…or so said a couple of traveling evangelists who, on Friday, graced the otherwise liberal campus of Shepherd University. The Journal covered the story in Saturday’s edition:
After obtaining a permit to preach from the university, Robert Breaud and Jeremy Sonnier, both of Louisiana, inflamed students by warning them of God’s wrath and the fires of hell. Hundreds of students responded by protesting nearby on the grassy knoll known as the Midway.
Sonnier, of Lafayette, stood bearing a 10-foot-tall sign that grouped “Roman Catholics, lazy Christians, Muslims, thieves, rapists, unloving husbands, unsubmissive wives, homosexuals, drunks, fornicators” and a host of others as sinners who will meet God’s judgment.
Breaud, from New Orleans, used a slightly softer approach by stringing chords on his guitar and singing melodies of repentance. Sharing his own testimony as a man who had previous homosexual experiences and alcoholic tendencies, Breaud created a buzz by suggesting people turn from sin and become born again.
“We’ve met the usual opposition here. Most people are God-rejectors,” said Breaud, who described his conscience as “convicted” while he was a homosexual. “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless a man has the spirit of Christ in him, he doesn’t belong to Jesus,” he said.
I have learned from an inside, but unconfirmed, source that the Student Affairs office here on campus granted the permit for these men to come on campus. I witnessed the whole hullabaloo with my own two eyes, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to take it at first. I didn’t stop to talk to the guys, I laughed it off and walked by. Usually I have my camera with me, but of course at a time when i truly could have used it it was nowhere to be found. Anyway, I wasn’t even sure if they were truly convinced of what they were displaying on their sign, or if they were being ironic or backhanded, trying to display some negative elements of Christianity.
I have to say that I, for one, applaud the Student Affairs office for granting the permit. Here they had an opportunity to refuse freedom of speech rights, and they took the high ground. I wish the same could be said for the students on campus:
In an attempt to mock the sign-bearer, some female students embraced and kissed in front of the crowd and in front of Sonnier, prompting him to say, “they will burn in the lake of fire.” Other students heckled the two-man team by throwing footballs at them, yelling obscenities and one student dumped a cup of water on Sonnier’s head.
Sonnier, who damned all fornicators and called pro-choice supporters “pro-baby murderers,” said he is “loving through action,” which prompted one student to holler out, “fornication is loving through action.”
Heckling, yelling obscenities, dumping water on these guys’ heads? That’s not the way to go about things. I over heard two girls talking about the whole situation; one of them suggested that the cops should have “hauled him away.” What happened to free speech on the college campus? And this attitude at probably the most liberal university, and unquestionably the most liberal town, in West Virginia? Shocking.
The democrats have done such a damn good job revaming the United States education system that they’ve decided to take on all education for all poor folks world wide.
From the New York Times:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York proposed legislation yesterday to spend $10 billion over five years to build classrooms, train teachers and get millions of children, especially girls, into school in the developing world. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina have made their own ambitious education proposals for poor nations in recent speeches.
All three are positioning education in developing countries — which has commanded increasing, though still relatively modest federal resources — as a national security issue. The candidates say public education is an important way to combat terrorism and extremist ideas and to restore the United States’ moral standing.
[...]
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, federal financing for education in developing countries ranged from $100 million to $200 million; in the Bush years, it has risen to more than $500 million. Estimates of the cost of educating a child in poor countries range from $50 to $100 a year.
[...]
The number of children out of school globally has fallen to 77 million from 98 million in the past five years, according to United Nations estimates.
African countries in particular have brought millions more children into school by abolishing school fees and investing more in education, though some countries have struggled with severely overcrowded classrooms and falling achievement.
Now I have a couple of issues with this. First of all, I don’t understand why it is that our troops can’t get the funding that they need to stay safe and continue operations in Iraq, but we can talk about spending billions to educate children outside of America.
Secondly, where are all the critics who complain about NCLB as interfering on states’ rights? So it’s not ok for the federal government to expect our own schools to meet high standards, but it is ok for the US government to send money, with stipulations I’m sure, to developing countries for education? In the same article, John Edwards:
…warned that thousands of young people were being taught to hate the United States by militant extremists in Islamic religious schools.
“When you understand that,” he said, “it suddenly becomes clear: global poverty is not just a moral issue for the United States.”
How can the US government ensure that federal dollars won’t be spent in schools that teach that sort of militant extremism? Are we sending a list of standards by which all teachers must teach their students? Are we sending a team of bureaucrats to oversee these US funded schools?
Finally, what about our own education system? The democrats say, continuously, that NCLB is an “unfunded mandate…” So FUND IT! That $15 billion would go along way to funding schools. I’m not saying that we can’t send aid, but I am saying that we “can’t have our cake and eat it to.” Just seems a lot like political rhetoric to me. We shall see…
