From: Robin Edgar
To: indraxblog@gmail.com
Date: Jan 28, 2006 6:18 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Have fun. . .
indrax
I'd like to thank the poster for getting Robin to post as close as I've seen to a clear chronological description of his grievances.
Robin:
Still work to do on this.
You say you were expelled for placing letters in mailboxes, but first brought before the DBC for distributing letter to members during coffee hour. I thought you distributed the letters to the board first?
It would be best if you included direct links to both the text of the letter, and a scanned image.
Also, the text and a scan of your original letters, and Drennan's apology letter.(and any other corresondance) these should all be linked to from a chornological list.
(Again forcing surfers to dig through google searches is bad web design.)
I'd also like, to the best of your recollection, a transcription of the conversation where Drennan said 'your cult' and 'your psychotic experience' and such. Establishing context is very important.
That's all I have for now.
--
Posted by indrax to The Emerson Avenger at 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
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From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Jan 30, 2006 1:12 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Thanks!
In the 96.5 letter you reference "the letter of complaint addressed to
the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal dated Wednesday February
14, 1996, contains an accurate and unembellished description of Rev.
Ray Drennan's comportment towards me."
That one should definitely get posted.
- Show quoted text -
On 1/28/06, Robin Edgar
[snip]
From: Robin Edgar
To: indrax
Date: Jan 30, 2006 2:13 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
It's 27 pages long and takes about an hour and a half to read. . .
I wrote it as a complete history of Drennan's behaviour towards me in case he accused me of slander and it ever went to court. I hindsight I should have wrote a two-page letter of complaint and added the rest as an addenda. . .
The shorter letters are more than adequate. This post alone should be more than enough to expose how the UUA and its Ministerial Fellowship Committee complicitly whitewashed Drennan -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2006/01/emerson-avenger-once-again-puts-uus-on.html
[snip]
From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Feb 2, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Ahh, yeah that's probably too long to post in it's entirety.
I want to back up a bit and talk about why I wanted this dialog in the
first place.
My intent is to develop a plan for how we can bring about 'restorative
justice' between you and the UCM. My vision is for you to return to
being an active member. What do you think this would take?
[snip]
From: Robin Edgar
To: indrax
Date: Feb 2, 2006 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Hi Indrax,
Probably a miracle. . .
I had hoped that the restoration of my membership would be brought about by the Quebec Human Rights Commission after the UCM repeatedly ignored all of my communications but the QHRC dropped the ball by deciding not to bring my case before a human rights tribunal. The UCM pretended that this was an exoneration of Rev. Drennan, which was not in fact the case, and you can see the result in terms of anonymous U*U's U*U BS. There is little doubt that he is some sort of UCM or CUC official. My best guess is that it is probably Bert Christensen. . .
I might add that the abject failure and even the obstinate refusal of the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee to responsibly act on my serious grievances in the earliest stages of the conflict, as illustrated in my recent post exposing Rev. Diane Miller's sincerely ignorant institutional denial and stonewalling, reinforced the Uintarian Church of Montreal's own obstinate refusal to act on my legitimate grievances. A later attempt to have the MFC act on my complaints after the election of Bill Sinkford as UUA President was also rejected as were all other attempts to settle this dispute via responsible conflict resolution procedures.
I have been in contact with President Sinkford recently as one of my recent posts shows. He finally responded to my emails yesterday but has never actually spoken with me as I have requested. His email was pretty much a brush-off that tersely albeit politely responded that the congregation has to deal with the matter. I responded at length agreeing in principle but making it clear that I held the UUA highly responsible for the fact that the Unitarian Church of Montreal never responsibly redressed my now seriously aggravated grievances due to the oppressive and punitive responses of the UCM to my letters of grievance and subsequent public protest activity. I demanded that President Sinkord practice what he preaches and begin to "begin again in love" by the fateful date of February 14th which just happens to be the 10th anniversary of my first letter of grievance about Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and abusive clergy misconduct. I also demanded that he deal responsibly with other injustices and abuses etc. that do not directly affect me and that he must take steps to end the culture of censorship and suppression of criticism and dissent that currently degrades UUism in general and the UUA in particular. It will be interesting to see how that plays out but I will not let the UUA off the hook for its past negligence and institutional denial and stonewalling that was effectively complicit with Rev. Drennan's anti-religious intolerance and bigotry and all but guaranteed that the Unitarian Church of Montreal would refuse to act upon my serious grievances.
How I proceed from here on in depends very much on how President Sinkford responds to my most recent email which also made him aware of my World Day of Conscience proposal and sought UU support for it and participation in it. I still have a variety of options that I can exercise in terms of putting pressure on the Unitarian Church of Montreal to responsibly redress my grievances that are now very significantly aggravated thanks to its grossly negligent and oppressive and punitive responses to my complaints. As a result of anonymous U*Us recent posts I will demand that the Quebec Human Rights Commission reexamine my complaint which was against the church itself as much as Rev. Drennan and at the very least have the QHRC inform the UCM that its refusal to bring my complaint to a tribunal was not in fact an exonneration of Rev. Drennan as has been pretended by the UCM.
