Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Yesterday at my alma mater, Vita Clamantis, Dartmouth's pro-life student group put up an exhibit of 546 small American flags on the lawn outside of one of the dormitory buildings. Each flag represented 100,000 lives that have been aborted in the 39 years since Roe v. Wade. Vita Clamantis explained on their blog that the purpose of the display, called the "Cemetery of the Innocents,"
is not to condemn but to ask for forgiveness and to promise hope, to promise ourselves and each other that we will do better, we will care better, we will be better. We put these flags out to ask every Dartmouth student a simple question: when your friend, your sister, your cousin, your neighbor, finds herself in this crisis, afraid and uncertain, feeling like the decision of her life weighs upon her, what will you do?
On every secular college campus, abortion is no doubt a hot button issue. But the way the display was received by fellow students is truly disappointing. The Dartmouth Review's Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Sterling Creighton Beard, reports on the stunning intolerance put on display at the College yesterday.
The display has been under assault ever since it went up. The signs put up around the edge of the event explaining its purpose were defaced, though Vita quickly replaced them. Some flags were stolen. Someone planted a sign (viewable in the slideshow at the top) that reads "May the child you save be GAY." (emphasis in the original)
Nothing, however, quite prepared the Cemetery of the Innocents for the assault that was to come at approximately 1:40, when a Toyota Camry...allegedly drove through the flags before continuing down the street.
Images courtesy of Sterling Creighton Beard
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Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Diane, no one will every understand the political divide in this country who does not recognize that the sexual revolution was a turning point in American history. Those, such as Governor Mitch Daniels, who entertain the notion that we can put the culture war issues on hold, do not have a clue. Whatever we may think of Barack Obama, he knows what is at stake.
May '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
"May the child you save be GAY."
What an absurdly lame and meaningless retort.
....not that there's anything wrong with that!
Dec '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Diane,
You are really trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored. They really don't want to hear this do they.
I think it's high time they did.
Regards,
Jim
Dec '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Yet somehow its the right that has gone off the rails.
May '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Despicable. You would hope those students (and faculty potentially) would have learned about tolerance for differing opinions in the public forum, or at least how to reasonably express their dissent. I think the display has definitely touched a nerve and invoked some introspection on the issue. This is illustrative of the hardening of hearts on the other side but if the pro-life side continues to make the hard, intellectually honest argument about the inherent dignity of all human life we can make progress toward a culture where elective abortion is viewed less favorably by the American public and its policymakers.
Oct '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
You only receive flak when you are over the target.
The Left becomes, by stages, vehement, nasty, violent and sputteringly incoherent (what does homosexuality have to do with this?) when its claim to moral superiority is challenged. Leftists want desperately to prevent Roe v. Wade from doing for modern Progressivism what the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did for Soviet legitimacy in 1939.
Jun '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
"Live Free, or go to Dartmouth"
Dec '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
One of the reason's I joined ricochet is that because the entirity of liberal political expression has become nothing more than trolling others. Its not just on the internet anymore.
Dec '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
The obvious retort to "May the child you save be GAY" is: "So you think it's okay to abort a child if you think it might grow up gay?" It's not a rhetorical question, as the practice of sex-selection abortion is gaining ground in the West and might easily extend to orientation-selection abortion if and when prenatal markers for sexual orientation are discovered.
Responding to a pro-life post I made on Facebook recently, a liberal friend said, "Every child a wanted child, and every birth a wanted birth." As the discussion was about over, I didn't feel compelled to respond, "But is the best way to achieve that really to kill every unwanted child?"
It's the same with those who say, "Pro-lifers say they care about children, but what about all the children already born who are poor and hungry?" The obvious response is, "How does killing an unborn child improve the life of any poor or hungry child?"
Sep '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Notice they admit a child's life is at stake...
Jul '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
These kids have never paid taxes or had the blessing of bringing a child in to the world. Young and stupid comes to mind.
Feb '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Really can't think of a better example of "bullying" than murdering an unborn, defenseless child...
Apr '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Stupid, right-wing extremists must hate gays if they don't support abortion. Intolerant is as intolerant does. And stop ripping off all the left's protest ideas! The flag thing was meant for all the innocents that died from second-hand smoke. Arrrgh!
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
"May the child you save be GAY." I like that, actually. Color-code the flags to indicate the proportions of various ethnicities and sexual preferences. If someone complains about the exhibit, ask if the proportion of, say, gay African-American babies aborted strikes them as too small, too big, or just about right.
It's like the moral problem of a play - Twilight of the Golds - which dealt with the morality of aborting a child if genetic testing showed it would be gay. From the wiki entry:
In the play, I infer, she had the abortion, but it was botched, and she suffers some sort of retribution. This was unacceptable for Hollywood - what, consequences? - so the religious hubby became the bad guy, and everyone leaves the theater feeling good about themselves.
Sep '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
"May the child you save be GAY."
But, why stop there? May your two-spirited, trans gendered, trans historical (poor little dear thinks he/she/it/they is Alexander the Great), trans fat, trans plant, trans portation humanoid weeble fill your frontal neocortex with all kinds of sensory images and phantasms to delight and entertain your fleeting self.
Jan '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
"May the child you save be GAY."
Wow. They really devastated me with that use of irony.
Jun '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
But if they're pro-choicers, that believe in zero-sum economics, as many on the left do, can't they just celebrate their misguided belief that every flag there means more goodies left over for them? What are they so mad about? They've successfully killed off their competition.
Oct '10
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
Reminds me of my favorite way to induce psychological vapor lock to a Lefty. To the delight of Margaret Sanger's ghost, over 1/3rd of US abortions are African American babies, or roughly 3 times the African American proportion of the US population. See what kind of answer you get when you ask your favorite Lefty:
"How can you support the genocide being committed against African Americans by racist organizations like Planned Parenthood, which is financially supported by the racist US government? Isn't this sort of unequal outcome exactly why we have Affirmative Action laws? Will you support my abortion-equity bill and help obtain a greater share of Caucasian abortions? We are proposing tax write-offs and cash bonuses for dead white babies."
I'm pretty sure this is the courageous dialog Eric Holder had in mind for us.
Mar '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
My wife and I went to Grove City College, a campus much like Hillsdale only very explicitely Christian. We actually met through our campus pro-life group.
GCC, a very very Christian campus, was often quite indifferent to abortion. It was never hostile, and when we had similar displays we never had to worry about defacement, but we sure made folks uncomfortable, and when we started talking pro-life to many students they'd edge away.
Abortion, we found, makes even its supporters uncomfortable when they have to face its realities. They shut down debate or walk away because anything else would nag at their own souls. The abortion debate today is much like the slavery debates in many respects: Indifference or hostility in the face of horror.
Oddly, my advisor, a lone pro-abortion suporter, actually would debate it with anyone (and politely at that). But she knew she was a rarity on her side and would actually donate money to crisis pregnancy centers on the grounds that to not do so would make her a hypocrite.
Feb '11
Re: Dartmouth Students' Zero Tolerance for Pro-Life Speech
skipsul:
The abortion debate today is much like the slavery debates in many respects: Indifference or hostility in the face of horror.
Yes. I have long felt that the comparison of abortion to slavery is very appripos, as both require the supporter/perpetrator to treat the victim as less than human. It's all part of the same lefty mind-set that wishes away inconvenient messes: do what we tell you, dammit, and everything will be fine...
I wonder if the current supporters of abortion realize that one day they will share a place in history with those vocal supporters of slavery in the run-up to the Civil War?