Rev. William "Gee I Forgot About U*U Child Rapists" Sinkford And Unitarian Universalist Clergy Sexual Misconduct Cover-Up Efforts - What's The Connection?

I only recently became aware of Rev. Bill Sinkford's highly questionable minimization of Unitarian Universalist clergy sexual misconduct that includes child rape in his ironically titled 'The Place Where We Are Right' blog post of February 2019, but I have known about Rev. Sinkford's involvement in efforts to undermine the work of advocates for clergy sexual misconduct victims since the late 1990s when Rev. Deborah Pope-Lance told me how Rev. Bill Sinkford insinuated himself into 'UUs For Right Relations' which disbanded soon afterwards. I've also known that the Rev. Bill Sinkford administration, if not Rev. William "Gee I Forgot About U*U Child Rapists" Sinkford himself, minimized U*U clergy sexual misconduct in Boston Globe Spotlight news reports about Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse in the early 2000s.

But what about the case of Amanda Tweed that Rev. Gail Seavey spoke about in her 2016 Berry Street lecture entitled 'If Our Secrets Define Us'?

Here is what Rev. Gail Seavey wrote and spoke during the 2016 UUA GA verbatim:

In 2005, Mary Katherine Morn asked Anna Belle Leiserson to help support a new reporter of clergy sexual misconduct, Amanda Tweed. Both Anna Belle and Mary Katherine had served on the UUA's Safe Congregational Panel that resulted in what many of us think of as the ‘Muir report’, named for the Panel’s chair, Fred Muir. The report, presented at GA in 2000 – at the same time as the UUA Vice President Kay Montgomery’s, public apology for the association’s mishandling of reported misconduct and her pledge to do better in the future - had recommended that reporters of misconduct be assigned Advocates as they went through the investigation process. The Women’s Federation Task Force I served on was disbanded because we thought the problem was solved.

But five years later, when Mary Katherine Morn was assigned to work with Amanda, the named role for her was that of liaison, NOT advocate. As they would quickly find out, Amanda needed more than just an intermediary between her and the UUA; she needed an advocate.

A lifelong UU, Amanda had reported to the UUA that in her first year out of college, she had approached the minister of the UU Congregation she was considering joining with concerns related to her sexual orientation. Amanda reports that, three days later, the woman minister invited her to her home where the minister sexually assaulted Amanda. Concerns about the implications for the minister’s professional standing initially kept Amanda from reporting the event to anyone, but a few year later, when she learned the same minister had begun a sexual relationship with another young woman she had been serving in a ministerial role, Amanda decided to file a formal complaint of clergy sexual misconduct so the experience she had would not occur for other women. She made her report to the UUA in January 2005.

As time wore on after Amanda’s initial report, it became increasingly clear the recommendations from the Muir Report had not, in fact, been adopted by the UUA. In addition to lessening the role of advocate - which Mary Katherine assumed despite the named role of liaison- the UUA kept Amanda in the dark about the status of her case – including when and whether it would be resolved.

Anna Belle Leiserson was shocked to discover that Amanda was being repeatedly dismissed by staff and told to keep all details of her story and the complaint secret because the minister could respond by suing her. Amanda felt silenced, shut out, disrespected and manipulated by the UUA staff; keeping secrets seemed to be at the heart of their response. To this day Amanda has never been officially told the results of the investigation.

The UUA’s response to Amanda’s report galvanized Anna Belle to carry through an idea she’d had several years before-- to create “Safety Net” – which is both a website and a Congregational Social Justice Committee Action Team. On the web site she warned people that policies from the Muir Report were not being followed and that one might feel abused a second time by the UUA if they reported clergy sexual misconduct. I joined the Safety Net Action Team, which had the mission to explore best practices for the prevention of and a just compassionate response to clergy sexual misconduct at both the congregational and the UUA level. Anna Belle led that team for over seven years, inspiring us all with her skillful analysis of institutional power and persistent advocacy for justice.

During those years, Amanda became a deeply respected affiliate of Safety Net, even though she lived in a distant state. Amanda asked me to publicly use her name because the minister who sexually abused her is still working as a Fellowshipped UU minister and she feels that to use a pseudonym continues to perpetrate the same secrecy surrounding what occurred. As recently as two years ago, Amanda was warned against going public for fear of a lawsuit. UU lay people considered informing the institution for which that minister works about this history for the sake of public safety, but decided not to, also anxious about possible lawsuits. When the present staff at the Department of Ministries looked for the file on Amanda’s case, they discovered that there were skeletal and missing files reporting ministerial misconduct, creating gaps in the record from the previous decade. Previous employees told them that some records were removed at the advice of a lawyer because a minister had threatened to sue them.

