The Unitarian Church Of Montreal Gets A Blast from The Past. . .

A blast from the past in the form of two decade old pickets signs that I found in my "archive" of old picket signs. The picket sign slogans on the two picket signs that would have been displayed when I first began protesting against the anti-religious intolerance and bigotry of Rev. Ray Drennan, Frank Greene, and other intolerant and abusive "fundamentalist atheist" "Humanist" U*Us as well as the fact that their deeply insulting and outright defamatory attacks on me and my monotheistic religious beliefs and practices had been effectively condoned by both the Unitarian Church of Montreal and the UUA.

As a result of moving recently I came across these two "archived" picket signs, as well as a few other older picket signs that had been "retired" and/or "archived" for various reasons, and decided to bring them along to an impromptu protest in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal this morning. Rev. Diane Rollert was hosting a "Pathway to Membership" meeting for the purpose of "new member orientation" so that prospective new members of the so-called aka self-described Unitarian Church of Montreal could "learn about our Unitarian and Universalist heritage and the meaning of membership." I thought it was only fair to let these prospective brand-spanking new U*Us know a bit more about the rather unfortunate, to say nothing of outright disgraceful. . . religious "heritage" of the Unitarian Church of Montreal and what joining it might actually mean. I decided to protest at the tail end of this orientation meeting hoping that the prospective new U*Us would see my picket signs as they left the building.

As it turned out these prospective new members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal either left the building early, left rather late, left by the back door of this U*U "church", or never showed up in the first place. . . because not a single U*U soul exited the Unitarian Church of Montreal by the main entrance facing onto de Maisonneuve boulevard during the whole time that I was protesting in front of it. Not to worry though, since a fair number of cars, buses, and pedestrians passed and saw my peaceful public protest. Montreal Unitarian U*Us will get to see these picket signs again tomorrow morning. I would not be surprised if there were only a few prospective new members of the UCM in any case. I was actually quite surprised by the apparently rather low turn-out for the first official "church" service at the Unitarian Church of Montreal in early September. Not a whole lot of Montreal Unitarian U*Us brought any "vacation water" to the Unitarian Church of Montreal's Water Communion service this year and very few of the people who did show up for the service were unknown to me.

So let's go through the picket sign slogans in the photo.

The two museum pieces say -

A CHURCH THAT ACTS IN BAD FAITH

and

A CHURCH THAT WON'T WALK WHAT IT TALKS

They were displayed during the initial weeks and months of my protest in the spring and summer of 1998 over a decade ago and are every bit as pertinent today as they were in 1998. The leaders and congregation of the Unitarian Church of Montreal have repeatedly acted in bad faith in numerous ways and have obstinately refused to walk the talk of Unitarain*Universalism in their rather inhuman human relations with me to say nothing of other people.

The other picket signs slogans are more recent, but include some blasts from the past as well including my UNSAFE SECT? picket sign slogan that has been displayed in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal for the better part of a decade now. In fact the UNSAFE SECT? picket sign slogan was displayed in front of UUA corporate headquarters at 25 Beacon Street in Boston during my May 2000 protest against the UUA's negligent and effectively complicit responses to my own clergy misconduct complaints as well as those of other people who have been victimized by U*U clergy in one way or another. UNSAFE SECT? is a perennial favorite with the public and I fondly remember Boston police officers giving me the thumbs up as they drove by my protest in front of 25 Beacon Street.