My Point By Point Rebuttal Of Anonymous U*U's Complicit DIM Thinking & Sincere Ignorance

Herewith my point by point rebuttal of the complicit DIM Thinking disinformation that was posted by anonymous U*U in an effort to whitewash Montreal Unitarians and discredit me in this thread below.

:The withdrawal of Mr. Edgar’s membership from the Unitarian Church of Montreal was not motivated by his religious beliefs,

Perhaps not overtly and directly however my expulsions from the Unitarian Church of Montreal most certainly came about as a direct result of my perfectly legitimate grievances, and subsequent peaceful public protests, arising from the intolerant and abusive attacks on my religious beliefs and practices by Rev. Ray Drennan and other intolerant and outright bigoted fundamentalist atheist "Humanist" U*Us. . .

Anonymous U*U sure picked the wrong thread to try to make such a disingenuous assertion because the pictures clearly show my protest against Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and offensive public attack on the Roman Catholic state funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau in his ironically headlined 'Wrong Message' opinion editorial. This was a very well documented and undeniable example of Rev. Ray Drennan's offensive and insulting anti-religious intolerance and bigotry that caused no less than fifty Montrealers to write letters to the editors of the Montreal Gazette strongly condemning Rev. Ray Drennan's offensive anti-Catholic bigotry and broader anti-religious intolerance as expressed in his opinionated 'Wrong Message'.

:but by his disruptive and aggressive behavior towards the members of this congregation.

What "disruptive and aggressive behavior towards the members of this congregation" may I ask? I was first expelled by the Unitarian Church of Montreal's "Stalinistic" Disruptive Behavior Committee for a full six months in 1997 for doing nothing more than calmly and peacefully distributing an important letter of grievance to the members of the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal by placing it in the mail boxes in the office of the Unitarian Church of Montreal. This fact is abundantly evident from the letter that informed me of my first six month expulsion. Anonymous U*U and other U*Us can read it here and weep. . . Perhaps Anonymous U*U can explain how placing letters into church Board members' letter boxes in the church office constitutes "disruptive and aggressive behavior towards the members of (the Unitarian Church of Montreal)."

What genuinely was disruptive and aggressive behavior was the intolerant, angry, hostile, and outright bigoted and abusive malicious labeling of Creation as "your cult" by Rev. Ray Drennan to say nothing of similarly intolerant and malicious labeling of Creation Day as a "cult" by at least two "Humanist" Presidents of the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, specifically Frank Greene and John Inder. Likewise the hostile and contemptuous dismissal of my revelatory religious experience as "your psychotic experience" by Rev. Ray Drennan and his angry insistence that I was in dire and immediate need of "professional help" is far more appropriately desccribed as "disruptive and aggressive behavior" than anything I have said or done to the members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal in my letters of grievance or my subsequent public protest activity which has been peaceful and legal since day one. I on the other hand have been repeatedly insulted by some Montreal Unitarians as they pass by my picket signs in their obstinately sincere ignorance which they mistake as strength. . .

I have had threats made against me by some Montreal Unitarians, indeed just last week I was in the Montreal court-house to deal with recent threats made against my personal safety by a "disruptive and aggressive" Montreal Unitarian. I have actually been physically assaulted by some "disruptive and aggressive" members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, including one or two Board members as I have reported in the past. When I wrote a letter complaining about the first instance of assault and threats made by Pierre Binette it was ignored by the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal. John Inder who the letter was addressed to did absolutely nothing to deal with Pierre Binette's very real "disruptive and aggessive behaviour" towards me because he and other leaders of the Unitarian Church of Montreal almost certainly approved of it. In fact Pierre Binette was a Unitarian Church of Montreal Board member when the attack occurred in the spring of 1998 very soon after I began peacefully protesting outside the church.

Oh! Last but not least I have had my picket signs stolen by a certain "disruptive and aggressive" Queen's Counsel lawyer by the name of Kenneth Howard QC, as reported elsewhere on the interconnected web of the world-wide web in the past. More recently, as reported on the UU World web site and in the West End Chronicle, most of my picket signs were seized and destroyed by a couple of pumped-up overly aggressive Montreal police officers as a result of police during "coffee hour" considered to be "inappropriate behaviour" let alone inappropriate harassment by Montreal Unitarians. . .

:His inappropriate behaviour has continued for more than ten years.

