone, we long ago grew used to being asked for ID to enter any building short of a McDonalds. There are few high-rise office buildings here that aren’t decked out with a webcam, poised to take a grainy shot of you and transfer it to a visitor’s badge. Perhaps our town is a little paranoid, but once you’ve lived through a terrorist attack and remain a terrorist target, it’s hard not to think about avoiding The Next Event.  Separate from all these issues, I’m a black woman in America, and thus live without any expectation of living without some kind of scrutiny.  I learned long ago to keep my ID current, to keep my temper in check, and to keep my eyes open for the names of my interrogators, in case I have to file a complaint.
    But the security challenges that have gradually been revealed in the run-up to the UU General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale are quite another matter. The recent memo  from UUA President, The Rev. Bill Sinkford, UUA Moderator Gini Courter, and UUA Planning Committee Chair Beth McGregor, has acknowledged the considerable difficulties inherent in the Fort Lauderdale arrangements, and yet asks us as board members not to move the site of our annual gathering.  If the conversation on the UU Ministers’ Association chat and other venues is any indication, this request may be easier made than granted.
    There is something squirrelly about the thought of the religious community that once published The Pentagon Papers subjecting its gathered delegates and Sunday-morning worshippers to search by the Department of Homeland Security.  More than one of us who’ve spent the past several years preaching about the slippery slope of American civil liberties will have to decide if we feel like sliding down to Florida next June, much less explaining it to our congregations.  The estimated $800,000 loss that the Association would have to absorb in order to change venues could be just as tough to justify to the fiscal conservatives among us.   And nearly everyone seems too well-behaved to ask why the Planning Committee hasn’t taken a harder line with officials who assured UU site visitors five years earlier that the convention center would be outside the security zone in June 2008.  Inquiring minds want to know….