On Valentine's Day, Global Calls for a "Moral Resistance Rooted In Love"

Seizing upon the energy of Valentine's Day, people around the world are demonstrating for justice on Tuesday, whether by participating in protests, participating in democracy, or both.

Organizers and supporters of the Day of Revolutionary Love, Day of Rising—who include leaders from last month's Women's March, Rev. William Barber of the Moral Mondays movement, and One Billion Rising, a campaign to end violence against women—say their aim is "to reclaim love as a public ethic and a way to fight for justice."

And while the effort is global, they place a particular emphasis on the United States, where President Donald Trump

has signed a cascade of executive orders that threaten the safety and lives of hundreds of thousands of people—refugees, immigrants, Muslims, the Indigenous, Black people, and all working people in need of healthcare. He closed our borders to all refugees and also immigrants from seven primarily Muslim countries—a de facto Muslim ban. He has directed our government to construct a wall on our southern border, punish sanctuary cities, facilitate the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and construct pipelines across the sacred lands of Indigenous people. He has escalated a rape culture and threatened the rights of women on every front. And he has signaled there is more to come, including curtailing LGBTQI rights and rolling back voting rights. In order to change a culture of normalization that makes these policies possible, we as people of faith and moral conscience rise up in an army of moral resistance rooted in love.

"We declare our revolutionary love for all who are in harm's way," said Eve Ensler, playwright of the Vagina Monologues, activist, and founder of One Billion Rising and V-Day. "We join forces and stand together with the millions of people across the planet who are rising to end violence against and girls and resist racist patriarchy. Smack in the middle of the word emergency is the word emerge. We are rising, we are dancing, we are listening and protecting, knowing revolutionary love will provide the energy and prophetic vision for the emergence of a new paradigm."

Participants are invited to express their #RevolutionaryLove in three ways:

1. Calling Congress and urging lawmakers to "join millions of us who are committed to moral resistance throughout this administration;"
2. Showing up at a One Billion Rising event to help end violence against women and girls; and/or
3. Posting a Love Letter "to others, to your opponents, or to yourself."

"We're rising up to declare that love is action," said Valarie Kaur, Sikh American civil rights activist and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. "Love calls us to fight for people in harm's way, to challenge the culture and institutions that allow our opponents to hurt us, and to care for ourselves and protect joy as moral resistance. Revolutionary Love is the call of our times."

Watch Kaur's call for Revolutionary Love below: