Long have college campuses nurtured progressive thought and acted as stages for demonstrations. University grounds are a place where young adults, each with their own opinions, begin to express themselves, realizing how empowering free speech can truly be.
On Wednesday, as I came across one such illuminating event, I saw dozens of students standing with makeshift posters in a demonstration against confrontational evangelists Bob Engel and Jed Smock, who publicly condemned members of the LGBT community, among others.
Engel ruined the moment when he decided to go beyond the limits of his First Amendment rights and into the territory of hate speech.
“Move you fat dike bitch,” Engel said to a protester holding a pro-LGBT poster.
Comments like these were nothing new, though. They had been thrown around for the past three days.
Over the next hour and a half, the self-proclaimed “prophet of god” continued preaching. After all, it’s his first amendment right.
His preaching included feint passes at some female students, obvious disgust with one woman whom he made sure everyone knew was “not that good looking” and “a little overweight,” and many more references to “dikes” and “stupid bitches” while questioning some students as to whether they were male or female.
This was not free speech; this was harassment.
CSULB’s campus regulations, which all non-commercial solicitors including these lovely orators are required to follow, state that solicitation must be conducted in a manner “which is carried out without voice amplification or other unduly loud noise, and without undue provocation, harassment or disturbance of persons in the area.”
If Engel and Smock were trying to see how many rules they could break in one sentence, job well done.
They even set up 50-feet from a designated smoking area so they could obscenely shout at students innocently grabbing a quick puff between midterms.
“It’s crossing the line when someone’s eliciting violence or singling people out and calling names,” Alena Gretencord, a sophomore pre-industrial design major and member of CSULB’s Queers and Allies, said.
She noted that there are already higher rates of suicide in the LGBT community – to whom many of the orators disparaging remarks were directed – with the increased rate largely attributed to harassment and teasing.
The people who appeared most angry with Engels and Smock were Christian students.
“We have freedom of speech, but he’s just vulgar,” a Love Is For Everyone Campus Minister said.
California is supposed to be one of the most progressive and liberal states, yet visiting students from a campus across the county were shocked.
“I haven’t seen anything like that on our campus,” Oklahoma University sophomore Susan Horne said. “It’s just hate speech, it’s kind of like a hate group.”
But even a hate group, like the KKK or Nazi’s, should have the right to demonstrate on campus, and they are. It is possible to have beliefs, however controversial they may be to a majority of other people, and demonstrate them in a way that abides with our campus regulations.
Calling people vulgar names is not the way to do that.
If either a group of KKK or Nazi demonstrators came to campus and began yelling racial slurs at students, we would likely make national news for the ensuing brawl.
Crime Prevention Sergeant Keith Caires said that while there are clear examples of when free speech crosses the line, exchanges with people engaging in inflammatory debate are not always so clear.
This is because debate can stir emotions, and its greatest yield – passion – can sometimes blind people to the harm they are inflicting on others.
“Sometimes they need to be called a picketing-lesbo bitch, or even a cunt,” Engels said.
Good point, and thank you for enlightening our campus with your insightful opinions.
“I’m not very effective at all,” Engels said.
I wonder why.
Free speech is something we should all celebrate, but it does not mean that there isn’t a limit.
Hopefully, degrading slurs and harassment will not ruin the next demonstration on our campus
Well said.