‘Honoring Dolly Parton’
Sara Kelley, UUCSV Director of Religious Growth and Learning
First published in the Sunbury Daily Item September 5, 2026
It’s been more than a week since Dolly Parton died, and many people are still mourning. I have to confess right up front I am not a country music fan, but her musical talent – singing, playing, and songwriting – was undeniable. I respected her musicianship. That is not what I miss about Dolly.
I miss – and honor – her very outspoken and still private and humble moral life.
Unitarian Universalists covenant to live by a set of shared Values, but also to affirm and promote a set of Principles. I think of the Principles as moral practices. The UU Third Principle states that we covenant to practice “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” The young people’s version reads, “We believe that we should accept one another and keep on learning together.”
This Principle, as a moral teaching and guideline and practice is a very big and broad ask. Acceptance of people is hard enough. But to tie it to lifelong growth and learning seems to be another project in itself.
Reading about Dolly Parton’s full life this week showed me that combining full acceptance and constant learning is not only possible, but morally imperative.
Dolly was a very strong Christian; she often talked about her faith in God. I imagine, but don’t know for certain, that her Christian faith was the underpinning of the ways she treated other people. It clearly was the lens through which she saw the world.
It shouldn’t matter what your theology is when you are finding inspiration to live a full, moral, caring life. All religions in the world – monotheistic, polytheistic, Divinity focused, nature- or earth-focused – have teachings and scriptures that urge us to live our lives with love and care for others. No, they require us to do so.
That’s what Dolly Parton did. Her life was full of more than kindness, it was a practice of full acceptance of all humans. She was well known as a supporter and ally of LGBTQIA+ people, even when it was unpopular. She raised awareness and funds early in the HIV/AIDS epidemic starting in the mid-1980s, including a documentary about the AIDS quilt. She was outspoken in support of drag performers, because they are performers and human beings and she didn’t care about their gender or sexuality.
She treated the people in her East Tennessee community with love and full dignity, even though she grew up in extreme poverty and our country so often does not respect poor people. Dollywood and Pigeon Forge was for them.
So were her two other big philanthropies, which also showed how much she valued lifelong learning – the other part of the UU Third Principle.
She supported learning and early reading, something her father didn’t have access to. She often said that she believed he was held back by not being able to read, and she didn’t want any child to be held back. Her Imagination Library has given out more than 300 million books to children in five countries.
In 2020, Dolly funded the Vanderbilt University COVID-19 research that led to the Moderna vaccine. She believed in science, and the scientific research that saved millions of lives. I am personally thankful for that research, as my first two COVID vaccines were from Moderna, funded in large part by Dolly’s generosity.
As a Unitarian Universalist colleague wrote last week, “Be like Dolly.” It will be hard to be like Dolly in every way: humble, loving, caring, thoughtful, generous, supportive, accepting, joyful, resilient, as well as talented in so many ways. And funny to boot. We would all do well, though, to work on as many of her qualities as we can. I’ll be starting with full acceptance of all people, and learning more about people and, indeed, the whole world every day.