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So who was UUA President when Amanda Tweed first reported the clergy sexual misconduct of a mysterious unnamed "woman minister" in 2005?

Whose UUA administration FAILed to implement "the recommendations from the Muir Report"?

Who was UUA President when "the UUA kept Amanda in the dark about the status of her case – including when and whether it would be resolved"?

Who was UUA President when Amanda Tweed was "repeatedly dismissed by staff and told to keep all details of her story and the complaint secret because the minister could respond by suing her"?

Who was UUA President when Amanda Tweed "felt silenced, shut out, disrespected and manipulated by the UUA staff"?

I might add that it would be worthwhile asking who "the UUA staff" who "repeatedly dismissed" Amanda Tweed, and "told to keep all details of her story and the complaint secret because the minister could respond by suing her"?

Could it be Rev. Beth Miller and-or Rev. Dr. Tracey Robinson-Harris?

It would also be worthwhile asking who was the Executive *Vice* President of the UUA throughout this clergy sexual misconduct fiasco to say nothing of earlier ones and subsequent ones. . .

Why was the mysterious woman minister, who is alleged to have sexually assaulted Amanda Tweed by none other than Rev. Gail Seavey herself in her 2016 Berry Street lecture, "still working as a Fellowshipped UU minister" in 2016?

Who was UUA President when as recently as 2014, "Amanda was warned against going public for fear of a lawsuit"?

Oh wait, that would have been UUA President Rev. Dr. Peter "Beyond Belief" Morales who, in the spring of 2012, ignominiously terminated a centuries old Unitarian*Universalist tradition of opposing and denouncing blasphemy laws by having the UUA's Canadian attorney, Stikeman Elliott Barristurds & Bullshitters defamation lawyer Maître Marc-André Coulombe, threaten me with prosecution for the archaic criminal act of blasphemous libel if I did not "take down" aka "memory hole" The Emerson Avenger blog posts that told the readily verifiable Truth about "such despicable crimes as pedophilia and rape" most certainly committed by "certain Unitarian*Universalist ministers", not to mention Rev. Victoria Weinstein's pedophile*rapist parishioner Richard Buell.

So U*Us can add Rev. Dr. Peter "Beyond Belief" Morales to the list of questionable* UUA Presidents whose "less than ethical" UUA administrations actively sought to conceal clergy sexual misconduct from the public, to say nothing of the "Beloved Community" of Unitarian*Universalism aka 'The U*U Movement" aka U*Uism.

And who was the UUA President who was-is ultimately responsible for the fact that "When the present staff at the Department of Ministries looked for the file on Amanda’s case, they discovered that there were skeletal and missing files reporting ministerial misconduct, creating gaps in the record from the previous decade"?

Was it Rev. William "Gee I Forgot About Child Rapist UUA Clergy" Sinkford, Rev. Dr. Peter "Beyond Belief" Morales, or both?

Allow me to add that, according to what I was told by sources I consider to be reliable, it was not just the file on Amanda’s case that was found to be "skeletal" and "missing files reporting ministerial misconduct, creating gaps in the record from the previous decade" it was multiple other clergy misconduct cases. Which UUA President(s) was-were responsible for "memory holing" a decade or more worth of clergy misconduct files?

So I hereby invite ALL Unitarian*Universalists aka U*Us to practice U*Uism's 4th Principle by engaging in a free and responsible search for the Truth and meaning of what I have written in this blog post, most of which is verbatim quotes from Rev. Gail Seavey's 2016 Berry Street *Lecture*, then responsibly follow-up by practicing U*Uism's 2nd Principle that calls for "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations" by holding Rev. William G. Sinkford and other "less than honest" U*Us accountable for their roles in not only Unitarian*Universalist clergy sexual misconduct cover-up and denial, but their roles in past and ongoing obstruction of justice for clergy misconduct victims.

U*Us who FAIL or refuse to do so are complicit in the U*U injustices and abuses that I and others have been exposing and denouncing for decades. . .

* It occurs to me *now* that the Big Fat U*U Acronym for Questionable UUA Presidents is QUUAP aka QU*UAP pronounced cwap. . .