I’m sure we have all seen the suit-wearing preacher in the Union Plaza who tells people where they are going in the afterlife – that place usually being Hell. Branded with the words “Jesus Saves” and other ideologically charged statements, he definitely knows his rights and how far he can go to have his voice heard without having his stump speech interrupted by law enforcement.
On Monday, his weekly soapbox speech was interrupted by students yelling Bible verses and personal attacks, threats and insults. I watched the events unfold from afar, not wanting to be a part of the crowd due to the legal, moral and ethical questions that were running through my mind. By the end of the incident, the pastor’s hat had been knocked off, his water bottle had been thrown across the Union Plaza, and roughly fifty students were surrounding him, not allowing him any exit from the increasingly precarious situation.
As all of this was occurring, all I could think about was “I was there once.”
I understand this preacher’s mindset. For those of us who grew up in the Deep South, we are quite accustomed to the rhetoric and influence that religious communities often feed on, that misled individuals use to feel mighty. I have always been taught to turn the other cheek to these kinds of people, to not allow them to make me feel small or heavy through their words or actions. I am referring mostly to the zealots, not the people who are respectful to others and are understanding of people who differ from themselves.
I was presented with many legal, ethical and moral questions as the events were unfolding.
Should we speak to religious zealots and, in turn, fuel their crusade? Why can this man say all of these things that are very literally hurting people and making people feel uneasy on their own campus? How is this any different from putting a noose around the James Meredith statue, willfully causing anxiety and evoking panic throughout a specific group?
These aren’t easy questions, but I did come to a few conclusions, some of which may seem obvious to many readers but were novel to me.
Luckily, the religious communities that I grew up in were filled with love and compassion and mutual respect. This past Monday was one of the first times that I have come into contact with a person who unashamedly took hits at groups in the name of God. From his self-composed “I’m a happy homophobe” to telling kids that they smoked too much weed, his words were finding targets, and people reacted.
The fact that students reacted makes me both happy and angry, depending on the reaction.
To those students who argued and used their voices and exercised their rights, I thank you. To those of you who made this man feel panic as you squeezed him into the middle of a mob, shame on you.
We live in a liberal democracy and have a Bill of Rights that explicitly gives a preacher the ability to say things I don’t agree with and gives me the right to write an opinion piece to rebuke him. The “liberal” part of “liberal democracy” is most important here.
Liberal means many things, aside from its political connotations. It means excess, generous, unbound and without restraint. All of these words should be applied to speech. The fact that anyone can say anything is one of the most groundbreaking attributes of the U.S. Constitution, and none of us should take that right lightly.
In other places all across the world, people are jailed daily simply because of their beliefs and their courage to say things that go against common thought or government-sanctioned ideals.
Of course, I would prefer for the “Jesus Saves” man to get the hell off our campus and never come back, but I will exercise my rights in a different way than causing a near-riot in front of the Union.
Thankfully, the police came and escorted the preacher away from the crowd before anything drastic occurred. But for a moment there, as I watched the preacher and a student stand eye to eye with both hate and fear in their eyes, I was reminded of how hard it is to allow someone to attempt to trample your worldview but emerge unharmed and content.
I urge everyone to always take the high road. Use your words intelligently and pointedly, but don’t allow someone to belittle you through their words.
Much of what happened outside the Union on Monday was spawned by ignorance by both the preacher and dozens of students, but once you become informed about something, you must own up to your actions. If this preacher is outside the Union again, exercise caution – don’t let the heat of the moment or the heavy judgement that he condemns you with incite violence or unkindness.
Show through your actions the mutual respect that you expect in return but also respectfully decline his words and ideology. This goes way further than the damage you could inflict with your fists.
Alex Borst is a sophomore international studies major from Madison.
