EDGE Providence

The Southeast Open Air Preachers Conference in Atlanta brought public condemnations of Judaism, Islam, and homosexuality to town.

The conference took place from Sept. 25-Oct. 1, with around 50 preachers gathering at the Holiday Inn Express in Kennesaw.

Some of the preachers headed off to public spots to promote their messages, which included urging the Biblical penalty of death to gays and troublesome teens.

Preachers descended upon Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Kennesaw State University, according to a story posted online today at Southern Voice.
At Georgia Tech, students heard that, "When a man sticks his penis in the behind of another man, that is a perversion. God designed it to go into a vagina," a message proclaimed by a preacher who set up at the school’s amphitheatre next to the student center.

The Southern Voice story said that the preachers did not draw much of a crowd, and those students who did stop to listen responded with derisive laughter or with puzzlement.

Said Ruben Israel, a preacher who was at Georgia Tech, "If we had a tract table, a table with tracts on them, they would just walk by us."

Continued Israel, "These students are in a stupor. Hopefully we are planting a seed or watering a seed and someone else will reap the harvest."

John Lyle, a gay Georgia Tech student, said, "I was raised that God loves everyone. I’m here because we need to show them there are a lot of people who don’t believe what they say."

Another student, clad in a bathrobe, responded to a diatribe about "sodomites" blared through a bullhorn by shouting out passages from his calculus textbook.

One Georgia Tech student, dressed in a bathrobe, shouted equations from his calculus.

Other students used the proceedings as fodder for jokes; Southern Voice recounted how a preacher asked onlookers, "How many of you masturbate?" When hands went up, the preacher declared, "[You] are in serious danger of becoming homosexuals."

Said one student, as he wrapped his arms around another young man, "My god, I think it’s already happening to me!"

Gays and masturbation were not the only targets; the preachers also declaimed against Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and those who drink to excess.

Said conference organizer Zach Baxter, "We’re out here for the liars, the thieves, the adulterers too."

Added Baxter, "We’re out here for everybody."

For some, the campus preaching was a semi-weekly event. Jessica Bull, president of Kennesaw Pride Alliance, said that some of the preachers were on campus every two weeks; Ginia Wood, another student, agreed with that approximation.

Said Wood, who is heterosexual, "It’s crazy because these people are out here--I would say at least twice a month--and all they do is drone on and on and on."

Added Wood, "We have a really big gay and lesbian community here at Kennesaw with lots of straight allies. And I honestly don’t think anyone wants to hear this."

But according to Gilles, campuses and sporting events are targets for the preachers because they expect that many gays and lesbians (and people who masturbate) would heard their pronouncements.

Said Gilles, "Oh yes, there are plenty of people who need to hear the word of God."

The Southern Voice story noted that Georgia state law allows for demonstrations on public property, assuming permit requirements have been satisfied.

The Washington Blade posted a story today along similar lines, noting that the Rev. Fred Phelps, the Kansas religious leader who pickets the funerals of fallen U.S. troops killed in Iraq with signs reading "God Hates America," among other slogans, has made plans to be present and protesting in Atlanta on Saturday.

Phelps has been drawn by a memorial service for Tammy Faye Messner, described by Phelps as "a false prophetess, a God-hating, fag-loving and adulterous whore."

Phelps and his followers plan to picket the Oct. 6 memorial at the Cathedral at Chapel Hill.

Text at the Web site of Phelps’ Westboro church reads, "She rejected the Lord Jesus Christ when she enabled the fags and perverts of Doomed America to continue in their lust and not repent."

Continues the text at the site, "She was a deaf, dumb and blind simpleton, who is taking many to hell with her, and she will be held accountable for every fag and/or fag-enabler she deceived into coming with her."

An organizer of the memorial, Rev. Brandi Paulk, said she had received a press release about the protest; seeing that her young child was reading the release, Paulk snatched the document away from him.

Said Paulk, "We’re just saddened by it."

Added Paulk, "It’s unfortunate that they want to represent God like that."