A sect, Esperanto?

A sect has a guru. Esperanto has no dictatorial leader and no unitary "church".

A sect collects money and its leaders are not paupers. Esperanto societies and clubs have very limited means.

A sect is united and monolithic. Esperanto speakers have extremely divergent opinions on everything, including Esperanto's function.

A sect has a definite outlook on life. Esperanto speakers include atheists and spiritualists, marxists and liberals, bishops and freemasons, Christians and Moslems, Buddhist and Jews, plus members of all kinds of other religions and ideologies. The only thing they share is the language.

If they sometimes overreact, it's understandable. The language they use successfully in their international relationships is constantly calumniated, ridiculed and misrepresented by persons who have no idea of how it works in practice. This attitude deprives the world of a very cost effective and human way of overcoming the language barriers. Isn't it normal to feel frustrated and angry at such an unwarranted attitude? Of course, it would be better if they could control their frustration and anger and always be moderate. Many succeed. Others can't. What do you expect? They're human.