Since when is calmly and peacefully distributing letters of grievance to "church" members after "church" services are over considered to be "inappropriate behaviour" to say nothing of alleged "disruptive and aggressive behaviour"?! Please be so kind as to explain how calmly and peacefully protesting against well known UU injustices, abuses and outrageous hypocrisy in front of the so-called Unitarian Church of Montreal in any way constitutes "inappropriate behaviour" to say nothing of alleged "disruptive and aggressive behaviour". Do tell Anonymous U*U. . . I am all ears. As no doubt are other human beings who have a modicum of conscience, genuinely care about Truth, genuinely desire justice and equity in human relations, to say nothing having a nose for the stink of outrageous U*U hypocrisy. . .

In fact the abject failure and obstinate refusal of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, the Canadian Unitarian Council aka CUC, the Unitarian Universalist Association aka the UUA and its aptly named Ministerial Fellowship Committee to respond to my legitimate grievances and subsequent public protest by genuinely practicing justice, equity and compassion in human relations with me is far more justifiably described as "inappropriate behaviour" to say nothing of "disruptive and aggressive behaviour" in terms of the clearly disruptive affect of UU injustices and abuses on my religious life and the clearly and unequivocally aggressive manner that Montreal Unitarians have misused and abused church bylaws, and even worse have attempted to misuse and abuse the Canadian Criminal Code and Montreal municipal bylaws to censor and suppress my peaceful public protest by criminalizing my legitimate dissent.

:Seven years ago he was brought before a Disruptive Behavior Committee, where over the next three years attempts were made to have him moderate his unacceptable behaviours.

What "unacceptable behaviors" oh so sincerely ignorant DIM Thinking anonymous U*U? When I was first "brought before" the Unitarian Church of Montreal's "Stalinistic" Disruptive Behavior Committee early in 1997 all that I was "guilty" of doing was calmly and peacefully distributing letters of grievance to members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal during coffee hour after church services were over. That's it. That's all. It is all very well documented. There is even a tape recording of my first and indeed only meeting with the Unitarian Church of Montreal's biased, misguided, and incompetent Disruptive Behaviour Committee that clearly reveals this fact. What it also reveals, unless it has been destroyed by Montreal Unitarians seeking to hide damaging evidence that could potentially be used against them. . . is that when I became aware of the fact that the Unitarian Church of Montreal had set up a so-called Disruptive Behavior Committee to try to suppress my ability to communicate effectively with church members by distributing letters of grievance to them after church services, I made a point of filing a formal complaint against Rev. Ray Drennan which made it abundantly obvious that his own "disruptive and aggressive behaviour" towards me, as described in detail in my previous letters of grievance that were callously dismissed and willfully ignmored by the UCM's Board etc., was far more justifiably described as "Disruptive Behaviour", according to the Disruptive Behaviour Policy's clear description of what constituted Disruptive Behavior, than anything that I was doing at the time.

:He would agree to proposed solutions and then go on as before.

There were no viable proposed solutions. Period. This is a highly misleading half-truth if not outright lie that has been told before by members of the Disruptive Behavior Committee whose only concern was to prevent me from distributing letters of grievance to church members in order to suppress my efforts towards seeking redress for Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and abusive clergy misconduct. In fact I proposed perfectly viable solutions to the conflict that the Board and Disruptive Behaviour Committee, to say nothing of the congregation as a whole. . . callously dismissed and willfully ignored, and merrily went on as before and as they and indeed anonymous U*U and other DIM Thinking U*Us are going on today. . . in sincere ignorance and deep denial of readily verifiable, and now very well documented, objective reality. I did have some completely fruitless and futile discussions with John Inder who was vice-President at the time but he was heavily biased in favor of Rev. Ray Drennan and had no interest in responsibly redressing my legitimate grievances. He failed to set up a church committee that I proposed that would have responsibly investigated my grievances against Rev. Ray Drennan and then taken appropriate action to responsibly redress them. All this is well documented.

:He was repeatedly warned that failure to comply with what he had agreed to do would result in serious consequences.

Excuse me but I did in fact comply with most if not all of those things that I had agreed to do. The Unitarian Church of Montreal as represented by their Board and Disruptive Behaviour Committee failed or refused to live up to their side of any agreements that I made with them, because they had not the slightest interest in responsibly redressing my grievances. I might add that the church was repeatedly warned that failure to comply with my perfectly reasonable demands for a responsible investigation of my grievances followed by appropriate redress would result in the serious consequences of a public protest that would expose and denounce their injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. The Unitarian Church of Montreal, to say nothing of the greater U*U religious community. . . is still enduring the serious consequences of my ongoing justified "image tarnishing" public protest as well as my ongoing justified internet U*U Jihad. N'est-ce pas oh so sincerely ignorant, to say nothing of conscientiously stupid. . . anonymous U*U?

:Over this period, he was suspended from participation in Church life for six months.

Ostensibly for delivering an important letter of grievance to the Board that informed them of a significant change in the situation (i.e. Rev. Ray Drennan's sorry excuse for an "apology") that could have resulted in a genuinely just, equitable and compassionate resolution of the conflict if they had responsibly acted on it. They chose to ignore it. I was actually suspended from "participation in Church life for six months" several months after delivering this letter to the Board when, after warning the Board that I would distribute a version of the same letter to the congregation as a whole if they refused to act on my letter of grievance, I distributed the letter to church members as they left the church. I did so while standing off of church property in full compliance with the coerced agreement that I had made with the "Stalinistic" Disruptive Behaviour Committee, even though that agreement, which was quite "aggressively" coerced under the threat of expulsion. . . was in clear violation of purported U*U principles and ideals, especially those purporting to be in favor of truth, justice, equity and freedom of speech while being opposed to censorship by church or state. . . About fifteen to twenty minutes after starting to distribute letters to church members as they left the Unitarian Church of Montreal following Sunday services I was approached by John Inder who personally handed me the letter informing me of the six month suspension of my membership, ostensibly for delivering an unwanted letter of grievance to the Board months earlier. This was neither the first time, nor indeed the last time. . . that Montreal Unitarians, and indeed UUA official U*Us, knowingly and willfully disregarded their own stated bylaws and policies in order to deny me justice, equity and compassion.

:Unfortunately, upon his return his behaviour worsened , and he was suspended for an additional year.

There was no "worsened" behaviour on my part. I returned to church and acted quite normally as I always had but I made it very clear that the church leaders had to responsibly redress my grievances arising from Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and abusive clergy misconduct that were now seriously aggravated by the Unitarian Church of Montreal's unjust, unequitable and uncompassionate negligent and punitive responses to my legitimate grievances. When after a few months it became abundantly clear that the church leadership would do absolutely nothing to responsibly redress my serious grievances and the congregation as a whole abjectly failed to put any pressure on the leadership I began the peaceful public protest that I had repeatedly warned Montreal Unitarians that I would commence if they refused to provide genuine justice, equity and compassion in their rather inhuman relations with me. . .

:Again when he returned, his inappropriate behavior continued.

Totally false. There was no second return to the church. Soon after I began protesting the Board arbitrarily suspended my membership for a year even though the actual church bylaws called for congregational meeting to be held. They did not want to call a congregational meeting at that time because they were by no means assured of obtaining the necessary number of votes to permanently expell me. They needed time to build up resentment within the congregation. . . hence the arbitrary extended expulsion that bent, if not broke, the church's own bylaws.

:Finally in November 1999, at a meeting of the full congregation, during which he spoke on his own behalf, a congregational vote was taken and his membership was revoked.

Correct in terms of basic facts but this short and sweet version leaves out plenty of facts that would show just what a sham of democracy and justice, and just how close to a Stalinistic show trial or kangaroo court, this special congregational meeting actually was. The whole process was very carefully stacked against me. I was considered to be guilty until proven innocent and only had limited time to present my defence. I was cut off just before responding to the third and most serious charge which would have exposed the hypocrisy of the whole procedure which BTW was presided over by Frank Greene, one of the fundie atheist bigots who had maliciously labeled Creation Day as a "cult" behind my back and had "joked" about a possible link between Creation Day and the notorious Solar Temple cult soon after the first suicide-murders made the news in the fall of 1994 as I was organizing the first celebration of Creation Day. . . The third and final charge was that I was guilty of publicly tarnishing the image of the Unitarian Church of Montreal by displaying picket signs that had the "abhorrent" words "cult" and "Solar Temple" emblazoned on them. Needless to say my defence to that stunningly hypocritical charge was that I was only protesting against the false and maliciious use of these "abhorrent" words by Rev. Ray Drennan and Frank Greene to slander Creation Day. Guess who decided that my time was up and that I could not "speak and argue freely, according to conscience" in my defence any more. . .

