Christian univ. students want conservative Christian Matt Walsh banned
Walsh responded to the backlash, saying that, for decades, it has been the case that "many Christian colleges are sort of Christian in name only."
Students at Baylor University in Texas are petitioning to ban conservative Christian Matt Walsh from speaking on campus.
Students at a Christian university in Texas are petitioning to ban conservative Matt Walsh from speaking on campus.
Walsh, who is a contributor for The Daily Wire, is scheduled to speak at the school on Tuesday for a sold-out event, titled, “The War On Reality: Why The Left Has Set Out To Redefine Life, Gender, And Marriage.” Walsh was invited to campus by the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter.
”This cannot be allowed to take place,” a Change.org petition in opposition to Walsh’s event, reads. “Please remove this from campus events. For the benefit of all LGBTQ+ students, alumni, and future students, this harmful hate speech must be kept off of our beloved campus.”
[RELATED: Texas Christian University: Steven Crowder’s views ‘adversely affect’ students]
At the time of publication, more than 2,200 people had signed the petition. A separate but similar online petition, which includes purported screenshots of a letter that was sent to Baylor University’s president and vice president for student life, states, “we are not protesting Matt Walsh coming to Baylor University. We are using his invitation to speak as an opportunity to achieve long overdue change to the University’s exclusion of LGBTQ student groups.” According to the letter to Baylor administrators contained in that petition, the group states that Walsh’s appearance “illustrates the fundamental unfairness of the university’s treatment of other student groups,” particularly LGBT groups.
The group goes on to state that LGBTQ groups face “physical, mental, and emotional impacts” of such “exclusionary measures.”
The university, for its part, responded to the backlash, saying, While Baylor is a university that supports and encourages free speech, we have an additional...responsibility as a Christian university...to appreciate differing opinions and backgrounds in a respectful, compassionate manner that extends grace as Christ did. We may not always agree but we are still the Baylor Family, and we all need to do better.”
[RELATED: Christian university cancels Ben Shapiro over ‘rhetoric,’ then changes course]
Walsh, during an interview with Fox & Friends, responded to the controversy by suggesting to students who don’t want him there to just not go.
”You would think going down to a Christian university in Texas of all places that a speech about protecting life, marriage, and gender...you would think people would at least be open to hearing the message,” Walsh said.
But, he added, “we know the situation on college campuses where opposing viewpoints are not welcome and students don’t know how to deal with someone presenting an idea that’s foreign to them. It’s been the case for a long time, for decades, that many Christian colleges are sort of Christian in name only and the culture on campus in many of these places is not really Christian at all and in fact can be openly hostile to Christianity.”
Follow the author of this article on Facebook: @JonStreetDC and Twitter: @JonStreet
