Zach Nebben

I would never try to hinder somebody’s rights to free speech. But, I will say that I prefer intelligent free speech over talking just to be heard.

Many people bore witness to the anti-homosexuality display outside of the student union last week. I had a moment of weakness in which I thought that I would be able to actually talk some sense into these self-righteous, arrogant jerks. I was dead wrong.

The mouth of the group had apparently trained himself not to be cornered by silly things such as logic and critical thinking. No, he had obviously been through it all before, and he would not fall into any of my argumentative traps. He swore that the Bible was an inch for inch, pound for pound, factual decree of what had occurred on Earth.

I am not here to debate truth in religion, but I think that even the most Christian of us all can agree that there may be tiny parts of the Bible that endured a hint of exaggeration over the past dozen or so centuries.

Throughout the day, this meager group of five or six people shouted their blind hatred of homosexuals to whoever was unfortunate enough to pass by. Their commitment was undaunted by anyone offering an opposing standpoint.

I have come to realize that there are people on this Earth crazy enough to believe whatever they want for no reason, whatsoever. I’m over that. You can believe that a ball of yarn is the creator of the universe for all I care. But what I don’t understand is choosing to air your grievances through a medium that brings no benefit to anyone.

This is what ultimately puzzles me. I refuse to think that there is someone out there that truly believes shouting hate speech will benefit anyone. There had to be an alternate motive.

I would be relieved to hear that this whole ploy was merely a social experiment designed to test the reactions of a group in this situation. It would satisfy my curiosity to know that these people had lost a bar bet and the wager was offending as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.

I don’t believe I’ll ever find out what the group’s intention really was. But I do take comfort in the fact that the people of this campus were open-minded enough to show their discontent with these people instead of just walking by.

Many students and professors alike showed this group that if they want to take a stance in a public medium, they had better be prepared for a rebuttal. Also, don’t think for one second that blindly quoting irrelevant passages from a book passes for an intelligent answer to every question that comes your way.

And to those demonstrators, you didn’t fool anyone. Your methods most likely didn’t change anyone’s minds about homosexuality. All you did was cement the notion that open bigotry and blind hatred will not thrive on this campus.

You certainly have shown all of us your stance on homosexuality. In doing so, you also proved a lack of intelligence, reasoning, logic and tolerance. I guess you are better at getting messages across than I originally gave you credit for.

#1.883983:1899735443.jpg:Nebben, Zach (thinker).jpg:Zach Nebben, Call me Crazy: