The Emerson Avenger Protests The Failure Of The Quebec Human Rights Commission To Protect His Human Rights

In a slightly belated celebration of International Human Rights Day I began my public protest in front of the Quebec Human Rights Commission in Old Montreal today. I have intended to publicly protest against the Human Rights Commission's failure, and even refusal, to responsibly act upon my legitimate human rights complaints about the anti-religious intolerance and bigotry of Rev. Ray Drennan, Frank Greene, and other Montreal Unitarians; as well as the unjust retaliatory punitive expulsions that I have been subjected to by the Board and congregation of the Unitarian Church of Montreal for writing letters of grievance and publicly protesting against U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy in front of this so-called Unitarian "Church".

Various factors caused me to hold off from publicly protesting in the months immediately following the Quebec Human Rights Commission's refusal to bring my complaint before a human rights tribunal in December of 2003. When I learned that Rev. Ray Drennan was taking an unexpected early "retirement" as the minister of the Unitarian Church of Montreal early in 2005 I decided to hold this public protest in reserve and concentrate my efforts on persuading the Unitarian Church of Montreal to subject Rev. Ray Drennan to accountability for his anti-religious intolerance and bigotry before he left the building as it were. Obviously Montreal Unitarians refused to subject Rev. Drennan to any accountability for his intolerant and abusive clergy misconduct before sending him off to New Brunswick and Rev. Peter Boullata* did absolutely nothing to try to clean up Rev. Ray Drennan's mess while he was interim minister of the Unitarian Church of Montreal in 2005 thus leaving Rev. Diane Rollert holding the proverbial bag as its new settled minister. . . Yes, this public protest in front of the Quebec Human Rights Commission is one of the handful of actions that I decided to hold in reserve for the arrival of the new settled minister of the Unitarain Church of Montreal if Montreal Unitarians foolishly refused to responsibly redress the various injustices and abuses that they have subjected me to over the last decade or so before their new settled minister arrived.

My protest began just before noon and continued until about 2pm catching most of the lunch hour crowd entering and leaving the office building that the Quebec Human Rights Commission has its offices in. I intend to keep the protest up throughout the week and possibly even longer if I decide that it is necessary or desirable to extend the protest. Hopefully the Quebec Human Rights Commission will respond to my public protest against its failure to protect my human rights in a much more timely and responsible manner than the Unitarian Church of Montreal has. I sure wouldn't want to feel obliged to protest for months and years due to obstinate and foolish institutional stonewalling and denial on the part of the Quebec Human Rights Commission. I am reasonably confident that the QHRC will respond to my protest in a timely and responsible manner, especially in light of a pleasant informal chat that I had with an employee of the QHRC as I was protesting this afternoon. He provided some valuable information and advice to me. At present I am optimistic that my public protest against the QHRC's failure to hold Rev. Ray Drennan and the Unitarian Church of Montreal accountable for their intolerance and bigotry and related injustices and abuses, such as the unjust punitive expulsions, will have a satisfactory outcome in the coming weeks.

As usual, public response to my one man protest was quite positive. People who asked what it was all about understood right away that the false and malicious labeling of Creation Day as a "cult" by Rev. Ray Drennan, Frank Greene, John Inder and other intolerant and abusive Montreal Unitarians most certainly constitutes discrimination and harassment on religious grounds even if the Quebec Human Rights Commission is apparently unready, unwilling, or somehow even unable to do so. Everyone I spoke to, including the employee of the QHRC that I spoke at some length with, agreed that falsely and maliciously accusing someone of belonging to a cult or trying to start one is the modern equivalent to accusing someone of being involved in a coven of witches a century or two ago. The QHRC employee agreed that Frank Greene's "joke" that insinuated a link between Creation Day and the notorious Solar Temple suicide cult was "un peu trop".**

My picket sign slogans were -

THE QUEBEC HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION REFUSES TO PROTECT MY HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CONDONES RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE & BIGOTRY

CULT IS A FOUR LETTER WORD

WHAT "CULT" JOHN INDER?

"SOLAR TEMPLE" FRANK GREENE?

French language picket signs will be made later today or tomorrow but most Montrealers are bilingual and even unilingual Francophones can easily understand what "religious intolerance & bigotry" means since these English words are virtually identical to the French ones.

More details later. . .


* Rev. Peter Boulatta is a common misspelling of Rev. Peter Boullata

** "un peu trop" is French for "a bit much".

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