A return to Boston with picket signs in hand is well within possibility. . . As are similar actions outside of Montreal. I came very close to heading down to Times Square and NYC UU churches in December to culture jam the UUA ads but unexpected financial difficulties dissuaded me from doing it in the end. Ottawa U*Us just added to my motivation to protest against U*U injustices and hypocrisy in Ottawa and Ottawa would be any easy and inexpensive target of opportunity for a weekend or two of protest activities. As long as the UUA and the Unitarian Church of Montreal refuse to initiate responsible conflict resolution measures that would provide some semblance of restorative justice my protest activities will not only continue but will be escalated, mainly by targeting other U*U churches in other cities etc. but also by targeting other institutions such as my recent protest in front of Station 11 after two of its officers went a bit too far in seizing and destroying my picket signs.
Allah prochaine,
Robin Edgar
[snip]
From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Feb 2, 2006 2:48 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
What could the QHRC have done?
I imagine the UUA could have made some token punishment against
Drennan, but they could not have removed him from ministry or
anything.
I don't think either could restore your membership, even if they fully
backed you.
It's all about congregational polity.
[snip]
From: Robin Edgar
To: indrax
Date: Feb 2, 2006 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
:What could the QHRC have done?
Plenty. . . They could have force the restoration of my membership in the UCM, reprimanded and sanctioned both Rev. Drennan and the church leadership for violating my human rights, and even forced them to pay a certain amount of financial compensation for the damages that they have done to me.
:I imagine the UUA could have made some token punishment against
Drennan, but they could not have removed him from ministry or
anything.
I wasn't asking for that was l? I was asking for a comprehensive apology that acknowledged the wrongfulness and harmfulness of Drennan's words and clearly and unequivocally retracted them. This is all very well documented. It was only much later in the conflict when I had been repeatedly sanctioned by the UCM that I began to demand that Rev. Ray Drennan must face similar sanctions for his far worse "disruptive behaviour". . . Remember that justice and *equity* principle of UUism?
:I don't think either could restore your membership, even if they fully
backed you.
My membership was intact at the time I wrote to Rev. Diane Miller and for some years afterwards. I was permanently expelled in late 1999 on the fateful date of November 22nd to be exact. If you are referring to the UUA now under President Sinkford's questionable leadership the UUA can damn well do a mea culpa that clearly acknowledges their past negligence and complicity that all but guaranteed that the Unitarian Church of Montreal would not responsibly redress my serious grievances. I have even been told that former UUA President John Buehrens actually criticized the church for not being more heavy handed with me earlier and since the source of that information was with the UCM's so-called "Disruptive Behaviour Committee" I have little reason to doubt it. . .
President Buehrens berated me for calmly and briefly sharing my concerns about Rev. Drennan's demeaning and abusive misconduct but never so much as mildly reprimanded Drennan. . . The stunningly hypocritical double standards exercised by top level UUA officials are now very well documented.
:It's all about congregational polity.
At this point its about congregational conscientious stupidity. . .
- Show quoted text -
Allah prochaine,
Robin Edgar
[snip]
From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Feb 6, 2006 4:27 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Ok, I am quite surprised at the level of power the QHRC has. Is it
roughly equivalent to a court in Canada? In America, I'm pretty sure
even a court could not force a church to reinstate a memeber.
But if Drennan wasn't going to apologize, and the UCM wasn't going to
do anyting about it, what was the UUA supposed to do?
> If you are referring to the UUA
> now under President Sinkford's questionable leadership the UUA can damn well
> do a mea culpa that clearly acknowledges their past negligence and
> complicity ...
What would that acomplish?
>The stunningly hypocritical double standards
> exercised by top level UUA officials are now very well documented.
I have not seen that documentation.
Also, I would still like to see your transcripts on Drennan, all 27 pages.
>
> :It's all about congregational polity.
>
> At this point its about congregational conscientious stupidity. . .
Exactly my point. The UUA is irrelevant.
From: Robin Edgar
To: indrax
Date: Feb 6, 2006 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
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Hi Indrax,
Yes the QHRC does have that level of power and if it had taken my case to a human rights tribunal aka court the tribunal most certainly could have ordered the Unitarian Church of Montreal to reinstate my membership, condemned the UCM and Drennnan etc. for discrimination and harassment on religious grounds, and could even have ordered them to pay a certain amount of compensation for damages etc. This possibility is still not totally out of the question.
I consider the QHRC to have acted negligently by failing to take my complaint to tribunal and for other reasons. As a result of Unitarians falsely representing this QHRC negligence as an exonerration of both Rev. Ray Drennan and the Unitarian Church of Montreal and thus prolonging their refusal to responsibly redress my grievances I am going to demand that the QHRC review its decision and take appropriate action. If it refuses to do so I will take action against the QHRC. . . The QHRC is already being sued by a black man who is accusing them of having failed to responsibly handle a case of racism that he suffered and I know that they have not done a very good job of dealing with various other cases of religious discrimination and harassment. If nothing else I can picket the QHRC for a while with appropriate picket sign slogans including my classic - CULT IS A FOUR LETTER WORD slogan. . .
