EthicalStL.org

His work has been called heroic. His teaching career has been honored with a Distinguished Faculty Award. His character has been described as "one of the most ethical." He is L. Lewis Wall, M.D., professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University's School of Medicine, and he has been chosen as the 2012 Ethical Humanist of the Year. In choosing Dr. Wall, the Ethical Humanist of the Year Committee honors his passionate and compassionate commitment to women who have been traumatized, stigmatized and ostracized by a severely debilitating medical condition brought on by prolonged childbirth. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Dr. Wall's determination to help women in Africa and other third world countries living with untreated obstetric fistulas, which cause urinary and fecal incontinence, has compelled and inspired him to devote time, money and expertise in the creation of a Worldwide Fistula Fund and the building of the Danja Fistula Center in Niger – one of the few medical centers specifically devoted to assisting women with prevention and treatment of fistulas and restoring those so treated to lives of dignity and worth. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Not content with increased awareness, funding and doctors trained to treat fistulas, Dr. Wall has expanded his vision to launch an ambitious goal of a 12-year, $1.5 billion campaign to create similar centers in all corners of the world where such care is needed. These centers would provide not only surgery but comprehensive maternal health education and outreach. In addition they would serve and empower women with instruction in microfinance.lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Tribute speakers today included Dr. Douglas Brown, John F. Adams, and Dr David G. Mutch.

The Ethical Society recently began a long-term partnership with our adoption of Gateway STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) High School, a public St. Louis City magnet school. In this platform address, Dr. Bender will share with us information about the challenges faced by our city's schools and some unique ways that Gateway is helping prepare young people for bright futures. She will help inspire us as we create ways to collaborate with Gateway that bring out the best in its students and in ourselves.

Recently our Board of Trustees has been working on a new Ethical Society mission statement, based partly on the many ways we've tried over the years to express our collective purpose. We use our current Statement of Purpose to explain who we are and our Sunday School’s Core Values to guide our curriculum for children and youth. Now our Governance improvement process is working to clarify our core values as a community, asking, "What principles do we intend to observe, no matter what?" This question is both a challenge and an opportunity to examine our noble-sounding words and tackle difficult issues of prioritizing values as well as measuring how we 'walk our talk'.

Each August for the last four years Kate has given a platform address comparing and contrasting Ethical Humanism with a different religious or philosophical tradition: Judaism, Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, and secular humanism. In this age when many people choose to stay home on Sundays, or to belong to virtual communities rather than physical ones, we will take a slightly different angle and look at the similarities and differences between the Ethical Society and National Public Radio, which many members listen to religiously, so to speak.

With a decade of immense and fulfilling happiness, followed by a heart-wrenching tragedy, Qinuo left home and traveled the world. While the trips were intended as "living in the moment" escapes and as a diversion from dealing with helplessness and puzzlement, she found herself getting lessons and attaining knowledge from people she met randomly on the streets, in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Norway, Estonia, and many other countries. She has gained new understanding of others, of herself and of her changing self. She has recognized that despite differences in religion, ethnicity, and material wealth, we are all essentially the same, under the skin and under the sun.lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Qinuo Van Dyk was born and raised in Shanghai, China, and came to study in the US in spring, 1990. She has received professional training as a scientist and business person, with a PhD in biomedical sciences and an Executive MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. During her time traveling abroad and coming back to St. Louis, she found herself an anxious student of herself, others and humanity, in general. She has J. Tischner's quote on one side of her business card, "I know that I am, because I know another is."

Wilma Jamieson was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia. She migrated with her husband, Norrie, to the USA in 1966. In 1972 they settled in St Louis where they both became naturalized citizens. Now retired after a 40 year nursing career that included positions in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, this morning she will be recalling "Growing up in Australia in the 40s and 50s". She is the mother of Anne Mitchell, who graduated from Ethical Sunday School, and is the grandmother of nine year old Eddie Mitchell who lives only a few houses away!

This talk will be about a recent obsession of the speaker about how lots of bits of our universe, particularly living things, move together to become groups, and often fall apart again, then repeat the cycle. Specifically, she will speak of human bonding beginning with mother-infant bonding as part of our mammalian roots -- as instrumental in the evolution of language in our own species.lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Liz Zelman is a retired anthropologist and speech/language pathologist. Since retirement, she has participated in Washington University's Lifelong Learning Institute as student and facilitator, this past winter facilitating a course called Evolutionary Ethics. Currently she is writing a book which she plans to complete and publish within the next year.

