With regard to the man (with the atheist sign) and woman (with the bullhorn) on campus this past Tuesday, March 12, 2013:

I respectfully request that they be asked to give up the bullhorn or leave campus when next they visit.  In case no one on staff was aware of their presence, the following is a summary of their actions and the reasons for my request.

The gentleman with the sign was relatively respectful of the CSUSM community.  He simply stood in the common area outside of Starbucks and the Kellogg Library holding a sign proclaiming, “It is easy to be an atheist….I can show you proof of God’s existence in the bible.”  I don’t find his actions objectionable and feel if he simply wishes to stand on campus with a sign; his right to free speech should be acknowledged.  An open conversation regarding opposing views should be encouraged.  For example, can he prove God’s existence without the Bible?  I’m just asking….

The woman, on the other hand, requires some education about the CSUSM community and civility.  With bullhorn in hand she stood in the same area outside of Starbucks and the library yelling about different diseases caused by oral sex, “back door” sex and made other unsubstantiated claims. I felt that her rhetoric was aimed solely at CSUSM women.  However, she may have been targeting our members of the LGBTQ community as well.  She also spoke of persons who would refute her claims as those who also deny “…the judgment that is to come.”

As for my reasons, they include aspects of civility, mutual respect and freedom of speech issues.  Representatives from different faiths routinely visit our campus and hand out literature.  We also have members of the Jewish, Krishna, Christian and Muslim faiths, agnostics and atheists in residence at CSUSM.  As students at CSUSM, many of us are just learning about the critical thinking process and exercising our free will without close parental guidance.  Critical thinking and free will are two of the cornerstones of any good educational process.  While many of the visiting and in-house organizations offer information about themselves; they do it in such a way that we exercise our free will in the taking or leaving of offered literature.   We can choose to be part of the conversation.

The woman’s bullhorn and the yelling essentially removed us from the conversation and turned us into a congregation for this woman’s opinions.  I am unwilling to listen to the judgments and unsubstantiated medical claims this woman made.  I had the option of walking away.  I did.  I find it unreasonable and disrespectful of this woman to shut out involvement of the community using a bullhorn.  She has an opinion, I respect that.  I don’t respect her way of disseminating it to our community.

We, as students and community members of CSUSM, have the right to embrace or walk away from groups offering information about themselves.  We have the right to offer a reasonable opinion in rebuttal to what we are hearing or reading.  I feel that the open exchange of ideas or opinions is essential for mental growth, civility, understanding and respect.

If CSUSM does not have a policy regarding the actions and behaviors of visiting groups, perhaps it is time to make one and respectfully escort those visitors who won’t comply with it to the curb.  They should be held to the same standards we are when they are in our community.

Respectfully,

Susanne Montague, student