:But if Drennan wasn't going to apologize, and the UCM wasn't going to
do anyting about it, what was the UUA supposed to do?
The record shows that the UUA and the MFC blew me off in the very earliest stages of this dispute thus reinforcing both Rev. Drennan's refusal to apologize and the UCM's refusal to responsibly redress my grievances. If UUA President John Buehrens and the Ministerial Fellowship Committee under Rev. Diane Miller had expressed appropriate dismay with, and condemnation of. . . Rev. Ray Drennan's obviously intolerant, hostile, insulting and abusive "disruptive and aggressive" behaviour in response to my initial complaints and had demanded that he retract hos damaging insults and apologize to me this conflict would have been successfully resolved in 1996. . .
UUA and MFC mea culpas acknowledging their past negligence and effective complicity in response to my grievances about Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and abusive clergy misconduct could accomplish much. It could not only lead to a swift resolution of this long drawn out conflict but by all rights it could and should led to much better handling of other people's legitimate grievances arising from non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct in the future. At present the UUA and MFC to say nothing of most UU congregations seem to be of the mindset that sexual misconduct is the only kind of clergy misconduct. . . and they haven't got a great track record for dealing with clergy sexual misconduct either for that matter. . .
http://www.uua.org/cde/csm/apology.html
You have in fact seen some of the documentation that exposes the stunningly hypocritical double standards exercised by top level UUA officials. The lettes from Rev. Diane Miller are a prime example. You just fail or refuse to see that this documentation does reveal hypocritical double standards exercised by top level UUA officials. I am fully confident that at least 80% of Canadians and Americans will side with me in this matter. There is more documentation that I can provide, including my "transcripts" on Drennan but I will need to go through older files to find it. I thought that I had tranferred everything to my new computer but it seems not to be the case. I am missing my digitized versions of my revealing correspondence with UUA President Buehrens which clearly shows him exercising outrageously hypocritical double standards in his response to my grievances about Drennan.
The sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity that has clearly been exercised by the Unitarian Chrch of Montreal throughout this conflict in no way makes the similar sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity that has clearly been exercised by the Unitarian Universalist Association and its Ministerial Fellowship Committee in any way "irrelevant". The effectively complicit refusal of the UUA and MFC to take action to ensure that Drennan retracted and apologized in the earliest stages of this conflict has everything to do with the UCM's continued obstinate refusal to practice anything even remotely resembling justice, equity and compassion in their now very well documented inhuman relations with me. . .
Sincerely,
Robin Edgar
[snip]
From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Feb 6, 2006 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
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"The sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity that has clearly
been exercised by the Unitarian Chrch of Montreal throughout this
conflict in no way makes the similar sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity that has clearly been exercised by the
Unitarian Universalist Association and its Ministerial Fellowship
Committee in any way "irrelevant"."
I view it as irrelevant because I am goal oriented. My goal is for you
to be an active member of the church. For that membership to be at all
meaningful, you must have a good relationship with the people at the
UCM. Getting a harshly worded letter from the UUA will not restore
that relationship. Getting an order from the QHRC can not restore that
relationship. Protesting cannot resotre that relationship.
Do I misunderstand our goal?
[snip]
From: Robin Edgar
To: indrax
Date: Feb 6, 2006 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
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:I view it as irrelevant because I am goal oriented.
I consider it relevant for the same reason. . . A UUA admission of its failure to responsibly deal with my grievances in the early stages of the conflict along with an official UUA apology and some real restorative justice can set an example for the Unitarian Church of Montreal to learn from and to follow. . .
:My goal is for you to be an active member of the church.
How do you intend to achieve that goal may I ask? How will you succeed where the leaders and congegation of the Unitarian Church of Montreal have quite evidently not only failed but have actively sought to alienate me?
:For that membership to be at all meaningful, you must have a good relationship with the people at the UCM.
Agreed.
:Getting a harshly worded letter from the UUA will not restore
that relationship.
Did I say anything about a "harshly worded letter from the UUA"? I do believe I spoke about a mea culpa and apology etc. coming from the UUA to me. . . That could in fact go a long way towards restoring that relationship.
:Getting an order from the QHRC can not restore that relationship.
Perhaps not in and of itself but it would force the UCM to deal responsibly with its past errors and negligence and indeed its ongoing injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. . . That should lead to a process of restorative justice that would in fact ultimately restore that relationship.
:Protesting cannot restore that relationship.
See above. . .
:Do I misunderstand our goal?
Not really. It certainly has been my goal to restore that relationship but it clearly is not the goal of the Unitarian Church of Montreal which has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to restore that relationship. . .
OTOH I have no interest in belonging to an outrageously hypocritical religious community. If Montreal Unitarians and the greater U*U religious community are not ready, willing or able to admit their past mistakes, initiate corrective measures and some genuine restorative justice for me, and indeed for others who have been harmed by U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. . . I have no real interest in belonging to a corrupt and hypocritical religious community.
Sincerely,
Robin Edgar
[snip]
From: indrax
To: Robin Edgar
Date: Jun 4, 2006 2:10 AM
Subject: Re: [The Emerson Avenger] 1/28/2006 01:49:21 AM
Hey, are you still alive, or what?
