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UNM students gathered in Smith Plaza on Thursday afternoon as a student held up a sign that said “F**k these guys.” The student was protesting pro-life advocates who gathered there on Tuesday.
UNM student Dyllan Griffin said his one-man protest was directed at 40 Days for Life, in response to the anti-abortion posters displayed on Tuesday that many students have called racist. He said his protest was an effort to expose the truth of the organization’s religious agenda.
“They claim to say that they were representing Christianity, not the religion and not the church, but they are representatives from Calvary Chapel, they are preachers out here preaching,” he said. “I came out here to promote the discourse of what they’re doing. I’d rather stand here and stand for something than walk by and shake my head.”
Griffin stood near the organization’s booth as he held the sign. He said the organization left the area, so he moved and stood near a booth for the Christian outreach group Transmit.
But Griffin’s protest attracted a large crowd of students, some of whom shouted insults at him, while others posed with him for photos.
Griffin said his sign was a rebuttal to the organization’s pro-life message and that it was ironic that the organization asked him to leave while they continued to preach. He said he wanted to spark conversation with the organization and to openly practice freedom of speech.
“Even the Christians, their table had to confront it. They couldn’t walk by and shake their heads,” he said. “They had to confront and tell me ‘Oh, take down your sign, you should move to respect us’ without respecting my right to stand here.”
Transmit coordinator Jered Michael eventually broke down the group’s site as more students began to crowd around Griffin. Michael said he decided to leave before the situation got out of control.
“We have people who obviously have opinions and this gentleman, Dyllan, came out and was holding a sign that said ‘expletive these guys,’” Michael said. “People were condemning and arguing and yelling at him, and telling him that he can’t do that and that’s not what we’re representing, we’re saying ‘He can do that, and we love him anyways.’”
Michael said the organization has a table in Smith Plaza every Thursday afternoon. He said the organization aims to educate UNM students about the Gospel.
“We’re not here to condemn people, we’re here to save the world through Christ and that’s it,” he said. “The problem with the world is that God says we are selfish by nature, it’s all about us, we wake up every day looking to build our own kingdom, to do things for ourselves — we’re teaching the complete opposite.”
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UNM student Courtney Barnes, who is a member of UNM’s Christian sorority Sigma Alpha Omega, said the entire event is nothing more than a difference of opinion.
“It’s not the fact that people are arguing whether religion should exist or not, it’s of the fact that people are arguing what religion should be believed and what shouldn’t,” Barnes said. “I basically think what this argument is about right now (is), ‘I’m agnostic, I don’t believe what you believe,’ (and) ‘Well, I’m Christian, I don’t believe what you believe,’ so it’s all going back and forth.”
