ReImagining Mother's Day As International Disturb The Peace For An End To UUA Culture That Supports Domestic Violence And Rape Day

Is an idea that The Emerson Avenger kinda wishes that he had come up with all by himself.

Truth be told. . .

The Emerson Avenger is hereby morally and ethically obliged to give credit where credit is due by publicly thanking Rev. Jeff Liebmann for more or less coming up with the idea of reimagining 'Mother's Day' as 'International Disturb The Peace For An End To UUA Culture That Supports Domestic Violence And Rape Day' in a blog post entitled -

Truth and Meaning: Mother's Day

God forbid that The Emerson Avenger should ever be accused of plagiarizing a U*U minister's sermon or blog post etc., because plagiarism is a SERIOUS crime in the UU World. . . 

Here is Rev. Jeff Liebmann's original proposal for more-or-less reimagining 'Mother's Day' as 'InterNational Disturb The Peace For An End To UUA Culture That Supports Domestic Violence And Rape Day'-

"This Mother's Day, let us disturb the peace for our mothers, our daughters and sisters, our wives and partners. Let us disturb the peace for an end to war, an end to attacks on health care, an end to efforts to undercut public education, and especially an end to a culture that endures and supports domestic violence and rape."

 And here is the comment that I just submitted in response to it -

Does that include disturbing the peace for an end to the UU "culture" that supports UU pedophiles and rapists by falsely accusing people of the archaic crime of blasphemous libel for blogging about Unitarian Universalists who have actually been convicted of engaging in such despicable crimes as pedophilia and rape Jeff?

Just asking. . .


Comments

Anonymous said…
I can understand that you had a bad experience with a UU church and minister, and how that bad experience made you want to leave the church. However, I would like to know why that bad experience makes you believe all these terrible things about these people. The Unitarian Universalist Church does not support domestic violence or rape, nor does it partake in any of these allegations you have made about it. I'm just a little curious where you're getting your information.
~Jenny
Robin Edgar said…
My "bad experience" with the Unitarian Church of Montreal and UUA and numerous individual UUs did not make me want to leave that church. I was kicked out for complaining about my "bad experience". Nothing is posted to this blog that is not supported by plenty of evidence. I get my information from reliable news sources and UUA documents of various kinds. The Unitarian Universalist Association has a "terrible track record" when it comes to dealing with clergy sexual misconduct. If you find this hard to believe I would refer you to UU Safety Net which provides reliable information about the UUA's negligent responses to UU clergy sexual misconduct.
Jenny said…
I was curious, so I went to this UU safety net page. It did talk about UU clergy sexual misconduct (which I know does happen, I'm not saying it doesn't). However, this is a UU social action group that is trying to raise awareness about it. There are those people out there who are essentially corrupt, and UUs are not exempt from that. This church recognizes this as a problem and is trying to fix it. That doesn't sound like they are supporting rape to me. As you're probably aware, the Catholic church also has what you call a "terrible track record" with clergy sexual misconduct and its response to it. The Catholic church, however, does not support rape or domestic violence.
Robin Edgar said…
You need to understand that this particular blog posts is making use of a certain amount of parody and satire to make a point and, when I speak of the UUA here, I am speaking about the UUA bureaucracy in Boston, not the whole Unitarian Universalism religious community. I specifically asked Rev. Jeff Liebmann who calls for an "end to a (national) culture that endures and supports domestic violence and rape"

the following question -

"Does that include disturbing the peace for an end to the UU "culture" that supports UU pedophiles and rapists by falsely accusing people of the archaic crime of blasphemous libel for blogging about Unitarian Universalists who have actually been convicted of engaging in such despicable crimes as pedophilia and rape Jeff?"

So I am speaking about one specific way in which the UUA, in my opinion, can be reasonably accused of supporting Unitarian Universalists pedophiles and rapists. The UUA has in fact attempted to force me to "memory hole" blog posts about Unitarian Universalists who have engaged in "such despicable crimes as pedophilia and rape" by falsely accusing me of the archaic crime of blasphemous libel on the unfounded basis that I have made "unfounded and vicious allegations to the effect that ministers of the Association engage in such despicable crimes as pedophilia and rape." I am also aware of other cases where Unitarian Universalists have been guilty of "standing on the side of love" for UU sex offenders rather than their victims and those who blew the whistle on them.
Jennifer Shay said…
Hello!

I enjoyed your meme of Fred Small. Very funny!

Just felt like weighing in here... I teach sunday school at First Parish in Cambridge. We have a "safe church" policy that all Sunday School teachers sign, and our RE Director does all she can to insure that there are two adults present in every class.

Because of this, I feel compelled to argue your claim the "culture of UU that supports UU pedophiles and rapists." I feel that it is unfair of you to make sweeping generalizations of an ENTIRE faith/religion because there are members who have committed pedophilia and rape. I am sure that there have been times that horrible things have happened AND they have been swept under the rug. I'm even willing to admit to the possibility that it has happened on Unitarian Universalism. People do horrible things ALL the TIME. All humans, no matter what race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, etc. are capable of horrific crimes.

The truth is, I am a Unitarian Universalist, and I interact with other Unitarian Universalists on a regular basis, and I have never, at any time, felt that the UU promotes a culture of pedophilia and rape.

My questions to you is: Are you able to see even one positive thing about the faith? Or at least consider that there may be at least a few of us UUs out there who do strongly believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all?

Best,
Jennifer Shay
Robin Edgar said…
Thanks for your follow-up comment Jennifer. Glad you liked my "plagU*Urized" Rev. Fred Small meme. I do try to inject some humour into this otherwise quite depressing subject matter.

I would not be wasting my time trying to ensure that UU injustices and abuses are responsibly redressed if I did not see "even one positive thing about the faith". I believe in the claimed principles and ideals of UUism as much as most UUs do. In fact, I probably believe in them more than most UUs do in light of how so many UUs, including FAR too many UU clergy and UUA leaders, willfully disregard and flagrantly flaunt UUism's claimed principles and ideals on a regular and quite continual basis. . .

Again, I am somewhat waggishly talking about a putting an end to "UUA Culture That Supports Domestic Violence And Rape". The UUA as an institution, definitely does have a "culture" that effectively supports abusive UU clergy who engage in various forms of verbal and psychological abuse, to say nothing of physical and sexual abuse. . . For example the UUA fully supported Rev. Victoria Weinstein's "sodomy fantasy", which Sadistically imagined "South Dakota state senator Bill Napoli anally impaled on the Statue of Liberty's torch". This egregious example of UU clergy verbal abuse is very similar to "domestic abuse" of the verbal and psychological variety. I dare say that if Rev. Weinstein was actually able to transform her Big Fat U*U Sodomy Fantasy into reality it could be reasonably seen as an obscene act of "domestic terrorism". No? Yet, the UUA fully supports Rev. Weinstein's Sadistic "sodomy fantasy", even to the extent of having the unmitigated gall to accuse me of sexually harassing Rev. Weinstein for creating blog posts that denounce and criticize her verbally abusive "sodomy fantasy".

As far as a UUA "culture" that supports rape goes, I have already pointed out that, in falsely accusing me of the crime of blasphemous libel in a deeply misguided and cynical effort to force me remove some blog posts about UUs who have actually been convicted of enaging in "such despicable crimes as pedopilia and rape", the UUA is effectively "standing on the side of love" for the convicted UU rapists who I blogged about.

Most ironically, the minister of First Parish in Cambridge, Rev. Fred Small, is one of the few UU clergy who has spoken openly about convicted UU rapist Rev. Mack Mitchell in a Sunday sermon he delivered about UU clergy sexual misconduct. Fred's sermon was posted to the internet some years ago, but it has since been "memory holed". Who knows, maybe the UUA had its American attorneys send Rev. Small an arrogant and aggressive cease and desist demand letter demanding that he remove his "offending" sermon? Maybe you can ask Fred why his sermon is no longer available to be read on the internet. . .

BTW In case you did not see it. UU Safety Net finally got fed up with UUA complicity in all manner of UU clergy misconduct and has created a petition demanding a national conversation about UU clergy misconduct. Perhaps you and other Cambridge Unitarian Universalists can see your way to signing it and commenting on it as other UUs have already done. The petition currently has 157 signatures, but I think that it should have 157,000 signatures from the UU community alone. . .

Feel free to weigh in. If I am a bit blunt right now, it is because I am fed up with shameful UUA complicity in UU clergy misconduct of ALL kinds, and have not had my morning coffee yet. ;-)