Today, we are witnessing the greatest assault on voting in over a century. Nearly 200 restrictive voting bills have been introduced in 41 states since 2011 and now new laws in 18 states (representing 78% of electoral votes needed to win the presidency) stand to make the voting more difficult - if not impossible for millions of eligible voters, disproportionately racial minorities, young voters, the working poor, the elderly and people with disabilities. The phenomenon underscores an important philosophical divide, with long-lasting implications, at the core of our notion of democracy - is voting a right or a privilege? lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Denise Lieberman is the Senior Attorney at the Advancement Project, a leading nationwide voting rights organization based in Washington, DC. She spearhead efforts to identify, analyze, and respond to voter suppression efforts on the ground here in Missouri and nationwide through policy analysis, lobbying, legal advocacy, litigation, and community building to advance electoral reform. Ms. Lieberman has emerged as one of the nation's leading experts on voter identification laws, litigating legal challenges to voter ID laws and proposals in several states, including successful legal challenge to photo ID ballot initiative in Missouri. She is also an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, teaching classes on civil rights, constitutional law, and voting rights. Previously, she served as legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

In 2004, the State of Missouri, as well as many other states, amended their Constitutions to codify marriage as only valid between a man and a woman. Those antigay ballot measures, just like those of today, are strategically in place to influence election outcomes. Recently, President Obama made history when he announced his support for same sex couples to have the freedom to marry. A political risk or a strategic move? Traditional and social media went into an election frenzy: "Whose vote will he lose or gain? What about this community and that community?" To date, six federal courts have ruled that discrimination in marriage violates the U.S. Constitution – moving us closer to consideration by the Supreme Court. The court of public opinion has been influenced by these events. Today, polling shows that more Americans than ever before have a close gay or lesbian friend or family member. CNN is reporting that 54 percent of Americans support marriage equality, including a large number of independents and people of color. The conversation about marriage equality has both a personal side and a political side. The question remains, in 2012, "How do they intertwine?" lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Ed Reggi (digital producer / actor / activist) was born in the Big Apple and spent his youth sneaking into the NBC Studios in his Brooklyn neighborhood. Reggi earned his BFA at Fontbonne University in 1994. In 2008, upon hearing of the passing of Proposition 8, Ed began using his background in theatre to organize the first "Show Me No Hate" rally on the steps of the Historic Old Court House. Since that day, he has been organizing protests and rallies in the Show Me State. Today, Ed works as the Digital Strategist and Managing Producer for the Nine Network of Public Media, the local PBS affiliate in St. Louis. When Ed is not counter-protesting Fred Phelps, he is a fierce advocate and public speaker for Marriage Equality.

Not long ago political scientists argued that the political party system essentially was overhauled once a generation, approximately every 40 years. This renovation of party politics was regarded as a crucial mechanism of democracy, its "mainsprings" according to Walter Dean Burnham. Today, as the 2012 elections loom the mainsprings seem broken, and public confidence in our major political institutions has reached unprecedented lows. To restore confidence and repair the damaged political system will require something less than a new constitution but something more than a few reforms around the edges, and I will suggest a few ways forward in this talk. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Daniel Hellinger is Professor of Political Science at Webster University (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) and holds the Ph.D. from Rutgers University. His most recent books are Comparative Politics of Latin America: Democracy at Last? (Routledge, 2011) and Bolivarian Democracy in Venezuela: Participation, Politics and Culture (co-edited with David Smilde, Duke University, 2011). His Global Security Watch: Venezuela, will be published by Praeger Press in 2012. He also is coauthor of The Democratic Façade, a critical analysis of U.S. politics. Hellinger has been a Senior Research scholar at St. Antony's College, Oxford, the Central University of Venezuela, Shanghai Institute for Finance and Economics, and as a Fulbright scholar at the Universidad Católica in Valparaíso, Chile. He serves on the board for the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based NGO that promotes better understanding between the United States and Latin America. Dan is an avid golfer and amateur musician, playing mandolin with two St. Louis area bands.