:This decade long process, during which sincere attempts were made by the congregation to negotiate a solution,

Please forgive my bluntness but this is just pure unadulterated bullshit aka U*U BS. No sincere attempts were made by Rev. Ray Drennan or the Board and congregation of the Unitarian Church of Montreal to negotiate a genuinely just, genuinely equitable and genuinely compassionate "solution" to my very serious and totally legitimate grievances that were only aggravated by the callously indifferent arbitrary dismissal of them by all concerned parties in the earliest stages of this conflict. Again this is all very well documented by leters of grievance that I submitted to the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, the UUA and CUC, the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee, the so-called Disruptive Behaviour Committee of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, and even UUA Trustees. Rev. Ray Drennan refused to retract or apologize for over a year. When I caught him lying to the Board by denying having said what he actually said he promptly presented an insincere and all but completely inadequate purely expedient sorry excuse for an apology that was a thinly veiled insult in its own right. . . Rev. Drennan never faced the slightest accountability for his genuinely "disruptive and aggressive" "inappropriate" behaviour but I was initially expelled for six months for doing nothing more than delivering a letter of grievance to the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal informing them of Rev. Drennan's insincere, inadequate and insulting alleged "apology" and demanding that they ensure that he provided an comprehensive apology that clearly acknowledged the wrongfulness and harmfulness of his "disruptive and aggressive" "inappropriate" behaviour and retracted his insulting and slandereous words. Had there been any sincere attempts to resolve the conflict it would have been resolved years ago and if sincere attempts are made now to resolve it it can be resolved with justice and equity in the coming days, weeks and months if stunningly hypocritical Unitarians stop lying and denying and start being truthful and repentant.

:ended when it became that he had no intention of ceasing his disruptive and aggressive behaviours.

There were no "disruptive and aggressive behaviours" on my part unless you consider distributing letters of grievance, and subsequently publicly protesting when they were repeatedly dismissed and ignored, to be "disruptive and aggressive behaviours". . . I do not, nor would most reasonable people. It is Rev. Ray Drennan and indeed the leaders and some of the regular members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal who are much more appropriately described as engaging in "inappropriate" and "disruptive and aggressive" behaviours. . . In spite of attempts by Montreal Unitarians to cynically misuse and abuse the Canadian Criminal Code in order to use the State to impose Unitarian Church censorship and suppression of peaceful public protest I am innocent of any "disruptive and aggressive behaviours" but Queen's Counsel fool for a lawyer Kenneth Howard QC, who was very much responsible for that misuse and abuse of Canadian Criminal law was subjected to non-judicial treatment for the criminal acts of theft and assault and, as recently as last week. . . another Montreal Unitarian was subjected to non-judicial treatment for his threats against my personal safety that he made in September. The record will show that Montreal Unitarians are far more guilty of engaging in "disruptive and aggressive behaviours" towards me than the reverse. God is my witness to that fact, as are no shortage of documents that are open to scrutiny by Unitarians and indeed the general public. . .

:It should be noted that Reverend Ray Drennan did apologise, in person, on more than one occasion.

Wrong. Reverend Ray Drennan wrote an insincere and inadequate purely expedient so-called "apology" that was a thinly veiled insult in itself because it not only did not retract his "disruptive and aggressive" "inappropriate" words but actually tacitly repeated them in his "sorry excuse for an apology" itself. Virtually no one even knew about this alleged apology until I started calling Board members about it. Most expressed surprise which is not surprising considering that one of the members of the original Disruptive Behaviour Committee bluntly told me that Rev. Ray Drennan would "never apologize" to me during my first and only meeting with the DBC. Unfortunately it was during that fateful meeting that I was told that Rev. Ray Drennan had denied saying the "disruptive and aggressive" (to say nothing of bigoted, slanderous and abusive) words that he had in fact said to me. It was as a result of my directly challenging of these lies that Rev. Drennan promptly presented his sorry excuse for an apology after refusing to offer one previously. After I rightly rejected his insulting alleged apology I gave Rev. Drennan the opportunity to present an adequate formal apology that at least had some semblance of sincerity, clearly and unequivocally acknowledged the wrongfulness and harmfulness of his "disruptive and aggressive" behaviour and retracted his slanderous and abusive words. Rev. Drennan absolutely refused to provide an acceptable apology, muttering "it's the only one you're gonna get. . ." and the Unitarian Church of Montreal obstinately refused to responsibly discipline Rev. Drennan for refusing to provide an acceptable apology that retracted his intolerant and abusive words. All of this is very well documented and much of the documentation is already scattered all over the internet. . .

:However, this did not meet with Mr Edgar’s satisfaction.

