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As someone who really misses the community of church but really can't will myself to believe anymore. I really really like the idea of the Unitarian Church and think it would have been pretty neat 40 years ago but I've never attended because I suspected it would be exactly as you describe.
As for what is going on literally every old school liberal organization has had the same issue. From The Unitarians to the ACLU it's all the same thing. The intercept had an excellent article about this but it seems to be taken down. Basically Boomer liberal organizations were actually liberal and boomer liberals did believe in principles such as free speech. However, they lacked the antibodies to deal with hardcore woke cadre because they could easily be manipulated by being called racist and out of touch with the youth. During Trumps first term essentially every old school big L liberal organization fell to woke and abandoned it's early high minded principle and the unitarians are no exception. There's a whole blocked and reported episode about it.
Yeah this is more or less where I was coming from, and was hoping for some vestige of what it may have been in case it was possible to find a place that I could actually share beliefs with. And that explanation rings true to me, though it's just kind of tragic to think about the cultural loss there. I'll have to check out that episode.
If you do there was a breakaway faction that was purged from the main group. They might have more remnants of the old tradition.
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