Thursday morning, around 11:15.
Richard is holding a rosary and singing "Ave Maria" at full volume on the sidewalk.
I stand opposite him at the gate to the Planned Parenthood clinic in my bright yellow pinny, singing Sarah McLachlan under my breath.
When Richard runs up next to unsuspecting patients and offers them anti-abortion literature, I calmly slide in. "He's protesting the clinic. You don't have to talk to him."
I never try to stop anyone from accepting the flyers, nor do I get into debates about the morality of abortion.
Some days I wear a bullet-proof vest under my pinny. Today is not one of those days.
I watch the reactions of patients confronted by the protesters. Some are overwhelmed, some are intimidated, some are visibly offended.
But the freedom of speech guarantees the protesters' right to sing, talk to pedestrians, distribute pamphlets, pray -- whatever they want, as long as they don't touch anyone.
So what the hell am I doing here?
Their exercise of free speech conflicts with... what? The freedom to enter a Planned Parenthood clinic without being preyed upon by anti-choice demonstrators? The freedom to make one's own reproductive choices -- which the law also protects -- and obtain gynecological services without the threat of intimidation or violence?
Freedom of Speech meets the Freedom Not To Hear.
Back on campus. Around noon.
The Walk is alive with people, including Brother Stephen, an anonymous group of other preachers and an audience of a few dozen students.
Stephen's young proteges are dutifully displaying his gigantic placards. The real eye-grabber is the one featuring a picture of a bloody, mangled newborn and the word ABORTION in bold letters across the top.
The crowd is mesmerized by his act.
You know the drill. The hissing and the pointing and the knee-bending in condemnatory preaching ecstasy. Dwelling on each accusatory syllable. "Whooooooremonger! Ssssinners!"
Who's protecting our freedom not to hear?
Most in the crowd believe the preachers have a right to be there, even those who are disgusted by their message.
"I think it's healthy that they're here," College Junior Adam Gordon said. He thinks people listen in part for "shock value."
Free speech goes pretty damn far in this country.
"Fuck free speech," College Freshman Rachel Kurth said. "Get [them] off our campus. They're just preaching hate."
Ay, there's the rub.
Free speech is one thing. Spewing pure hatred -- especially under the guise of religious scripture -- borders on the criminal.
Kurth says she's seen many women start to cry as they are forced to pass this offensive exhibit on the way to class. Remind me who's free again?
By shouting at silent passersby, Brother Stephen infringes on our right to a peaceful campus. Has free speech gone too far?
No, I can't ask that. Freedom of speech is sacred. And besides, it's important to hear radical opinions, to be uncomfortable once in a while. Surely, it's just hateful actions that must be thwarted.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones..."
But how can we separate the right to say "Fags burn in hell" from the brutal murder of Matthew Sheppard, who was killed three years ago for being gay? How can we allow people to deny the Holocaust when their propaganda is designed to promote further anti-Semitism?
Maybe the childhood adage was wrong after all.
Fortunately, it's pretty easy to dismiss the words when they come from a widely reviled, self-caricaturizing figure like Brother Stephen. I doubt that anyone at Penn stops to listen to his sermon and says, "Huh. He's got a point. I'm a whore and I'm going to hell."
But what if the message was more surreptitious? What if, instead of hollering in the middle of campus, he were to post little flyers everywhere that said "Man with Man = Abomination?"
Gay-bashing, sexual assault, clinic violence and other hate crimes don't come from nowhere.
At a place like Penn, preachers in the genre of Brother Stephen make a mockery of their beliefs by expressing them in a provocative circus act. Still, there are members of our community who might be sympathetic to their hateful gospel in a more covert form.
While we can't -- and shouldn't -- challenge their right to say what they think, we have to ensure that the freedom of speech doesn't jeopardize the freedom not to hear, not to mention the right to physical safety.
Penn for Choice has lost no time in responding to this summons. Posters? Check. Literature? Check. Demonstrators? Check. Two can play at this game.
Where there is a freedom to speak, there is an obligation to speak back.
Around 11:30. In front of Planned Parenthood.
Two young women, probably no more than 17, are approaching the clinic. Richard's on the ball.
"Run away quickly from this place!"
"Shit, man, are you telling me not to get an abortion?" one of them yells back. I raise my eyebrow.
"We have freedom of speech in this country, miss," he retorts.
"That's what I'm saying: freedom of fucking speech!"
I can't help smiling.
Lauren Bialystok is a senior Philosophy major from Toronto, Ontario.