Correct. Rev. Ray Drennan's sorry excuse for an apology would not meet the satisfaction of any human being who had been as deeply insulted and slandered as I had been and who had a modicum of conscience and self-esteem. When I received Rev. Ray Drennan's alleged apology it was glaringly obvious to me that it was not only grossly inadequate and insincere but that it was even a thinly veiled insult itself. I showed Rev. Drennan's sorry excuse for an apology to several friends and family members who were aware of the situation and asked them if they thought that I should accept it. All but one said that I should not accept it, precisely because of the aforementioned problems with it. The one person who thought I should accept it probably would not have accepted it herself if she was the target of similar insults and slander. My brother responded by saying that I should "rub his nose in it" the way some people rub the pet's nose in their own piss if they piss on something. . . I did not do that immediately and the various records that may be scrutinized by those people genuinely interested in truth and justice will show that I was very patient with Rev. Ray Drennan, the Unitarian Church of Montreal, and the other parties involved in this now quite ludicrously drawn-out conflict.

:Mr. Edgar has redressed his grievances to whomever he has saw fit, be it the UAA, CUC, etc.,

I "addressed" my grievances to those parties that should have ensured that my serious grievances were responsibly *redressed* but abjectly failed, and even obstinately refused. . . to do so. I am still waiting for something even remotely resembling genuine redress in the form of what stunningly hypocritical U*Us call "restorative justice". . .

:and his complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission in 2002 was summarily dismissed as being without merit.

Wrong. This is untrue. As I have already explained elsewhere, the Unitarian Church of Montreal spread misinformation about what actually occurred. The Quebec Human Rights Commission did not "dismiss" my complaint as being "without merit." They just refused to bring my complaints to a human rights tribunal without providing any explanation as to why they refused to do so. The Quebec Human Rights Commission has a poor track record when it comes to dealing with any kind of religious discrimination and harassment and they are particularly disinterested in dealing with religious discrimination and harassment that occurs within a religious community. They repeatedly blew me off in the past which explains the rather late date for their final refusal to responsibly act upon my complaint. The Quebec Human Rights Commission just might come to regret their negligent response to my own and other people's legitimate complaints down the road a bit. . . In fact, as a direct result of these repeated misleading U*U claims that the Quebec Human Rights Commission "dismissed" my complaint as "being without merit" I am going to demand that the QHRC first formally informs the Unitarian Church of Montreal that this is not true and demands that the Unitarian Church of Montreal must widely circulate a correction of these false claims that are intended to discredit my legitimate grievances. I will also demand that the Quebec Human Rights Commission must review their highly questionable decision in light of the harm that it has done to me by giving U*Us an excuse to pretend that I was not the victim of religious discrimination and harassment as a result of Rev. Ray Drennnan's and other U*Us "disruptive and aggressive" words and actions, as well as a result of the punitive expulsions that Montreal Unitarians subjected me to in their misguided efforts to deny me genuine restorative justice and redress for the insults and injuries inflicted on me by Rev. Ray Drennan and other intolerant and abusive Unitarian U*Us.

:Mr Edgar continues to picket the church in the futile belief that the Church will act.

Mr. Edgar continues to picket the church in the knowledge that most of the thus enlightened Montreal public will get the message and whole-heartedly agree that the Unitarian Church of Montreal is a decade older but far from wiser "aging and dwindling" fortress of corpse-cold Unitarian complicit silence, sincere ignorance, conscientious stupidity, and outrageous hypocrisy. Mr. Edgar reminds conscientiously stupid U*Us that it is a *public* protest that is primarily intended for the eyes of the Montreal public, to say nothing of the eyes of all kinds of good people of intelligence and conscience on the interconnected web of the world-wide web aka the internet. . .

:Reverend Drennan is no longer the minister as he left to follow his own life’s journey; and the church has simply moved on.

Ya right. A good chunk of the corpse-cold Unitarian Church of Montreal has simply moved on to the afterlife that no doubt was the surprise of their life. . . Of course Rev. Ray Drennan's "early retirement" had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he made a pariah of himself and his Totalitarian Church of Montreal via his own well documented "disruptive and aggressive behaviour" that insulted the intelligence of thousands of good Montrealers of conscience.

Well I haven't moved on. Nor do I intend to any time soon. . . I really quite enjoy my "alternative spiritual practice" of publicly protesting against U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy and I will continue to picket the Unitarian Church of Montreal until it actually does "move" on my totally legitimate, and now very seriously aggravated. . . serious grievances which have yet to be redressed with the slightest justice, equity or compassion by the Unitarian Church of Montreal, or any other Unitarian*Universalist U*Us who are in positions of influence and responsibility such as UUA President Bill Sinkford for instance. . . The complicitly negligent and irresponsible Rev. Brian Kopke of the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa summed it up all very nicely when, in response to my accusation that he and two other Canadian Unitarian ministers did absolutely nothing to responsibly deal with my grievances when they did the first "peer review" of Rev. Ray Drennan, quite truthfully and accurately and indeed sheepishly replied, "Nobody did anything."