WHEREAS, the 1982 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association reaffirms resolutions on nuclear arms and human needs previously considered and adopted by the Association's General Assemblies; and

WHEREAS, the 1981 global arms budget totalled $550 billion, about $100 billion of which was spent on nuclear arms; and

WHEREAS, the United States now possesses more than 31,000 tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics more that 20,000 of the same; and

WHEREAS, the result of this continuing build-up is that the United States has enough bombs to overkill the Russian population 40 times and the USSR has enough bombs to overkill the American population 20 times (one intercontinental bomber is now capable of dropping a payload equal to the total destructive power of all bombs used by all combatants in World War II, including the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; one Trident submarine, of 27 planned, is capable of destroying 192 major cities); and

WHEREAS, among further results of this build-up are serious negative effects upon social well-being, psychological and spiritual health of nations and peoples, and serious depletions of economic well-being, such as decreasing benefits to the aged, blind, and disabled, and reducing public benefits to poor people at a time of increasing cost of living;

BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1982 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association urges each member church and fellowship and every Unitarian Universalist to join with other religious and political groups within their own communities to "massively and unequivocally oppose the obscenity which is called the nuclear arms race"; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That this Assembly urges all Unitarian Universalists to recognize and support solemnly and with hope the great new historical movement known as The New Abolitionism, "a worldwide moral and religious movement which says 'no' to the nuclear arms race and nuclear war as the old Abolitionism launched a crusade to say 'no' to slavery. The New Abolitionism against slavery . . . can be a winning crusade" because it must; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That in the spirit of The New Abolitionism, this Assembly affirms continuing support of the campaign for a mutual freeze of the nuclear armories of both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; that it urges the proposal of George F. Kennan for a 50 percent reduction of the nuclear stockpiles of both the United States and the USSR be seriously negotiated; and that it endorses the resolution adopted by the 1981 United Nations General Assembly that "the use of nuclear weapons would be a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and a crime against humanity."