Shame On You U*Us! Why Are Unitarian Universalists Failing To Uphold U*U Principles & Ideals By Allowing Abusive U*U Clergy To Use Public Humiliation To Teach Important Life Lessons To A Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, A U.S. State Senator & A Notoriously Depraved S.O.B. etc. etc.?
By now we’ve all seen the stories on U*UTube or elsewhere online, of Unitarian Universalist clergy using novel and very public approaches to discipline "less than perfect" politicians and thieves etc. and teach them important life lessons. Often, it involves exposing a mistake or lapse in judgment in a very humiliating way. One Big Fat U*U *Example* made The Emerson Avenger blog years and years and years ago when a self-described "Christian" U*U "pastor" serving an historic New England Unitarian Universalist congregation in Norwell, Massachusetts, discovered that a Republican state senator had made inappropriate public statements in South Dakota. This U*U "pastor"’s Big Fat U*U Knee-Jerk Reaction to this senator's poorly chosen words was to post a (now "memory-holed") stridently worded Big Fat U*U Blog Post to her anonymous/pseudonymous Peacebang blog with a *sentence* that read:
"Here's my sodomy fantasy, senator Bill Napoli anally impaled on the Statue of Liberty's torch."
The Big Fat U*U Clergy Image of the "pastor" in question, who was clearly Unitarian Universalist, blogging an obscene, Sadistic, and even quite *vicious* "sodomy fantasy", was "broadcast" internationally and is still being talked about to this very day. . .
On a popular U*U site, where I infrequently read and comment on Big Fat U*U Events, I was struck by how few comments objected to the form the punishment took, or even expressed any sense of empathy for the state senator in Peacebang's Big Fat U*U "Sodomy Fantasy".
Most were along the lines of:
“I’m glad this *mother* did this! Senators today need to learn about consequences!”
But the most interesting and (sic) comment I read was:
“Where I am from, they have a name for the tiny, declining, fringe religion that allows its ministers do that kind of thing.
The U*U Movement.”
Whoa, I thought. Is that what that is? Unitarian Universalism?
Because from where I sat, it didn’t resemble any notion of Unitarian Universalism that I recognized. It did however strike me as mean-spirited, emotion-focused rather than solution-oriented, and harmful on a number of levels. I could only imagine what it did to this Repuglican senator’s self-esteem, to the feelings of trust he may have had in Unitarian Universalists as allies, and perhaps even to his other relationships if he were to become a subject of ridicule among his peers. But hey, maybe that’s just me.
Still, knowing myself to be someone who can sometimes hold fast to fixed opinions with little or no basis in fact, I decided to do a little research about shaming punishments. What I rediscovered was something that I think we have all known for quite some time. Shaming has always been a part of crime and punishment, from the Middle Ages and well into Colonial times when it was common to punish criminals by sending them to the stocks where they were not only restrained but subjected to public ridicule.
In contemporary Unitarian Universalism, shaming punishment is still with U*Us: Republican vice presidential candidates in some states are required to be labeled as "a creepy beauty-queen" in U*U clergy blog posts notifying U*Us of their offensiveness, thieves who steal from First Parish Unitarian Church in Norwell are made out to be "a notoriously depraved S.O.B." aka "a notoriously depraved son of a bitch" in Peacebang blog posts telling about their theft, and Unitarian Universalist men who have forcibly raped their neighbor's daughter, and even "a female family member", not to mention a certain unmentionable Unitarian Universalist minister who was convicted of raping vulnerable teenage Tibetan refugees who he had invited to America for "a better life". . . have their names printed in the paper. The problem is, while reasonable minds might differ on whether these are appropriate punishments for breaking the law, none of these offenses are at all similar to the predictable and developmentally inappropriate occurrences of bad judgment exhibited by Unitarian Universalist clergy. And they certainly aren’t models for effective and supportive Unitarian Universalism.
Thanks to a wealth of new and emerging research on U*U clergy brain development, we now know that Reverend Doctor Victoria Weinstein aka Peacebang and other abusive U*U clergy don’t do these foolish things which remind us of U*U just to make persons of inherent worth and dignity frustrated and angry. They do them because they are developmental works in progress. Not yet quite literal "corpse-cold Unitarians", and no longer infants (even *if* somewhat infantile) they are still becoming the Big Fat U*U "Pastors" they will be. And because of this, they are particularly prone to impulsive behavior, flawed judgment, and occasional acts of recklessness and yes, stupidity. We now know, for instance, that the prefrontal cortex, which governs the “executive functions” of reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control is the very last area of the human brain to mature and that the final stages of maturation conclude around the age of 25 thus leaving little hope that abusive U*U clergy will ever use their round heads to change the direction of their thoughts.
As someone who was prone to more than her share of hijinks during her pre-teen and teenage years, *the* Reverend Doctor Victoria Weinstein is keenly aware of how it might have felt to have such a punishment exacted for various misdeeds. That time when a Unitarian Universalist youth had been busted shoplifting a pack of cigarettes that he was very clearly forbidden to buy -- What would it have felt like, I wonder, if Peacebang had given him the side of her Big Fat U*U Boot in the tushie, HARD, and twice. . . and then paraded him across the U*U blogosphere with a Big Fat Peacebang Blog Post bearing some humiliating message? What would he have learned from that?
