INTERMOUNTAIN YEARLY MEETING

Ramallah Friends School Choir Offers Hope for Gaza

"From Ramallah Friends School to the world, we share our version of the timeless 'Little Drummer Boy.' Our hearts come together in prayer for the safety of the children in Gaza. May our shared prayers echo for peace and justice, weaving a tapestry of hope, embracing the shared humanity we all hold dear.” 

Please see the link to watch:https://youtu.be/ZsEbIVJy0Gg?si=jj3WoKsFJt2OTGFO.

For more information about the Ramallah Friends School please see the link to their newsletter: https://www.rfs.edu.ps/en/news/1701781985

Statement of Concern about Violence in Israel-Palestine

November 5, 2023

We are heartbroken by the recent violence in Israel and Gaza. As Quakers, we deeply mourn the loss of all lives and pray for those who have lost loved ones due to this latest escalation. We unequivocally condemn Hamas’ attacks and inhumane treatment of civilians and call for the immediate release of all hostages. We also condemn the indiscriminate and violent Israeli response that has already claimed thousands of civilian lives. 

More war and weapons won’t bring peace. In the face of growing violence, lawmakers must:

• Work to de-escalate this situation by calling for restraint, ceasefire, de-escalation, and respect for international law.

• Protect lives—those of the Israeli hostages and the millions of civilians who live in Gaza.

• Address the root causes underlying this explosion of violence.

We call for an immediate ceasefire, de-escalation, and restraint to prevent further civilian harm in Israel and the Palestinian territories 

(Note: the statement is adapted from a recent issuance by FCNL)

IMYM Friends Call for a Cease-fire in Gaza

IMYM’s P&SJ Roundtable on October 28, helped to encourage peace action steps among IMYM Meetings when Friends reported their Meetings were drafting minutes and asking their clerks for called meetings, urging a Gaza cease-fire to abate the terrible suffering there.  

At least seven IMYM meetings have adopted cease-fire minutes -- Tempe, Albuquerque, Moab, Santa Fe, Boulder, Mountain View, and Fort Collins.  Friends then shared this action with their Congressional Representatives and Senators, as well as the White House.

The IMYM Roundtable web site shares “action minutes” and encourages Friends to ask their clerks for called meetings to discuss adopting this peace action.  (See IMYM.org, P&SJ Roundtable, P&SJ Action Minutes.)

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Two key documents contribute wording for the minutes.  Here is Fort Collins’ minute, citing the letter of concern from five key Quaker organizations. https://afsc.org › newsroom › quaker-organizations-call-ceasefire-and-humanitarian-protections-

It is followed by Boulder’s minute incorporating wording drawn from FCNL.https://www.fcnl.org › resources › publicly-call-ceasefire-israel-and-palestine

10,29Fort Collins Friends Meeting has unity in support for the letter written and signed by the American Friends Service Committee, Canadian Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Quakers in Britain, and Quaker United Nations Office calling for ceasefire in Gaza. We also recognize that the casualties are increasing daily. We request that all parties involved in the conflict referenced in the letter be encouraged to immediately adopt humanitarian actions for all people.

Minute 2023-28

This minute of support will be sent to IMYM and to our congressional representatives.

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Boulder Friends Meeting: Statement on Israel and Gaza, Approved Nov. 5, 2023

We are heartbroken by the recent violence in Israel and Gaza. As Quakers, we deeply mourn the loss of all lives and pray for those who have lost loved ones due to this latest escalation. We unequivocally condemn Hamas’ attacks and inhumane treatment of civilians and call for the immediate release of all hostages. We also condemn the indiscriminate and violent Israeli response that has already claimed thousands of civilian lives. 

More war and weapons won’t bring peace. In the face of growing violence, lawmakers must:

• Work to de-escalate this situation by calling for restraint, ceasefire, de-escalation, and respect for international law.

• Protect lives—those of the Israeli hostages and the millions of civilians who live in Gaza.

• Address the root causes underlying this explosion of violence.

We call for an immediate ceasefire, de-escalation, and restraint to prevent further civilian harm in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Statement of Concern about the Ukraine War 

Boulder Friends Meeting 

July 10, 2022 

As Russian troops continue to invade Ukraine, we stand in  solidarity and sympathy with the people of Ukraine who have  suffered egregious assaults on their lives. We also stand with the  people of Russia and all whose lives are torn apart by this  war. We grieve the loss of life and the destruction that war  brings. We feel compassion for all caught up in its web. 

We call on the US government, NATO, Ukraine, and Russia to  urgently work toward ending hostilities, and the removal of all  foreign military troops from Ukraine. We urge all parties to  remain at the negotiating table and to keep lines of  communication and dialogue open and active. 

For more than 350 years, the Religious Society of Friends has  sought a world without war, actively seeking to build peace  among nations and address the root causes of violence. We are  called to uphold justice, to advance nonviolent solutions to  conflict, and to promote peaceful cooperation among all peoples. 

We affirm again that war is never the answer. Lasting peace can  only be achieved through peaceful means. 

Call to IMYM Friends and Monthly Meetings: Please Implement the IMYM-Approved Minutes to Support Healing for the Indigenous Boarding Schools  

At our annual meetings in 2021 and 2022, IMYM approved minutes that state: 

“IMYM urges individual Friends and monthly meetings to watch for this bill (Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act,S. 1723) and to urge their congressional representatives to support it. IMYM further urges Friends to learn the history of the Quaker Indian schools and consider ways to support Native-managed healing processes, including programs to teach Native languages and prevent youth suicide.” 

To implement the first point: Senator Elizabeth Warren has reintroduced this bill, and Friends can speedily contact their Senators and Representatives at https://fcnl.quorum.us/campaign/44488/?utm_source=fcnlweb

To implement the second point: IMYM’s 2022 Keynote Speaker, Ernest House, Jr., of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, told us about a new charter school on his reservation in Towaoc, Colorado. The Kwiyagat Community Academy “envisions a future where the graduates of the school will have a strong grounding in Nuchiu (Ute) culture and language while incorporating modern perspectives as contributing members of the Ute Mountain Ute community.” Learn more on their website:https://utekca.org/

This school is much in need of financial support. We can implement the IMYM minutes by sending donations to: Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (please be sure to write “For the Kwiyagat Community Academy’ on the memo line). Mail to: 

    Ute Mountain Ute Tribe

    Kwiyagat Community Academy

    P O Box 189

    Towaoc, CO 81334

For more information, see this article in the Colorado Sun: Feb 14, 2023: On the Ute Mountain Ute reservation, a new school aims to preserve culture, language, sense of community           

https://coloradosun.com/2023/02/14/ute-mountain-ute-charter-school-kca/?utm_source=The%20Colorado%20Sun%20Newsletters&utm_campaign=SUNRISER_20230214&utm_medium=email

Thank you, Friends.   

Indigenous Peoples Concerns Committee, Boulder Meeting

The Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends 

Minutes of Concern 

Annual Gathering June 15, 2018. 

GUN VIOLENCE MINUTE 

As Quakers, we believe that every person has worth and dignity. It is essential to respond to the results of gun violence in our society with voices and action. We call on our legislators to stand with the Florida teens and youth throughout the country who are speaking out against certain policies of the National Rifle Association, specifically the NRA’s refusal to support a ban on the purchase and ownership by civilians of assault rifles. Begin by reinstating the ban on assault-style weapons. Continue with thorough background checks and close the gun-sales loopholes. Promote conversations, forums and discussions to bring about change in every community to combat the sources of violence we see today. Stand with our courageous high-school students who are urgently leading the way toward a safer, more peaceful society. Congress must act immediately to protect each sacred life. We will support lawmakers who will make the changes to the laws that we need. Too many lives have been destroyed by these terrible mass shootings. Join the many voices speaking out. The tide is turning. It’s time to come together and support life-giving change in our communities. 

HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE BORDER MINUTE 

Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM) of Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) declares to our country, our government, and the world that we, as a Yearly Meeting and as Friends, stand on the side of equality, community, humanity and peace through justice. We condemn our government’s abuse of human rights on the border and in our communities. We call for an end to the policy of zero tolerance which denies migrants the right to apply for asylum at the border, as is required by U.S. and international law, which has forcibly separated children and infants from their parents, which detains immigrants and asylum seekers in prisons or internment camps, and which forces more and more migrants to choose dangerous routes into our country, causing many deaths and much suffering. 

NORTH KOREA DIPLOMACY MINUTE 

War with North Korea would impose disastrous costs in lives and treasure on the people of the Korean Peninsula, the United States and the world. We urge the Trump administration and our members of Congress to fully support a path of diplomacy with North Korea based on negotiation and dialogue. This process will require patience, give and take and a commitment to preventing war.

Action​ ​minutes​ ​approved​ ​by​ ​IMYM​ ​(June​ ​2017-2016)

FGC​ ​Institutional​ ​Assessment

MINUTE​ ​06172017(3):​ ​IMYM supports a Friends General Conference institutional assessment of systemic racism in FGC and its constituent meetings. We will consider participating in any self-examination exercises that may be part of this assessment.

Border​ ​Convergence

MINUTE​ ​06172017​ ​(4):​ ​IMYM endorses the 2017 Border Convergence sponsored by the School of the Americas Watch as a nonviolent means of opposing the militarization of the border and the mistreatment of those who cross it. (The border convergence event will be Nov. 10-12, 2017 in Nogales, Mexico.)

