Nobody has ever been convinced to accept an idea because someone yelled at them.

As persuasion tactics go, standing in a crowded plaza and furiously decrying the evils of those around you isn’t exactly an effective marketing strategy. But that has not stopped generations of hellfire and damnation preachers from assembling in public venues trying to scare people into becoming new converts. CSU is no different.

Not that it’s really a surprise anymore; when the school year begins, almost everyone expects for there to be a mad dash of preachers enumerating our evil behaviors and vehemently beseeching us to accept their lord and savior. However, there comes a point where the attempts to scare us into God’s arms ceases to be free speech and instead becomes verbal harassment and abuse.

Singling out female students as “whores” for the clothes that they wear and accusing male students of being sexual predators (if not outright rapists) isn’t free speech. It’s an abuse of the privilege that the university offers to all who want to spread information to the student body.

But, the ability of the university to prohibit them from campus is a thorny legal issue to navigate, and there’s no guarantee that they can (legally) remove speakers like this from campus.

So what can we do?

We can ignore them.

These sorts of people revel in the reactions that they spark in the student body. They love it when we crowd around them to argue and protest, as it’s just that many more people to hear their message.

So let their message fall upon deaf ears. If they don’t feel like they’re reaching us, then maybe they’ll pick up and move elsewhere in frustration.

They have every right to speak, but they don’t have the right to make us listen.

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