I don’t know for certain, but given my headstrong nature, I suspect it would have altered his view of her entirely. No longer an Unitarian Universalist "pastor", Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein aka Peacebang would have been transformed into an untrustworthy and malevolent figure; someone who would actively seek to belittle and humiliate people, someone who he might not seek out if what he needed was empathy and understanding. And perhaps, someone who taught him that empathy and understanding were not to be valued at all by Unitarian Universalist clergy. But like I said, maybe that’s just me.
The Big Fat U*U *End*
This parody version of Marie Williams' ParentFurther blog post entitled 'Shame on You! Why We Are Failing our Kids by Using Public Humiliation to Teach Important Life Lessons' is brought to U*Us U*U World-wide thanks to a certain Tweet by a certain U*U Twitterati.
"Here's my sodomy fantasy, senator Bill Napoli anally impaled on the Statue of Liberty's torch."
The Big Fat U*U Clergy Image of the "pastor" in question, who was clearly Unitarian Universalist, blogging an obscene, Sadistic, and even quite *vicious* "sodomy fantasy", was "broadcast" internationally and is still being talked about to this very day. . .
On a popular U*U site, where I infrequently read and comment on Big Fat U*U Events, I was struck by how few comments objected to the form the punishment took, or even expressed any sense of empathy for the state senator in Peacebang's Big Fat U*U "Sodomy Fantasy".
Most were along the lines of:
“I’m glad this *mother* did this! Senators today need to learn about consequences!”
But the most interesting and (sic) comment I read was:
“Where I am from, they have a name for the tiny, declining, fringe religion that allows its ministers do that kind of thing.
The U*U Movement.”
Whoa, I thought. Is that what that is? Unitarian Universalism?
Because from where I sat, it didn’t resemble any notion of Unitarian Universalism that I recognized. It did however strike me as mean-spirited, emotion-focused rather than solution-oriented, and harmful on a number of levels. I could only imagine what it did to this Repuglican senator’s self-esteem, to the feelings of trust he may have had in Unitarian Universalists as allies, and perhaps even to his other relationships if he were to become a subject of ridicule among his peers. But hey, maybe that’s just me.
Still, knowing myself to be someone who can sometimes hold fast to fixed opinions with little or no basis in fact, I decided to do a little research about shaming punishments. What I rediscovered was something that I think we have all known for quite some time. Shaming has always been a part of crime and punishment, from the Middle Ages and well into Colonial times when it was common to punish criminals by sending them to the stocks where they were not only restrained but subjected to public ridicule.
In contemporary Unitarian Universalism, shaming punishment is still with U*Us: Republican vice presidential candidates in some states are required to be labeled as "a creepy beauty-queen" in U*U clergy blog posts notifying U*Us of their offensiveness, thieves who steal from First Parish Unitarian Church in Norwell are made out to be "a notoriously depraved S.O.B." aka "a notoriously depraved son of a bitch" in Peacebang blog posts telling about their theft, and Unitarian Universalist men who have forcibly raped their neighbor's daughter, and even "a female family member", not to mention a certain unmentionable Unitarian Universalist minister who was convicted of raping vulnerable teenage Tibetan refugees who he had invited to America for "a better life". . . have their names printed in the paper. The problem is, while reasonable minds might differ on whether these are appropriate punishments for breaking the law, none of these offenses are at all similar to the predictable and developmentally inappropriate occurrences of bad judgment exhibited by Unitarian Universalist clergy. And they certainly aren’t models for effective and supportive Unitarian Universalism.
Thanks to a wealth of new and emerging research on U*U clergy brain development, we now know that Reverend Doctor Victoria Weinstein aka Peacebang and other abusive U*U clergy don’t do these foolish things which remind us of U*U just to make persons of inherent worth and dignity frustrated and angry. They do them because they are developmental works in progress. Not yet quite literal "corpse-cold Unitarians", and no longer infants (even *if* somewhat infantile) they are still becoming the Big Fat U*U "Pastors" they will be. And because of this, they are particularly prone to impulsive behavior, flawed judgment, and occasional acts of recklessness and yes, stupidity. We now know, for instance, that the prefrontal cortex, which governs the “executive functions” of reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control is the very last area of the human brain to mature and that the final stages of maturation conclude around the age of 25 thus leaving little hope that abusive U*U clergy will ever use their round heads to change the direction of their thoughts.
As someone who was prone to more than her share of hijinks during her pre-teen and teenage years, *the* Reverend Doctor Victoria Weinstein is keenly aware of how it might have felt to have such a punishment exacted for various misdeeds. That time when a Unitarian Universalist youth had been busted shoplifting a pack of cigarettes that he was very clearly forbidden to buy -- What would it have felt like, I wonder, if Peacebang had given him the side of her Big Fat U*U Boot in the tushie, HARD, and twice. . . and then paraded him across the U*U blogosphere with a Big Fat Peacebang Blog Post bearing some humiliating message? What would he have learned from that?
I don’t know for certain, but given my headstrong nature, I suspect it would have altered his view of her entirely. No longer an Unitarian Universalist "pastor", Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein aka Peacebang would have been transformed into an untrustworthy and malevolent figure; someone who would actively seek to belittle and humiliate people, someone who he might not seek out if what he needed was empathy and understanding. And perhaps, someone who taught him that empathy and understanding were not to be valued at all by Unitarian Universalist clergy. But like I said, maybe that’s just me.
The Big Fat U*U *End*
This parody version of Marie Williams' ParentFurther blog post entitled 'Shame on You! Why We Are Failing our Kids by Using Public Humiliation to Teach Important Life Lessons' is brought to U*Us U*U World-wide thanks to a certain Tweet by a certain U*U Twitterati.
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