Beloved children of one sky, it's showtime. The curtain is rising on a new season, and I want us in our seats together, eyes wide open, hearts soft.
For nearly 250 years this country has tried to live up to the words it wrote down: that all of us are created equal. Some years we step forward. Some years we stumble. But the dream endures because it was never only about government. It has always been about family.
Today I want to speak one simple truth. Every person counts. Every voice counts the same. One person, one vote. Not a chosen few. All of us.
The Wound
When the Constitution was written in 1787, the slave states wanted more power. So the founders agreed to count each enslaved person as three-fifths of a human being. Those men, women, and children could not vote. They could not own themselves. Yet they were counted so their owners could claim extra seats in Congress. The Electoral College grew from that same bargain. James Madison admitted the South would lose under a pure popular vote. The system was shaped, in part, to protect the power of slaveholders.
That wound has never fully closed. Twice in my lifetime the candidate with the most votes did not become president. And today millions of Americans still lack a full voice:
Washington, D.C.—roughly 700,000 people who pay federal taxes and serve in our military—has no senator and no voting member of the House.
Puerto Rico—more than three million American citizens since 1917 who have fought and died in our wars—cannot vote for president while living on the island and has no voting member of Congress.
Many of these neighbors are Black and brown. That is not chance. It is the long shadow of history.
The Teaching: One Person, One Vote
In 1964 the Supreme Court declared in Reynolds v. Sims that a vote cannot weigh more in one place than another. One person, one vote. The Court applied it to state legislatures. The rest of our system is still catching up.
At the Universal Life Church we teach that we are all children of the same universe. No one is born a three-fifths soul. No one is born a half-citizen. If the Creator sees us as equal, how can our ballot box see us any other way? Equity is not a political slogan. It is a spiritual truth. When the family gathers at the table, everyone gets a chair.
The Three Doors
There are three doors we can open. None requires a miracle—only people who care enough to push.
Door one: Make Washington, D.C. a state. It takes a simple law, not a constitutional amendment. The House has already passed the bill once. The federal buildings and monuments would remain a small federal district; the neighborhoods where people actually live would become a state with two senators and a representative.
Door two: Honor the will of Puerto Rico. The people have voted for statehood more than once, most recently with 58.6 percent support in 2024. Those votes are still only advisory. Congress must act. Our task is to make sure Congress finally listens with respect and lets Puerto Ricans decide their own future.
Door three: Elect the president by national popular vote. A full constitutional amendment is steep. But the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact offers a practical path. States agree to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. Eighteen states plus D.C. have already joined, totaling 222 electoral votes. The compact activates at 270. We need 48 more, and states must join by July 20, 2028 for it to apply that year.
The Call: The Next Two Years
A new Congress cannot snap its fingers. The president still holds a veto until 2029, and the filibuster remains. So D.C. and Puerto Rico may need a little more time. Waiting, however, is not the same as standing still.
Here is what we can do now:
- Call and write your state lawmakers. Urge them to join the National Popular Vote Compact. Michigan and Pennsylvania could help put it over the top.
- Ask the House to pass the D.C. and Puerto Rico bills again so every member is on the record.
- Teach the history. Most Americans have never heard the three-fifths story. Truth is powerful medicine.
- Invite neighbors from D.C. and Puerto Rico to speak in your churches, clubs, and living rooms. Let them tell their own stories.
- And keep it in love. We are not fighting our neighbors. We are calling them home to the family table.
Good people will disagree. Listen first. Then answer gently. The Electoral College was meant to protect small states, yet candidates now ignore most of them and camp only in a few swing states. Under a popular vote, a voter in Wyoming and a voter in California count exactly the same. Statehood for D.C. keeps a federal district for the Capitol and White House; it simply stops treating 700,000 neighbors like furniture. Puerto Ricans are not of one mind—exactly why Congress should offer a clear, binding choice and honor the result.
My Blessing
Last night, America voted. Let this Congress not be a Congress. Let it be a family. Not a nation. A family of Americans, and Japan, Russia, Paris. One family under one sky.
Now let this family look to the skies. Let us seed the stars. Plant life where no man has gone. Merge with the intelligence, technologically, and in other dimensions. We are children of the universe.
This week, this month, and forever. Let us fly. It opens on January the sixth, when the Aquarian Age delivers. Our struggle of the past. And our hopes. To keep hope alive.
George Freeman, Visionary, Presiding Chaplain
The Spiritual Blog
