Friday, April 14, 2006

Bad Debate at NKU

A pox on both sides from me. This anti-abortion display should never have been erected on a public university's grounds. It is a religious display and demonstrates where 99.9% of the anti-abortion motivation is sourced.

That being said, the professor and students involved should not have removed the display in the manner they did. They should have protested it being there and sued to have it removed. In the article NKY's President refers to it as the destruction of property, that is over the top, but what was done was the wrong way to handle it. It is a form of protest, and they can argue a 1st Amendment defense, but the freedom of speech clause may not be their best bet.

This sounds like it would have been much simpler to have the anti-abortion side hold a protest, with temporary crosses while they are there, but be forced to remove them when the protest ended. If that was what was supposed to happen, well, then the students just helped clear the grounds of discarded items.

None of this improves the situation. It will just drive a bigger wedge into the growing cultural gap in our society. That I fear is the goal of many on the anti-abortion side.

UPDATE: The Post has more. The most interest element here is that a police report valued the crosses at $600. Now if that is true, then why they hell didn't these anti-abortionists cut to the chase and buy $600 worth of condoms and pass those out on campus? They would have a great protest cheer: "Reduce Abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies!" Instead they turn to symbols instead of actions that could actually have results.

UPDATE #2: Nice to see the anti-abortionists seeking to turn the other cheek. Oh wait, lol. This story from the NKU paper has photos of the destruction. The professor involved looks, shall we say, nutty! I will repeat something I post in comments. If a group of students is not allowed to erect a 6 foot penis, or, for that matter, take 400 dildos and plant them in the ground, then there is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

UPDATE #3:
The AP has the story, so this should be making the talk radio rounds in the coming week. Once Bill O'Reily gets a chance, he will drag this thing out till the cows come home to roost.

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