Minutes

Proposed Minute to Boycott Chevron in support of Palestine

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The oppression and genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli government (not the Israeli/Jewish people) continues. Since October, 2023, over 55,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands are unaccounted for under rubble. The lives of over 17,000 children have been brutally ended. Hospitals and schools continue to be bombed. Since March, the Israeli government blockade has prevented humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, a violation of international humanitarian law. Food and medical supplies are prevented from getting into Gaza. Three quarters of Gaza’s population are at ‘Emergency’ or ‘Catastrophic’ levels of food deprivation. (WHO)

American tax dollars aid Israel in its genocidal campaign. Many of us feel frustrated as the world looks on in silence, wondering what we can do. We look to national Friends organizations for guidance.

Olympia Monthly Meeting joins American Friends Service Committee in endorsing the campaign to boycott Chevron, which is complicit in this genocide due to its extensive natural gas network off the coast of Palestine/Israel, providing both energy and hundreds of millions in tax dollars to the Israeli war machine. That money helps fuel the bombardment of more than 90 percent of homes in Gaza and the violent displacement of Palestinians.

We have carefully deliberated and educated ourselves on the situation in Gaza, and we are taking this public stand, agreeing that as a Meeting we will boycott Chevron as long as it continues to fuel Israel’s war crimes.

We encourage all Quakers to join us in renouncing complicity in this genocide and take a moral stand in whatever ways they discern. This stance aligns with our Quaker testimony in support of peace, and against all war and the killing of human beings.

Suggested actions:

  • Don’t buy gas from Chevron
  • Write to Chevron CEO (Suggested message: Tell Chevron CEO Mike Wirth You’re Boycotting Chevron) “I am joining the growing global boycott of Chevron, demanding that your company no longer conduct business that gravely violates Palestinian human rights and benefits Israel’s genocidal regime of apartheid.”

Minute of Support for Lawsuit: PYM et.al. vs Department of Homeland Security (Approved February 9, 2025)

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The Olympia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) stands in support of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, and the individual monthly meetings in their 2025 lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security. As Quakers, we affirm that freedom to exercise religion is a crucial right of all people that is enshrined in the United States Constitution.

For decades, United States policy has prevented immigration enforcement, including arrests, investigations, and surveillance at sensitive places including houses of worship. The Trump-Vance administration’s new policy allows the government to conduct immigration enforcement in these areas. Fear of government enforcement may deter worshippers from attending services, infringing on their right to associate for religious exercise.

Quakers believe that a diversity of voices is essential to our spiritual experience and have a historic commitment to peace. When the government takes actions that reduce access to worship and potentially allows a violent encounter within a place of worship, it interferes with our ability to participate in our faith.

Minute Endorsing AFSC’s A different future is possible: Quaker organizations share a vision for peace in Palestine and Israel (Approved June 9, 2024)

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Olympia Friends Meeting has endorsed AFSC’s A different future is possible: Quaker organizations share a vision for peace in Palestine and Israel. (Also here in PDF format.)

We ask that our Members, Attenders and F/friends read it, consider it, and take the actions in it to support peace.

Minute of Inclusion – Welcoming Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People (Approved May 13, 2018)

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We welcome all to share in worship and the activities of our common life. As part of our evolving struggle to live our testimony of equality, Olympia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends minutes our commitment to being an open and affirming, safe and nurturing place for everyone to live fully that which the Spirit is leading them to be.

Olympia Monthly Meeting seeks to honor the gender identity and expression of each person, as understood by that person. We extend our loving care to people of all genders, including, but not limited to those who identify as: transgender, genderqueer, gender-fluid, agender, gender non-conforming, two-spirit, women, men, intersex persons, and their families and friends.

While we are at many different places in our understanding and comfort, we recognize that when we embrace the Light within the full spectrum of gender identities of our Meeting, our worship deepens and our community is enriched.

We will continue to educate ourselves, each other, and our communities and take appropriate action to bring about a more equal world.

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Minute of Inclusion – Welcoming Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People (Approved May 13, 2018) (PDF format)

Addressing Systemic Racism (Minute approved on October 9, 2016)

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Olympia Monthly Meeting acknowledges and embraces the need to address systemic/institutional racism both within our OMM community and the wider community.  To take action on this concern, we agree that we will do the following:

  1. Members and attenders of the Olympia Monthly Meeting will make time in our lives to make a real contribution to an ongoing effort to reverse systemic racism and to promote personal transformation concerning our own racism.
  2. As a first step, we will form a subcommittee on racism under the care of our Peace and Social Justice Committee to help structure and organize the work. We encourage broad participation in the subcommittee among all members and attenders. We ask this subcommittee to help us hold ourselves accountable to contributing to those changes that we believe our Testimony and Discipline require of us. This work will be reviewed after one year to determine any required next steps or changes in structure.
  3. When planning and pacing this work, we ask the subcommittee to consider the following:

i. How can we increase our experience of the “light of truth” by working with African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color to develop an increased individual and corporate understanding of systemic racism?

ii. How do we identify traditions and behaviors that could make our society and monthly meetings less inviting to people who have been harmed by systemic racism? How do we increase our awareness and sensitivity to better welcome these individuals and their families or descendants when they are led to join us?

iii. What ways exist to celebrate our neighbors by meeting with them where they live, work, worship, and play? Consideration of African-American activist and scholar Ron Daniels’ statement that the “goal … is not so much integration and organization, at least from the vantage of most African Americans. It is a question of equity and parity,” and his discussion of “coerced internalization of the dominating, or white culture” also encourages us to look for ways to meet with neighbors where they are most at home.

iv. What are other Friends organizations doing to contribute to all the above work? What opportunities exist for us to contribute to these efforts?

The Minute was Accepted.
10/09/2016
Olympia, WA