Minute of Support for Standing Rock Sioux

Multnomah Friends Meeting (Quakers) in Portland, Oregon thanks the Standing Rock Sioux for bringing together tribes and peoples from across the country and around the world to protect water.  We know that water is life and that water, like spirit, connects all living things.

We join our voices with those who oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline because expanding fossil fuel use will accelerate climate change and further damage our planet.

We are informed by three hundred years of Quaker testimonies in our affirmation of the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples to protect their homes and their sacred lands.

We beseech the civil authorities to end their violence against peaceful people engaged in prayer. Quakers, like the tribes, share a commitment to non-violence.

Thus we minute our support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and for the other water protectors who have joined them on their land.  We are one in the spirit.