COLUMN: Promotion of hate?
There is a dangerous, potentially deadly, communicable disease among the youth in society.
This disease can cause one to go blind to one’s surroundings, deaf to voices speaking and in the worst scenarios, death to the human heart.
Apathy has the potential to be more potent than heart disease and carelessness; deadlier than cancer. Apathy is more dangerous than the indecent actions by the bigoted themselves.
So when I am told to not protest the presence of the Westboro Baptist Church, I take the opposing comments into consideration. However, silence is as deadly as any method fringe hate groups have. I am not saying to meet the Westboro Baptist Church with pitchforks and anger, for anger is what they feed on.
Their whole agenda is based on the premise of hate, and it would make no sense to meet them with it. At the same time, they have to be met nonetheless. It may bring attention to them and they do feed on this attention, but it is not ethical to simply act as though they aren’t here.
Their presence cannot be ignored. Civil rights leaders met their opponents head-on and nonviolently repeatedly, and I see no difference in this case.
In all honesty, I do not disapprove of their visit, and to completely remain isolated and apathetic of their visit as a strategy to protest them, I don’t see as being productive.
The whole premise of their visit is to pursue a dialogue on the limits of free speech. What better way to exercise our free speech; speech that has an agenda of love and tolerance in retaliation against their agenda of bigotry?
Any group invited to speak at Central Michigan University should be allowed to speak freely.
The amazing thing about the First Amendment is that any group, regardless of others' personal beliefs, can speak their mind. Fred Phelps and his family have an inalienable right to preach their bigoted hatred, and I do not deny that.
I see no legal qualms in their expression, but we still must continue to meet them and use our rights to free speech to remind them they are not welcome here with their hateful ideologies.
Meeting them in protest might not be a shocker or a surprise to the Phelps family, but if they are using their rights to spread hatred, why not use ours to spread love? I find this a much more efficient tool than apathy.
Brynn McDonnell is member of College Democrats. This column does not reflect the views of that organization.
