Gawker brings us a great story. There’s this open air preacher named John Chisham — truly an obnoxious character — who runs around college campuses and spring break celebrations and screams at people about how they’re going to hell and whatnot. He particularly hates gay people, but he’s the sort of wingnut who makes a solid attempt to spread his hate around. So some kids at Minnesota State University – Mankato, got tired of his constant presence on their campus and decided to respond in an ingenious way: They protested him back at his own church:
John Chisham (pictured, on the job) is a preacher at the River of Life Alliance Church. He travels around preaching in public on college campuses, which is his right. He sometimes tells women they’re dressed like prostitutes, and he tells students that gay people will burn in hell—though, to be fair, he tells Inside Higher Ed that “he thinks many people are facing eternity in hell, not just gay people.”
Students at Minnesota State University, Mankato were disturbed by Chisham’s preaching on their campus. But instead of shouting him down, or calling for him to be banned, they simply exercised some free speech of their own:
Rather, students followed his most recent visit to the campus by going to the service at which he preaches on Sundays (at a YMCA), where they walked to the front of the room and held up signs with the names and photographs of gay youth who have killed themselves this year after bullying incidents.
Nice!
Chisham, the poor baby, thinks that the students are Big Mean Bullies, apparently not seeing that standing with a megaphone and telling strangers that they’re going to burn in hell is one of the highest forms of bullying behavior imaginable.
Now I am going to be a bully and link you to his blog, which is accessible via a two second Google search, because Google is also a bully.
Same type thing happened when I was in college. Someone came on campus doing just that sort of thing, including women who aren’t modest in his many diatribes on a day I happened to be wearing a long dress. I also have very long hair and my makeup had worn off by that time, so he saw no reason to object when I politely asked if I could speak for a moment. Other students had been actually trying to engage him in dialogue, voicing strong objections, but I knew that was a waste of time. When he gave me the floor, I looked at the students and said that he was just there to provoke people, and if everyone got up and walked away, he would not have an audience to whom he could spew his vitriol. At that point I said I was leaving and that I encouraged others to do the same. Almost the entire audience got up and left with me. You should have seen his face! That was a priceless moment I will never forget.
Love it! Amazing that we are bullies, and I’m sure he’s just trying to “help” us realize the err of our ways. I call shenanigans on him! Everyone grab a broom!!! :)
Every “river” can run dry. This one has.
For a split second, I was mildly alarmed and a little amused because I thought this might be the same guy who banned owning multiple dildos and pushed a sodomy law in Texas… and then I realized a remarkable amount of people have last names that rhyme with “jism”.
“apparently not seeing that standing with a megaphone and telling strangers that they’re going to burn in hell is one of the highest forms of bullying behavior imaginable.”
Well, yes, I suppose that if you really really believed most people were indeed going to hell the decent thing to do is keep quiet about it and not bother them.
Typical bully behavior. They abuse others in every possible way. The second someone stands up to them they whine like little babies.
Bob said “Well, yes, I suppose that if you really really believed most people were indeed going to hell the decent thing to do is keep quiet about it and not bother them.”.
Right, ’cause no one has ever heard the idea that they’re going to go to hell before so its critical that someone make them aware of it – over and over and over again. Tell us Bob has it ever occured to you that after you’ve heard it once, repeating it a thousand times is just harrasement?
Priya,
Bob is a troll. He haunts LGBT and atheist blogs because he apparently has no life. Then he goes back to his own blog and whines about how “persecuted” Christianists are because people dare to stand up to their abhorrent behavior.
When I was going to college at Penn State Main, we had one of those preachers that would stand outside of Willard Building and just yell and wail at people as they passed by. What got really annoying was that he would do this during the time that classes were in session and it made it impossible for the students to concentrate on their studies.
A petition was passed around and sent to the Dean of PSU, who in turn laid it out that he was only allowed to preach during lunch hours and after that he had to go home. after all, he would claim that his “right to free speech” was being violated and Penn State is all about freedom of speech.
After a while, though, it got to the point where he was going beyond just preaching and actually getting inside your personal space. He would go right up to you and confront you literally face to face to provoke students. Some of the female students were terrified of him. One incident I do recall is that he actually slapped a student across the face for calling him a name. The student had charges pressed against him and later he went to court and had to serve some time in jail.
I agree, some of these “street preachers” can be very aggressive and bully like, yet they accuse us of being the bad guys…go figure!
When I was in college in the 70s we occasionally had an older man who would try to hand out little green new testament books. Most of my friends would just refuse to take them, I always did and then had the pleasure of tossing them into the nearest dumpster after walking on. I’m not anti religion, only anti proselytizing (especially from fundos–which this guy was).
Street preachers would come onto my grad school campus all the time and rant about our endless sins. When students would gather around and argue with them, they seemed energized. However, when the students grew tired of the preachers’ fundamentalist rhetoric and ignored them, the preachers eventually stopped coming. People like that feed on attention and anger, and when they are deprived of such nourishment, they usually leave.
Many years ago, I was on the campus of Bowling Green State Univ. when Brother Jed (Smock) a regular invader of college campuses was there, as usual provoking the usual diatribe.
He sat down and one of his little acolytes began to denounce evolution and gave the usual spew that the earth’s only tens of thousands of years old, and humans lived with the dinosaurs — red meat to this NASA nut and science geek.
As I was proceeding to tear apart his theory into little shreds, Jed, seeing that his boy was being shredded, reared up out of his chair and roared, “You’re a *man*, aren’t you?”
I do happen to be transsexual, and I calmly but firmly asked Jed what makes a man or a woman? He seemed befuddled for a moment and began to attempt to degrade and humiliate me, even accusing me of going to the women’s toilet just to hear them pee!
Once again, I calmly and firmly replied that I go to the restroom just like any other woman — I go in, find an empty stall, *close and lock the door*, do my business, wipe, flush, exit the stall, wash and dry my hands, check my hair and makeup and leave.
I then proceeded to dress down Jed, letting him know that I’m just as human as he is, and that nothing he was going to say would hurt me, and a few other things I don’t remember.
I got an ovation when I was through.