As many of you have hopefully read (in the March 6 issue of the Daily Forty Niner, in an article titled “Religious Debate heats up The Beach”), on Monday Christian demonstrators arrived on our campus grounds, just itching to stir up controversy and disrupt fellow students from their daily activities.
According to the article, John Franklin, 65, from Cornerstone Ministries in Los Angeles, arrived on campus with a sign saying “Don’t Go To Hell” on one side and “Repent” on the other. He conversed in heated debates about various political and religious topics. The other demonstrator was Jason Storms, 28, from the Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism in Milwaukee. (A side note: Can you believe some missionary from Milwaukee dragged himself across the country to shove his beliefs in our faces? He must be seriously dedicated to his craft.)
According to the article, Storms was arrested at Cal State Long Beach two years ago for allegedly violating free speech activities, but a few months ago the case was dropped.
It’s one thing to spark a debate and have intelligent conversations about religious, political and sociological beliefs, but it’s another to go off on incoherent tangents. It seems the latter was practiced Monday, as Franklin asked the audience, “Do you think God loves everybody?” And when they replied yes, Franklin retorted “Wrongo!”
Anyone who utters the word “wrongo” is a whack job in our books. And telling college students that God doesn’t love them seems a bit hypocritical for a supposed religious man, if not at least a bit manipulative.
According to the article, Laura Osejo, a junior philosophy major, was upset by the commotion. “I’m paying to be here,” Osejo said, “and this guy walks in here telling me I’m going to hell because I’m a ‘bisexual, mouthy woman.'” That’s not only a sexist remark, but it’s ignorant and makes Franklin sound like a bigot. If Christian fundamentalists want to be taken seriously, they need to stop representing themselves with such inarticulate fools. If people get the wrong idea about evangelical Christians, it’s because of idiots like him.
According to the article, another onlooker accused Franklin of “being worse than a suicide bomber.” Now that’s obviously taking it a bit too far. It’s one thing to be a religious demonstrator, preaching your righteous indignation onto anyone within earshot, but it’s quite another to be a mentally deranged suicide bomber. Although one can see the student’s point, both the suicide bomber and the demonstrator are driven by the same thing: their religious conviction. Is it normal to want to die for God? Is it normal to include hate speech in your sermons? We don’t believe it is. There’s a fine line between feeling close to God and being a religious zealot, and those men yesterday surely passed that line.
One thing’s for sure: Only in the United States could any of this be possible. From Monday’s demonstration to Maureen Dowd to Fox News, even this opinion piece wouldn’t be possible without it. The First Amendment was a gift, and you can’t blame fundamentalists for utilizing it. It would just be nicer if they did it somewhere else.
