Dealing with Hate Preachers on Campus
As a bit of background: In addition to having spent a lot of years in higher education, I am also a minister. I attended seminary (although I did not finish my Master of Divinity degree) and have been involved in youth and adult education & music for many years. I was raised and educated as a Southern Baptist church and later left the denomination when they placed top value on indoctrination instead of education. They developed, and in many cases still have, a very narrow view of God. My view is much wider. I now attend and participate in inclusive, welcoming denominations and churches.
The earthquake in Haiti has certainly brought out the “crazies” in our world. As a minister I am saddened that so many of the crazies seem to be attached to one religion or another. Thankfully, I guess, no one sect or group can claim to have all of the crazies worshipping in their tent. From Pat Robertson who truly believes that the Haitians made a pact with the devil many, many years ago to the group from Idaho who decided they should go to Haiti and take out lovely, little children for their personal and religious gain.
Natural disasters for some reason bring the true nut cases to television…and we watch them. And we often tolerate them and the ridiculous messages they bring. I think this is because they seem to have standing or authority in our community and they possess the financial means to be on television—so they must be correct and have something worthwhile to say.
As I thought about the crazies we see with natural disasters I was forced to think about some of the more interesting characters we have on campus at UCF. That’s right; I love the free speech zones on campus! I am amazed at the dedication to their causes that these folks possess. I wish those in the LGBTQA community were equally passionate.
More often than not those in the free speech zone are preaching condemnation to many of us on the UCF campus. Again, they are passionate about their message; sadly, their message is simply wrong. They have been wonderfully and skillfully indoctrinated by a mentor. I believe most of them are pretty delusional and have been horribly misled about God and God’s love for the entire world. After all, if you believe God is the creator and is infallible then all of God’s children/creations must be accepted (as is) or God made a mistake…and that does not go well with the theology being espoused in these free speck zones.
So how can you best deal with these fine folks? I have a lot of answers but here is the primary key: ignore them. In the world are 3 big groups of people: those who passionately agree with me (and of course they are the correct ones), those who vehemently disagree with me (those who are simply wrong), and the movable/teachable middle. And yes, I chose my adjectives carefully. You will not move groups one and two. We are who we are and we are not likely to change our minds on issues. It is the center group—the movable/teachable middle—where we must spend our time and energy. More about them in my next blog. Now, back to the original question, how do we deal with hate preachers on campus?
The following suggestions come from the “Stop the Hate” section on the Campus Pride, Inc. website (www.campuspride.org). They got the information from UC Santa Cruz Hate/Bias Peer Response Team and The Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education. I work in Information Fluency so I have to be sure and cite correctly my sources! Here are their suggestions:
“Hate preachers thrive on attention and publicity. They use provocative language in an attempt to ‘hook’ people. They frequently press charges and fund their homophobic campaigns by winning lawsuits. Some effective strategies that others have used include:
• Ignore the haters completely. Do not give them any media attention.
• Do NOT touch any of the haters. Some of these groups fund themselves by claiming they were ‘touched.’
• Conduct a positive campaign of rainbow ribbons, buttons, banners – ‘Not in R House.”
• Form a ‘moving circle of love’ – surrounding haters. Hide them! (Not sure this can be done in a free speech zone)
• Counter-schedule another ‘unity’ event at the same time.
• Create a fundraiser for a positive group on campus. Every time the haters use words like ‘fag’ have pledgers donate a $1.
• Use the ‘Angels’ strategy used by allies at Matthew Shepard’s funeral. People wear white gowns and construct HUGE angel wings to wear. They stand with their backs silently to the protesters and ‘block’ the hater signs.
• Play music like “I’m coming out” and dance around them.
• Grab a bunch of people and have a same-sex kiss-in all around the protesters.”
I am not really sure any one of these is more effective than another. I am not sure these are the best suggestions in the world. But there comes a time when you have to speak out—or be willing to be second class citizens for the remainder of your lives. Shall we continue to let the “crazies” dominate the media or do ensure our voices are also heard?
