Last Friday, a small group of non-denominational Christian demonstratorscaused a stir amongst the CSUS student body in the Library Quad. Theirpurpose was to preach to people about Christ’s message. Instead of usingwell-groomed elderly people to pass out Bibles, these demonstratorscondemned many students for their lifestyles by screaming at them,wagging their fingers and parading around with sadistic signs.

This recent display of force-fed behavior is just another example of howpeople can abuse the right to practice freedom of speech.

If these demonstrators wanted to preach the word of Christ, there aremany avenues one could take to get their point across. Yelling atstudents for being the spawn of Satan just because of (put whatever Godforsaken reason here) is not the best way to motivate students to followand learn more about God. Let’s face it, the demonstrators’ approach isno different from the abortion activists that invaded our campus lastsemester. Yet, instead of using horrific pictures to make a statement,they used signs with hateful messages on them.

These demonstrators should know that their use of the “shock method”usually has an adverse effect. Instead of being looked upon as”prophets,” they’re seen as fanatics. Almost all fanatics are nevertaken seriously, and if anything, they’re perceived as a joke.Perhaps the demonstrators don?t care how they?re perceived, as long asthey get a reaction from people. If that is the case, then those peoplesucceeded and the students who strongly disagreed with them, whetherthey know it or not, contributed to their success.

To the students who openly argued with the demonstrators, you wastedyour breath and time. The problem with people like the ones in the quadis that their blatant narrow-minded views are not open to discussion.Those demonstrators are not interested in hearing what you have to say;all they care about is that you listen to their gospel and apply it toyour life so you can “save yourself.”

One has to question the purpose of the demonstrators? visit. They knewand even admitted that they were going to face serious opposition. Intheir choice of mindset, they truly believed that they were on a missionto relay “God?s message.” While there?s nothing wrong with that, it’sunfortunate, however, that it never occurred to the demonstrators thattheir hateful approach distracted their attempt to educate about thelove of Christ.

Religion is a touchy subject, it’s caused wars for centuries. There isa wide spectrum of beliefs. Some people don’t even follow a religion orbelieve that organized religion is a farce. And then there are thosethat believe that without organized religion there would be no brakes tosociety’s wrongdoings. Either way, we’ll be fine if we can all at leastagree to disagree about religion and how the demonstrators’ message waslost in their approach.Amen.

Georgette Todd is a Journalism major and can be reached by e-mail [email protected].