David Gregory Kohlmeier And Unitarian Universalism's Culture Of Secrecy About Clergy Sexual Abuse - What's The Connection?

After running several pertinent Google searches, it came to my attention today that David Gregory Kohlmeier aka Rev. David Miller Kohlmeier pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court to a felony charge of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child under 16 a few months ago in March 2024. Rev. David Kohlmeier was the minister of the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when he was arrested in Philadelphia on September 16th, 2022, in an undercover police operation aka police sting intended to catch online child sex predators.

So what's the connection to Unitarian Universalism's culture of secrecy about clergy sexual abuse in general, and child sex abuse in particular U*Us ask? 

How about the fact that Rev. David Kohlmeier's name is not yet listed among those Unitarian Universalist ministers who have been removed from fellowship aka disfellowshipped for clergy misconduct of one kind of another, and may never be added to that quite minimalist list which, by the UUA's own admission. . . is in no way a complete historic record, and represents only cases where there were formal misconduct complaints filed, adjudication by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) and a minister was either removed from Fellowship or resigned in the midst of a misconduct process.

It was reported in the Fall/Winter 2022 Milestones section of the Fall/Winter 2022 issue of UU World magazine that David Miller Kohlmeier was suspended from fellowship, so it is not clear why Rev. David Miller Kohlmeier aka Rev. David Gregory Kohlmeier has not been added to the list of ministers removed from fellowship yet. . . 

David Spear, President of the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg wrote, 'The arrest of our minister has dealt quite a blow to our congregation' in the October 2022 issue of the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg's newsletter, but the September 2022 issue is not available online. . .

The UUA Board of Trustees narrowly defined clergy sexual misconduct as U*U clergy 'ignoring professional ethics and boundaries who preyed on vulnerable congregants' in its 'less than honest', and indeed U*Utterly worthless, official apology for clergy sexual misconduct that UUA Moderator Jim Key aka Risk Management Consultant James 'See NO Evil' Key delivered during his first Moderator's Report during the 2014 UUA GA. I have pointed out before how this narrow, indeed quite cynical and disingenuous. . . definition of clergy sexual misconduct excludes any and all sexual misconduct that does involve 'vulnerable congregants' being 'preyed on' by UUA clergy. . . It thus deftly excluded the repeated child rape of at least one teenage Tibetan refugee by Rev. Mack Wallace Mitchell while he was the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregational Society of Westborough and First Parish Church UU Norhboro in Massachusetts.  

 

I'm not sure how the UUA Board's disingenuous definition of clergy sexual misconduct excluded those children who were molested by Rev. William Alexander 'Sandy' McEachern of the Oaklandon Unitarian Universalist Church. Is it possible that the UUA does not consider the pre-teen children of congregants to be 'vulnerable congregants'?

Getting back to Rev. David Gregory Kohlmeier aka Rev. David Miller Kohlmeier, it looks like he has been conveniently 'forgotten' by the UUA, to say nothing of Unitarian Church of Harrisburg. Indeed the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg seems to have 'memory holed' most of the 2021 and 2022 issues of its The Reporter newsletter that would have spoken about Rev. David Kohlmeier between the July 2021 issue and the October 2022 issue. . . 

What are they trying to hide?