Nuclear​ ​Weapons

Minute​ ​2016.12​: Intermountain Yearly Meeting, including the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and the southwestern part of Texas, (Quakers), Calls upon our elected representatives in the Congress of the United States to endorse United Nations Resolution 70/48, “Humanitarian pledge for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons,” adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 7, 2105. (http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/N1541140.pdf).

In addition to documenting the unacceptability of nuclear weapons today, the Humanitarian Pledge, endorsed by 123 nations (none of them nuclear), calls for these actions by endorsers: “4. Requests all States possessing nuclear weapons, pending the total elimination of their nuclear weapon arsenals, to take concreteinterim measures to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons detonations, including by reducing the operational status of nuclear weapons and moving nuclear weapons away from deployment and into storage, diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in military doctrines and rapidly reducing all types of nuclear weapons.”

For the United States, compliance with the Humanitarian Pledge would at least include:

● Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

● Termination of U.S. plutonium pit production

● Acceleration of U.S. nuclear warhead dismantling

● Cessation of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb refurbishing and upgrading

● Cessation of the new nuclear cruise missile (Long-range Standoff Weapon — LRSO)

● Reinvigorated negotiations with other nations to further the goals of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Support​ ​of​ ​Planned​ ​Parenthood

Minute​ ​2016.13​: Planned Parenthood has recently come under extreme criticism from politicians because of

allegations that have now been proven false. The current political move to defund Planned Parenthood would

be disastrous. It would make it impossible for millions of Americans to obtain preventive services such as cancer screening and family planning. Reproductive health care is a lawful human right that allows individuals to choose how to control their fertility and improve their health. Family planning is the most effective way to avoid unplanned pregnancies. Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends recognizes the

importance of Planned Parenthood clinics to millions of men and women in the country. We support these

clinics throughout the U.S. and recognize the staff members for the important services they provide. In addition

to voicing our support of Planned Parenthood, we ask ourselves as members and attenders to consider taking

the following actions:

● Write Letters to the Editor and OpEds supporting reproductive health in general and specifically supporting

Planned Parenthood.

● Write to your legislators supporting reproductive health in general and specifically supporting Planned Parenthood

● Volunteer to escort patients or to help in other needed ways at a Planned Parenthood clinic

● Donate financial support to local Planned Parenthood clinics.

2016 IMYM minutes

Nuclear Weapons - Minute 2016.12: IMYM approved the Minute on Nuclear Weapons: Intermountain Yearly Meeting, including the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and the southwestern part of Texas, (Quakers), Calls upon our elected representatives in the Congress of the United States to endorse United Nations Resolution 70/48,“Humanitarian pledge for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons,” adopted by  the United Nations General Assembly on December 7, 2105.  (http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/N1541140.pdf).

In addition to documenting the unacceptability of nuclear weapons today, the Humanitarian Pledge, endorsed

by 123 nations (none of them nuclear), calls for these actions by endorsers: “4. Requests all States possessing

nuclear weapons, pending the total elimination of their nuclear weapon arsenals, to take concrete interim

measures to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons detonations, including by reducing the operational status of

nuclear weapons and moving nuclear weapons away from deployment and into storage, diminishing the role of

nuclear weapons in military doctrines and rapidly reducing all types of nuclear weapons.”

For the United States, compliance with the Humanitarian Pledge would at least include: * Senate ratification of

the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty * Termination of U.S. plutonium pit production * Acceleration of

U.S. nuclear warhead dismantling * Cessation of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb refurbishing and upgrading *

Cessation of the new nuclear cruise missile (Long-range Standoff Weapon — LRSO) * Reinvigorated negotiations with other nations to further the goals of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Planned Parenthood - Minute 2016.13: IMYM Approves the Minute in Support of Planned Parenthood: Planned Parenthood has recently come under extreme criticism from politicians because of allegations that have now been proven false. The current political move to defund Planned Parenthood would be disastrous. It would make it impossible for millions of Americans to obtain preventive services such as cancer screening and family planning. Reproductive health care is a lawful human right that allows individuals to choose how to control their fertility and improve their health. Family planning is the most effective way to avoid unplanned pregnancies. Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends recognizes the importance of Planned Parenthood clinics to millions of men and women in the country. We support these clinics throughout the U.S. and recognize the staff members for the important services they provide. In addition to voicing our support of Planned Parenthood, we ask ourselves as members and attenders to consider taking the following actions: * Write Letters to the Editor and OpEds supporting reproductive health in general and specifically supporting Planned Parenthood. * Write to your legislators supporting reproductive health in general and specifically supporting Planned Parenthood * Volunteer to escort patients or to help in other needed ways at a Planned Parenthood clinic * Donate financial support to local Planned Parenthood clinics.

The Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) united on the following minute during our annual gathering in June of 2014. Study of the issue began with workshops provided in 2012 and has continued through out our four states for two years.

Minute to Affirm the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Friends who reside in the Inter-Mountain region of the United States are aware that we occupy lands that were

recognized by treaties as the territories of many Indigenous Nations and then taken from them. Consciously or

unconsciously, non-Indigenous people benefit from historical and ongoing injustices committed against the Native peoples of this land. This benefit comes at great human cost to all of us, indigenous and non-indigenous, in the loss of opportunities to grow in transformative understanding from other cultures. We commit ourselves to humble self-reflection, as individuals and as a community of faith, to align our actions with the practice of right relationship among all peoples.  

In order to build relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples founded in equity and justice, we affirm our support for implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007 and endorsed by President Obama in 2010. It affirms the right of Indigenous Peoples to exist as unique cultural groups and to exercise self-determination and self-government. It seeks to ensure that Indigenous Peoples collectively and individually enjoy all the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law. It establishes standards for equitable political, legal and social policies that can assist Indigenous Peoples in combating discrimination, marginalization, and oppression. 

Just as Quakers played a role in promoting passage of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we acknowledge that we must labor to implement it. We call on our government to make necessary changes in U.S. laws and policies so that rights of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians are fully supported, in conformity with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As Friends, we will endeavor to learn how we can support the rights of Indigenous Peoples and take conscious steps toward living in right relationship.

For centuries, European policies, principles and legal constructs, grounded in the ethic of conquest and

colonization, have been used to justify oppression of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world and denial of

inalienable rights, both individual and in national and community existence. These justifications for conquest,

occupation and exploitation have the common feature that they violate principles of international law which

European peoples and settler states have claimed for themselves, widely accepted Christian teaching and our

Quaker testimonies of equality, peace, integrity, community and stewardship. Throughout the centuries and even today, Indigenous Peoples attribute many forms of discrimination to these racist doctrines and their expression in contemporary law and policy. 

In solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and guided by the requests from representatives of leading Indigenous rights organizations, including, among others, the International Indian Treaty Council, the North American Indigenous Caucus, and the American Indian Law Alliance, and in concert with a growing number of religious organizations, Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends utterly rejects any legal doctrine which accords less than full human and communal rights to any of the world's peoples or their members. We urge our governments at every level of our federal system and all of the world's states to review their laws, regulations, and policies impacting Indigenous Peoples and to repeal laws, regulations, and policies that reflect ethnocentric, feudal, and religious prejudices. We accept our own responsibility to work to change the economic, social, cultural and educational structures of privilege and injustice rooted in the historical regimes of discovery, occupation and colonization. We welcome the opportunity, in appropriate settings and to the extent freely offered by people themselves, for learning from each other about world views and cultural perspectives of Indigenous communities and persons.

We ask our constituent monthly meetings and worship groups to each take at least one action during the next

year to educate themselves about the history of colonization and its current effects in our country and area

and/or to consult with Native Americans in their area to build relationships.

IMYM Minute of 2012 & 2013 endorsing National Religious Campaign Against Torture

NRCAT Endorsement

Clerk Sara Keeney said that the 2012 annual gathering had sent a proposed minute endorsing

the National Religious Council Against Torture statement to meetings as a Fall Query and in January, 2013 the Continuing Committee approved bringing the minute before this gathering for approval. Sharon Gross read the proposed minute as follows:

The Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends wishes to become

an endorsing member of the National Religious Campaign against Torture (NRCAT).  We

endorse the following “Statement of Conscience,” agreeing that torture is a moral issue.

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest

ideals, hold dear.  It degrades everyone involved--policy-makers, perpetrators and

victims.  It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals.  Any policies that permit

torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.  Nothing less is at

stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation.  What does it signify if

torture is condemned in word, but allowed in deed?  Let America abolish torture now--

without exceptions.

Sara Keeney explained that NRCAT does not allow endorsing groups to amend the statement, so we either accept this as written or not. The minute will be on the agenda for approval at a later session.

IMYM 2013.10: The Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

wishes to become an endorsing member of the National Religious Campaign against

Torture (NRCAT).  We endorse the following “Statement of Conscience”; agreeing that

torture is a moral issue.

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest

ideals, hold dear.  It degrades everyone involved--policy-makers, perpetrators and

victims.  It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals.  Any policies that permit

torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.  Nothing less is at

stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation.  What does it signify if

torture is condemned in word, but allowed in deed?  Let America abolish torture now--

without exceptions.

Clerk Sara Keeney said she would circulate the statement to monthly meetings. She proposes sending the statement to local newspapers as a letter to editor and requests contact information for them and follow up by meetings.