UUA President Peter Morales "Less Than Wisely" Rubs ChaliceChick And The Emerson Avenger The Wrong Way. . .
In a blog post titled 'I did warn y'all about President Morales doing stuff like this...' ChaliceChick takes UUA President Peter Morales to task for being too "politician-y" and "insulting everybody's intelligence" with "marketing blather." Here is a version of the comment that I just submitted in response to ChaliceChick's "personal attack" on President Peter Morales -
UUA President Morales has been rubbing me the wrong way for some time now, and he rubbed me the wrong way in person, aka mano a mano, during the UUA Board of Trustees meeting over the weekend of April 17 and 18. I found him to be very evasive and "less than honest" in a very "politician-y" way as CC puts it. His disingenuous assertion that slashing the budget of the Commission On Appraisal to a fraction of its previous budgets was "a way of initiating a conversation about the committee" was just one of his "less than honest" assertions AFA*I*AC.
When I asked President Morales if he had received and read the emails that I had sent him in the last few months, such as my Groundhog Day email and its follow-up emails, he remarkably evasively (if not "less than honestly". . .) replied by asserting that he was not sure if he had read them or not. That is, he basically claimed that he could not remember reading my emails, even if he did read them. I dealt with that "politician-y" evasiveness, if not outright disingenuousness, by saying that if he could not remember reading my emails that he effectively had not read them. I later asked him if he would read the next email I sent him, to which he responded in the affirmative.
When I made it clear to President Morales that I expect the UUA to responsibly review the negligent and incompetent rulings that the UUA's Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee and Congregational Services Department had made in response to my clergy misconduct complaints against Rev. Ray Drennan and Rev. Victoria Weinstein he initially tried to pass the proverbial buck right back to the UUA Board of Trustees by claiming that the MFC was a Board Committee, and therefore it was not his responsibility to deal with my little problem. When I replied to that by informing him that UUA Moderator Gini Courter had told me that the MFC was not accountable to the Board for its decisions earlier in the day (Saturday April 17) he responded by saying -
"We're not going to reopen a case that's years and years and years old."
Is this the same Rev. Peter Morales who claims to be "fully committed" to dealing responsibly with clergy sexual misconduct in his response to the Nashville UUs "open letter" to him when he was a UUA Presidential candidate? Is this the same Rev. Peter Morales who stated that victims of clergy misconduct should receive an "immediate and compassionate response" to their complaints? Or does President Morales think that victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct are just so much chopped liver? In his response to the "open letter" about U*U clergy sexual miosconduct Rev. Morales said -
"I am absolutely committed to doing the right thing, and I understand that we have fallen far short in the past."
Is this the same President Morales who proclaims that demonizing and marginalizing people just because of who they are is wrong? Is President Morales not as "absolutely committed to doing the right thing" with respect to non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct as he claims to be with respect to clergy sexual misconduct?
Apparently so. . .
UUA President Peter Morales has fallen far short of my expectations for him when it comes to providing restorative justice for ALL victims of U*U clergy misconduct, be that misconduct sexual in nature or not. In fact I can't help but wonder what the ever so "absolutely committed" President Morales has done for clergy sexual misconduct victims in the first year of what may well turn out to be a four year (or less. . .) mandate as President of the UUA. Let's hear it Peter, deliver a report to the UUA Board of Trustees in May or June about all of the things that you have done to live up to, aka honor and uphold, the letter and the spirit of your response to the Nashville UU's open letter by reforming the UUA's clergy misconduct policies and procedures, and providing some real and tangible restorative justice to victims of clergy sexual misconduct, since being elected as President of the UUA last June. I am willing to bet that you haven't done very much at all yet. . .
President Morales would be very well advised to use that round head of his to change his mind about the "obviously deep concerns" that I have shared with him and UUA Trustees over the last couple of years unless he wants to be exposed as yet another two-faced Unitarian*Universalist hypocrite.
UUA President Morales has been rubbing me the wrong way for some time now, and he rubbed me the wrong way in person, aka mano a mano, during the UUA Board of Trustees meeting over the weekend of April 17 and 18. I found him to be very evasive and "less than honest" in a very "politician-y" way as CC puts it. His disingenuous assertion that slashing the budget of the Commission On Appraisal to a fraction of its previous budgets was "a way of initiating a conversation about the committee" was just one of his "less than honest" assertions AFA*I*AC.
When I asked President Morales if he had received and read the emails that I had sent him in the last few months, such as my Groundhog Day email and its follow-up emails, he remarkably evasively (if not "less than honestly". . .) replied by asserting that he was not sure if he had read them or not. That is, he basically claimed that he could not remember reading my emails, even if he did read them. I dealt with that "politician-y" evasiveness, if not outright disingenuousness, by saying that if he could not remember reading my emails that he effectively had not read them. I later asked him if he would read the next email I sent him, to which he responded in the affirmative.
When I made it clear to President Morales that I expect the UUA to responsibly review the negligent and incompetent rulings that the UUA's Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee and Congregational Services Department had made in response to my clergy misconduct complaints against Rev. Ray Drennan and Rev. Victoria Weinstein he initially tried to pass the proverbial buck right back to the UUA Board of Trustees by claiming that the MFC was a Board Committee, and therefore it was not his responsibility to deal with my little problem. When I replied to that by informing him that UUA Moderator Gini Courter had told me that the MFC was not accountable to the Board for its decisions earlier in the day (Saturday April 17) he responded by saying -
"We're not going to reopen a case that's years and years and years old."
Is this the same Rev. Peter Morales who claims to be "fully committed" to dealing responsibly with clergy sexual misconduct in his response to the Nashville UUs "open letter" to him when he was a UUA Presidential candidate? Is this the same Rev. Peter Morales who stated that victims of clergy misconduct should receive an "immediate and compassionate response" to their complaints? Or does President Morales think that victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct are just so much chopped liver? In his response to the "open letter" about U*U clergy sexual miosconduct Rev. Morales said -
"I am absolutely committed to doing the right thing, and I understand that we have fallen far short in the past."
Is this the same President Morales who proclaims that demonizing and marginalizing people just because of who they are is wrong? Is President Morales not as "absolutely committed to doing the right thing" with respect to non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct as he claims to be with respect to clergy sexual misconduct?
Apparently so. . .
UUA President Peter Morales has fallen far short of my expectations for him when it comes to providing restorative justice for ALL victims of U*U clergy misconduct, be that misconduct sexual in nature or not. In fact I can't help but wonder what the ever so "absolutely committed" President Morales has done for clergy sexual misconduct victims in the first year of what may well turn out to be a four year (or less. . .) mandate as President of the UUA. Let's hear it Peter, deliver a report to the UUA Board of Trustees in May or June about all of the things that you have done to live up to, aka honor and uphold, the letter and the spirit of your response to the Nashville UU's open letter by reforming the UUA's clergy misconduct policies and procedures, and providing some real and tangible restorative justice to victims of clergy sexual misconduct, since being elected as President of the UUA last June. I am willing to bet that you haven't done very much at all yet. . .
President Morales would be very well advised to use that round head of his to change his mind about the "obviously deep concerns" that I have shared with him and UUA Trustees over the last couple of years unless he wants to be exposed as yet another two-faced Unitarian*Universalist hypocrite.
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