For years now, many people who have come across Robin Edgar on the Internet have asked him a very simple question: What exactly do you want? Unfortunately, they do not always get such a straightforward answer. They get Robin Edgar telling them that he has already told the whole wide world what he wants, and that it should be very easy for the questioners to find it themselves. When they tell them that they have been looking, and still can’t find any list of demands posted by him anywhere, he just tells them to try harder.
So, we did. Lo and behold, we found a list of four demands, buried in a thread of almost a hundred comments in response to a post on Topix.com in 2008. “Easy to find” indeed!
Let’s forget the fact that Robin Edgar could have simply included a link to the comment which includes this list, as he loves to do in so many of his comments. Let’s forget that he could have copied and pasted the list anywhere over the past two years, as he does with so much of his long-winded correspondence. Here are his four basic demands – and our questions following each:
“1. The Unitarian Church of Montreal, and the UUA, would finally get around to responsibly acknowledging the legitimacy and seriousness of my original grievances against Rev. Ray Drennan and subject him to appropriate disciplinary action for his clergy misconduct. Obviously, in that Rev. Drennan has resigned as minister of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, there may not be much in the way of disciplinary action that the UCM can subject him to now but the UUA`s Ministerial Fellowship Committee is certainly capable of doing so.”
Well, Mister Edgar, how are they supposed to do that after all these years? First you demanded that Ray Drennan meet you privately in your apartment, so you can explain your vision to him (although failing to explain why you couldn’t do so anywhere else) and then when you do not like what he has to say, you demand that other UUs punish him. Considering that this was all said in private, how can we be sure that your version of events is indeed accurate? For all we know, Ray Drennan was trying to convey how your behaviour affected others in the church (and, with what we have seen of your behaviour, this is just as plausible a scenario).
“2. The Unitarian Church of Montreal, and the UUA, would responsibly acknowlege that they responded to my original grievances against Rev. Ray Drennan in manner that was negligent, effectively complicit, and unjustly punitive. They would also jointly and/or severally (as appropriate) acknowledge all of my additional legitimate grievances that arose as a result of their negligent responses to my original grievances.”
Are you forgetting, Mister Edgar, the Canadian Unitarian Council, which has had direct oversight over the UCM the entire time. Oh, yes, you did in fact complain to them, too. Not to mention the Quebec Human Rights Commission, which dismissed the complaint as being without merit. Time and again, you have complained and complained, and now you are complaining about how people respond to your complaints. Just how did they respond? Well, basically they said you didn’t have a case. Then when you lashed out, they asked to you stop. Then when you wouldn’t stop, they took what action they could to keep you at arm’s length. Now, after all of these years, most of the UU movement has chosen to ignore you.
“3: The Unitarian Church of Montreal would responsibly acknowlege that the punitive expulsions that I have been subjected to constitute a perversion of justice and would overturn the permanent expulsion that I was unjustly subjected to on November 22nd, 1999. It would also subject those UCM church leaders who are most responsible for these unjust expulsions and/or other negligent and punitive responses to my grievances, such as the false arrests that I have been subjected to, to appropriate disciplinary action.”
So we should forget the fact that your expulsion was the result of a lengthy dispute, where you were suspended twice, only to come back and engage in more disruptive behaviour? Like dipping your spit-covered fingers in the water communion bowl, then arguing how justified it was? Or throwing a temper tantrum when you wanted to use office materials without authorisation? Not to mention constantly picketing the church, harassing its members, and even traveling all over the continent to picket UU events and locations just to draw attention to yourself? Your outlandish behaviour should be seen as “legitimate”, while the relatively restrained course of action taken by the UCM’s leadership ought to be punished?
“4: Both the Unitarian Church of Montreal and the UUA would open full inquiries into what happened, and fully disclose all pertinent documents and other records and information pertinent to this conflict, towards the end of ensuring that this kind of negligent and complicit response [to] clergy misconduct is not repeated within the U*U ‘religious community.’ “
Wait a minute, Mister Edgar, aren’t you putting the cart before the horse? We would think that a fair approach would be to “open full inquiries” before pronouncing sentence. Yet here you are demanding an admission of guilt before the inquiry, because in your mind the accused are already guilty. No surprise, of course, as it observes your number one rule, that you are never wrong and can never do any wrong.
We have a proposal of our own for Robin Edgar – that an independent committee looks over the entire matter, and the conduct of all parties, and renders a decision with recommendations. We do not expect Robin Edgar to agree to this, of course, considering how he has constantly and consistently tried to rationalize and justify his own outrageous conduct. That includes, we should remind our readers, his refusal to accept Reverend Ray Drennan’s apologies, showing that, even when an effort is made to meet his demands, it will never ever be enough for him.
Robin Edgar Sucks 