Free Speech Struggle At SIUE

An interesting struggle is underway at SIU-Edwardsville where the administration is holding off faculty and students who want an Alton pastor silenced. Each week, for six-and-a-half years, Pastor Tom Rayborn, has set up an amplifier on the Quad and preached his form of Christianity.

That has  prompted campus groups---like the Gay-Straight Alliance and the Philosophy Club---to call for his removal from campus. They say the pastor’s message is filled with hate-speech and they feel threatened.

The administration at SIUE has monitored the sermons and say they can’t find anything to hang their hat on. It sounds like free speech to them. And that means it is protected under the first amendment of the Constitution. They say they have listened to literally hours of Rayborn’s religious ramblings…and find nothing that could possibly resemble hate-speech.

Lately, his sermons have resembled a three-ring circus. You have the pastor, then you have a group of students who are carrying signs in silent protest….and then you have a faculty member trying to shout down the minister with a bullhorn.

I would say the same thing to the students I say to folks who don’t like these commentaries. Don’t listen. Mind your own business. Maybe take a moment and read the first amendment. It is brilliant and is the bedrock of our free society.

One man’s hate speech is another man’s doctrine.

It is disturbing that a recent poll of college students showed 51-percent thought shouting down a person was totally acceptable if the person did not share their opinion.

These are the lawyers and teachers of tomorrow.

Frightening.