When I heard the press around Rev. Wright's speech, I kept thinking about my own tradition's(Unitarian Universalist) shared congregational polity with the UCC that gives ministers the right to a free pulpit -- the right to express ourselves without limitation of dogma or institutional boundaries. I learned in divinity school that we are to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable" when we are in the pulpit. It has never once occurred to me that I have to agree with my minister on everything he says or that anyone who comes to my services has to agree with me on anything or everything. Indeed in my tradition, we expect as many "I really disagreed with you today" as "good sermon, Reverend."

But, we also have freedom on the pew. We encourage our congregants to take what they like, to leave the rest, to only believe our truths as it reflects their own. In all the reports on Reverend Wright, I haven't seen a news report that remembers to tell us that Trinity UCC has more than 6000 members and is the largest church in the UCC.

That's because these attacks on the Reverend Wright aren't really about him or his church -- they are about trying to discredit Senator Obama. In this "GOTCHA 24/7 news cycle" Governor Paterson felt he needed to tell us about the most private of issues in a marriage before the press could do a story on it, and every association that a candidate has is available for dissection and ridicule.

A hurrah to Senator Obama for saying what all of us in free churches know -- that our ministers have the right to speak their hearts and minds from the pulpit and the people in the pews have the right to love them even when we disagree.

Rev. Debra Haffner