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Regarding the Unitarian Universalist protest: it looks like I was responding to very different facets of the issue than the person who brought it to my attention was. Zie gave me this link, which sheds some light on it. I'm glad to have a bit more information, and the "Silent Witness" response seems more warranted in light of it.
This is a story about couple being unfairly ostracized by their local congregation, and then having accusations of inappropriate behavior follow them to a new town due to leaders at the first congregation contacting the second to impugn them.
http://ravenstonesreflections.blogspot.com/2013/08/one-couple-two-congregations.html?m=1
That's a really unfortunate situation. The couple's former home congregation handled that very poorly. If there's evidence that that's a common issue among UU congregations, I think this idea of silent witnessing is a good response that's at an appropriate level. I'd think about participating in one at that congregation.
If it's less a systemic issue than a problem with fearful and uninformed individual congregations, I'm not sure if a demonstration at congregations that haven't had any issues like this is the best way to react. Maybe it would be even better for people to approach their individual ministers and say "Hey, I heard about this issue that happened at this other congregation. How does our congregation feel about these things? Are we informed and accepting?" That feels a little more cooperative than confrontational, and I really hesitate to be confrontational when I'm not convinced it's deserved. If I was a minister or a layperson at a congregation that I felt was already open and welcoming, I might be a bit defensive. If it was people from outside the congregation, I'd wonder why they felt they knew the situation well enough to take part in such an action. If they were from within the congregation, I'd wonder why they hadn't tried talking about it first.
Of course, for people who are dealing with the kind of ostracism and character attacks the couple in that story were, I'm all for a public, visible response! I don't have enough knowledge about UU in general to know which is happening here (systemic problems vs. individual ones), so to some extent I'll defer to those who do. On a personal level, I have some warm fuzzy feelings for UU that I have for very few others, so I'm inclined to be a little defensive of them. I recognize, of course, that there are individual bad apples, but I hope that that is all this is.
This is a story about couple being unfairly ostracized by their local congregation, and then having accusations of inappropriate behavior follow them to a new town due to leaders at the first congregation contacting the second to impugn them.
http://ravenstonesreflections.blogspot.com/2013/08/one-couple-two-congregations.html?m=1
That's a really unfortunate situation. The couple's former home congregation handled that very poorly. If there's evidence that that's a common issue among UU congregations, I think this idea of silent witnessing is a good response that's at an appropriate level. I'd think about participating in one at that congregation.
If it's less a systemic issue than a problem with fearful and uninformed individual congregations, I'm not sure if a demonstration at congregations that haven't had any issues like this is the best way to react. Maybe it would be even better for people to approach their individual ministers and say "Hey, I heard about this issue that happened at this other congregation. How does our congregation feel about these things? Are we informed and accepting?" That feels a little more cooperative than confrontational, and I really hesitate to be confrontational when I'm not convinced it's deserved. If I was a minister or a layperson at a congregation that I felt was already open and welcoming, I might be a bit defensive. If it was people from outside the congregation, I'd wonder why they felt they knew the situation well enough to take part in such an action. If they were from within the congregation, I'd wonder why they hadn't tried talking about it first.
Of course, for people who are dealing with the kind of ostracism and character attacks the couple in that story were, I'm all for a public, visible response! I don't have enough knowledge about UU in general to know which is happening here (systemic problems vs. individual ones), so to some extent I'll defer to those who do. On a personal level, I have some warm fuzzy feelings for UU that I have for very few others, so I'm inclined to be a little defensive of them. I recognize, of course, that there are individual bad apples, but I hope that that is all this is.