It's no coincidence that a team of bigots showed up in Athens yesterday, blocking the sidewalks with enormous signs promising hell
and fire for the hapless residents of our sleepy Gomorrah. They're here because Judy Shepard is speaking tonight at 8 p.m. in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, and, with the zealotry that only the very small-minded can muster, they want to shame or scare us from going. Shepard's 21-year-old son, Matthew, was killed six years ago by the same kind of zealots, who tied him to a fence and pummeled him simply because he didn't live a Christian life.
So now, because his mother works to eliminate that kind of hatred, nut-jobs come out of the woodwork and shout at us as we walk between classes. Their signs on Richland Avenue yesterday were so broad that students had to detour into the street and onto the grass; at College Gate students winced as a grizzled old loony harangued them. Elsewhere, the techniques were subtler -in the morning, two effusive men in sunglasses and slicked-back hair stood on South Green passing out green New Testaments, probably to soften up students on their way to class for bigger salvos waiting Uptown.
At College Gate, Beau Clark and several other students weren't having this. Clark happens to be gay. When the white-haired screamer with the Jesus Saves sign learned this, he said to Clark, Thank God for hell. So Clark made a sign of his own, which said, Thou shalt not judge
and stood next to the man, holding it in the air.
Joey Swartzentruber, who happens to be straight, made a sign that said, I'm with stupid and drew an arrow pointing to the man, who was drawing a crowd of people not cowed by his bullying. You homosexual the man told Swartzentruber. You've got hell on your face.
The standoff lasted about twenty minutes. The homophobes with signs convened at College Gate and stood silently by themselves while a growing crowd of very fed-up people, male and female, gay and straight, commiserated with Clark and Swartzentruber. Soon, the homophobes left. There was a palpable sense of relief at College Gate and the crowd dispersed; Clark and Swartzentruber folded up their signs and accepted congratulations for winning the good fight.
It's really nice to apply your obnoxiousness to something like this
Clark said.
As they talked, the man from the corner rode past on a motorcycle. Awl thuh homosek'shuls 'r lahrs! he shouted, and then buzzed off. People in the crowd shouted some choice things back at him.
Did he just say all the homosexuals are lovers? Clark asked.
Unless a grand trick is being played upon the world, this is the year 2004 -we have advanced far past having to face down jack-booted, big-mouthed tormentors who arrogantly foist their corn pone views on passersby. Of course they have the right to do it. Their right to broadcast idiocy is unassailable. But that doesn't mean we have to put up with it, and it doesn't mean we can't tell them so.
What's frustrating is that this happens every year, to different degrees. Every fall, brimstone dealers set up shop on College Green and rail against gays and lesbians as if they'll find a receptive audience here. Instead they have shouting matches with people who just want to sit on the grass and eat their burritos, who could do without an earful of bile, and who, regardless of their faith or politics, don't threaten damnation on entire segments of the human race. The sign-bearing hate merchants should leave and never come back. We're tired of them. They're not welcome here.
-Philip Ewing is The Post's managing editor. Send him an e-mail at philip.ewing@ohiou.edu.
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