The Reverend Phelps really took a big ol’ chance coming to our hallowed campus to strut his homophobic stuff, didn’t he? Talk about a safe environment mainstream and right-wing hate.

In my time at Iowa State, I have seen numerous hate-mongers protesting on campus and I am sure this won’t be the last because I think the administration likes it. Anyone can run around on this campus like some bigoted version of David slinging stones at Big Gay Leftist Goliath, when Goliath won’t hit back. Especially when the campus cops will sit and laugh their asses off while some jumped-up recovering drug addict turned slobbering, zealot “preacher” for the Church of Jesus Christ, Insult Comic rants outside the Hub calling every woman that walks by a whore. If a student did that, they would be arrested for trespassing.

Do the fleets of troglodyte minions in the world really believe that in this wasteland of social protest, there is anyone who could possibly buy this kind of posturing, let alone care? This isn’t Berkeley or Stanford and everyone knows it. The only other schools out there more conservative than this one are military academies and secret government think-tanks for ex-nazis. It doesn’t take a lot of guts to come to ISU with this crap. It’s about as brave as Pat Buchanan’s hate-filled diatribe to the ’92 Republican convention. Try going on MTV with that stuff, Pat, that takes a REAL man!

What kind of slack-jawed, banjo-strummin’ clay-eaters would ever think that THIS university is some sort of den of liberal iniquity?! ISU is like the Elephant’s Graveyard for young liberals, isn’t it? It’s where parents send their kids to beat every last spark of leftist attitude out of them. It’s a four-year, G. Gordon Liddy crash course in homogeneity and dogged devotion to popular opinion, apathy, and how to look cool while downing penny pitchers. Not only does no one rock the boat around here, they try to drown any one who doesn’t sit totally still in it.

If the various and sundry humiliations of K-12 didn’t make you want to conform, they send you to ISU for four or five years, that’ll do the trick. This campus should bill itself as The Salt Flats Liberal Proving Grounds to see if Lefties can maintain their beliefs in the face of pervasive malaise. Marx would have come here and graduated all excited about his internship at GE while Lenin would have majored in community planning and said, “Screw the proles, let’s get hammered!” Around here, people think Rush Limbaugh and Michael Reagan are political philosophers.

Liberalism on this campus is deader than a chicken McNugget. We have a few vocal organizations that make their presence felt once in a while, but this really only serves to show how small the Left really is here. We can barely keep a chapter of Amnesty International afloat because you would have to be a communist to think that unjust imprisonment is wrong. We’re so uptight around here, we actually think of the University of Iowa as a REALLY liberal place.

And even if you don’t care about politics, what about daily life? Good Lord, if you deviate from the norm by even a gnat’s wing in this town, you’d better have the tackle of a bomb disposal technician because you will be harassed worse than a drunk girl at a frat party.

I dare you to test my theory. Just go to the bars some night wearing a jaunty hat and count off the seconds before some Stepford Student tries to start some crap with you. If it takes more than 30 seconds, you must be over 6′ 3″. And if Arg the Cave-Senior doesn’t do it, Ames PD Blew will probably pick you up in their ominously hovering, Brown Shirt paddywagon on suspicion of having had some fun.

I bet a street musician wouldn’t last five minutes on the corner of Welch and Lincoln Way before the brown eyes in blue had the guy in the pokey for disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and sodomy; meanwhile the Ames City Council would be passing an ordinance outlawing “nuisance arts” and giving the police the right to fine anyone $1000 for talking too loud in public, wearing bright colors or being of an artistic “inclination.”

If the polizei didn’t do it, the general population would pull a Lord of the Flies on him. I was in People’s one night and Tad, the guy who sells T-shirts for Ivory Star, was dancing on a chair to see over the crowd.

Everybody in the place had to turn and whisper and point like this guy had walked in there naked holding a Betsy Wetsy doll and speaking Sanskrit. Drop the average ISU student off in the middle of any of your more “open-minded” cities around the world and 2-1 says their heads would pop faster than you could say “LOOK OUT, ETHEL!” (A little Ray Stevens allusion for those of you who still consider him to be the height of ribaldry.) But back on the subject of virulent Christian hatefests. Aren’t some of the central tenets of Christianity tolerance, forgiveness and love? Didn’t I read that somewhere?

If God wants to punish us that’s His business. He’s the one who gets to kick our asses for all eternity if we cheese Him off. Anything on Earth pales in comparison and rightly so because God’s Will is the “Mother of all Paybacks.”

I hope for all of our sakes that Big Man grades on a sliding scale, because we are all going to need a break when this ride is over.

Especially the hate-peddlers who missed a few relevant passages. Maybe they get their Bibles from Reader’s Digest.

Here are a few of my personal favorites on the subject of judgment from the big book of dos and don’ts:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37

“May the LORD judge between you and me.” 1 Samuel 24:12

“I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD.” Ezekiel 18:30

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” 1 Corinthians 4:3-4

“Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.” James 4:11

“But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:15

So if you are genuinely concerned with what God likes and dislikes, just remember, there is plenty in The Bible about how God will roast your chestnuts for being judgmental and unforgiving, so WATCH OUT!

---

Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs.