Apparently, colleges are but mere breeding grounds for children of the devil. Or so says the fundamentalist preacher man and company who spouted this and other such hate-mongering on the “designated free speech” area at the University of Cincinnati, where I attend classes.
I couldn’t help but stop and listen in morbid curiosity yesterday as “Brother Mike” shouted out his interpretation of Christianity. Yesterday he was alone; today, my friend Ryan tells me he brought friends. Here’s a sampling of Brother Mike’s views (yes, I wrote them down verbatim because I didn’t think people would believe me otherwise).
On race relations…
“Martin Luther King is burning in hell.”
On masturbation…
“Every masturbator is a confused homosexual.” (They say even babies masturbate. So ergo, is one then “born” a confused homosexual?)
On sin and the Christian concept of original sin…
“Sinners aren’t Christian. Sinners are children of the devil. I am not a sinner because I am a Christian.” (Boy, this one sure does go against everything I was taught in Sunday School)
On women and women-related issues…
“Women have strayed from their natural uses.” (Natural uses as in, say, dick warmers?)
Of course, the sin of abortion has its own very special place in Satan’s basement of hellish horrors. But one girl asked Brother Mike about cases involving rape and incest. He said:
“You girls should dress more modestly. You’re asking for it. Close your legs.” (Right. Closing one’s legs when a man is forcing them brutally apart is a little difficult, Brother Mike)
And so on and so on, ad nauseum.
Ryan, who happens to be very secure with his openness as a gay man, called me today with news that Hate-Mongering Part Two had only gotten louder and more violent. According to Ryan, the group even devised a “god hates fags” song that they tried to make the crowd perform like some divinely-inspired musical number.
I wasn’t surprised when Ryan told me of the group’s proclamations of hate against gays, Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who believes the world to be older than 6,000 years. But I was shocked by his next words. He said the group was singling out larger women – and calling them whores.
I stopped Ryan mid-sentence and asked for clarification. But my ears did not deceive.
Ryan said – and he recorded such incidents on film – that these “men of god” were picking out fat women in particular – any such woman who happened to merely be walking by the spectacle on their way to class, the bookstore or elsewhere on the campus they pay to attend classes at – and were very vocally calling them whores and sinners and proclaimed that they were surely going to hell.
Were they picking on the thin girls also, I asked Ryan. Oh, they were, he said, but it was mostly larger women and especially any woman who sported large, natural breasts who bore the brunt of their biblical condemnations.
It seems as if fat women are quarantined in either one of two bipolar extremes: either fat women are desexualized to the point of invisibility, or they’re hyper-sexualized to the point where fat becomes fodder for fetishism.
This is the scene from yesterday. I’m going to check with Ryan about posting video clips to YouTube.
UPDATE
May 24 - 3:45 p.m.
I stopped by campus again today and the fundies were still on campus. There were two preachermen and two women. The two women didn’t talk and the preachermen were quick to remind us how god placed man over woman, and that women cannot teach men.
I’ve been in contact with several people at the university, including Director of Public Safety Eugene Ferrara, who patronized me with a very asinine email about freedom of speech and the First Amendment. I am a journalist; I know the first amendment. But there is a vast difference between free speech and hate speech which advocates and promotes violence.
As students, what Ryan and I are most upset about isn’t the vitriolic spewing of hate emanating from these miscreants; it’s that the university has failed in fostering an atmosphere of true dialogue, where more than one side of a debate is presented. There is a total lack of transparency at UC; although they knew how controversial and potentially offensive these speakers would be, the university failed to notify any group on campus so that they would have ample time to apply for permits and present alternate views other than “You’re all children of the devil and you’re going to burn in hell.”
I’ve inquired numerous time to numerous offices at the college, including Public Safety, and have yet to be given the policy and procedure on how guest speakers receive these permits. I find it highly ironic that a fundamentalist speaker, with no ties to the university, can discover this procedure, yet I, as a paying student, constantly run into brick walls.
Ryan’s editing the videos today, and plans to upload them to YouTube soon. I’ll keep you all posted.
All disgust at the perpetuation of gender roles aside, here’s the real cause celeb: Bob the Builder emerged as the top coveted character this Christmas, outshining girl favorites like Barbie and Bratz. 
