Posted on 04/12/2014 4:24:00 PM PDT by rightwingerpatriot
From time to time, a situation arises that gives truth to the old adage, "politics makes for strange bedfellows." The current case in point can be found at Cardiff University. The Students' Union there recently decided to ban all pro-life demonstrations on campus. In a sweet use of irony, the Students' Union was outraged over pro-life rallies and wanted to "prevent affiliated societies and groups from taking part in anti-choice protests or rallies." Nothing says tolerance like saying no to those you consider anti-choice by taking away their choices and banning them. Sadly, I'm sure that such destruction of logic and reason flew over the head of the Cardiff University Students' Union. However, the action of that student body has led to an unusual coalition in opposition.
The groups opposed to the pro-life rallies ban included the Catholic, Islamic, and Pro-Life societies on campus. Even some pro-abortion students were against the ban as they felt it restricted freedom of expression and how the Students' Union blatantly went after Students for Life. I can safely say that it's not that often you'll find a coalition of Catholics, Muslims, pro-lifers, and abortion advocates joining together.
In keeping with the normal progressive liberal "tolerance" for those that disagree with them, the Students' Union only gave three days notice before their hearing to vote on banning pro-life rallies. The debate lasted three-and-a-half hours before the vote was held. An unofficial vote was held first to gauge support for the ban, then a secret ballot vote was held. While the banning measure passed, it was realized that there was not the required number of members in attendance, so the vote was invalid. All this means that the Students' Union will have to try at a later date to ban pro-life rallies out of respect for...choices.
I find it oddly refreshing to see that a broad coalition of students of divergent views actually came together and agreed on not limiting the speech of others. It's things like this that do occasionally give me hope for the future. The president of the university's Students for Life society, Isaac Spencer, said, "By Sunday night, two days before the meeting and vote, we formed a broad-based coalition for freedom of speech representing and supported by the Islamic Society, the Catholic society, the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Christian Union, as well as individual students from every course, political affiliation and background, both pro-life and pro-choice, female and male."
Sadly, such actions by the Cardiff University Students' Union are nothing new. Free speech is an endangered species on college campuses. While students and professors talk about how brave and edgy they are by parroting far-left talking points, the real courage is shown by those who stand up for conservative principles and advocate for freedom of speech for everybody. It's hard to be the lone voice standing up against those who could crush your academic career, but I guess that nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
I find it interesting that only pro-life rallies are banned, but there is no mention of pro-abortion rallies. Interesting but not surprising.
I guess I won’t be spending 100K on that Women’s Study degree at Cardiff.
What am I missing? These college students are studying for a better LIFE. Why are they demonstrating for anti-life?
Ambiguously-worded-headline of the week award.
I agree. Ban student unions!
One of the problems we have seen on campus is the amount of “abortion porn” displayed by some of the pro-life folks. If they just displayed babies in the womb, it would have the desired effect but there is always one faction that wants to show dismembered children.
Ironically, those dismembered children are often miscarriages.
Leftists will keep trying
I agree!!
And how does a miscarriage get dismembered?
And further, how does a dismembered fetus photo not properly represent the horror of late-term abortion fetal dismemberment?
They use the same technique but it has to be done in a hospital AND they have do identify the parts (unlike an abortion).
“Free speech” — to liberals — has always meant shouting down opposing viewpoints.
Free speech only applies when you are not standing in the way of marriage equality or reproductive choice or paycheck equality .
Those opposing progression of those rights shall have NO rights and must be destroyed.
Once upon a time, I looked into working in the university/student affairs area. I quickly learned that it was not for me. I also learned that many of the more egregious examples of leftism on university campuses we hear about come from these folks, or the groups they sanction.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems in the academic side of things. There are indeed Ward Churchill types out there. I had the misfortune of having one of those types as an undergrad. But really, they were few and far between. Most of my profs were fair-minded, no matter what their personal views were.
Student Affairs, though...yikes. Easily the most intolerant, most PC police fascists I’ve ever had the “pleasure” of dealing with. Extremely elitist, too. The folks I ran across really thought their feces didn’t have an aroma. I’ve run into their kind at three different universities, and each was worse than the last.
(apologies to any FReeper working in this area, who doesn’t fit the liberal-fascist type I described. Be glad to know there are actually some normal folks in the field)
So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me the Student Union at this college tried to squelch pro-life assemblies.
Sometimes, the extreme has to be held up for public viewing and commentary, before all thinking individuals agree that a thing or a movement has finally gone too far, and looks to be a ridiculous parody of itself. See the hate, in bold relief.
The groups opposed to the pro-life rallies ban included the Catholic, Islamic, and Pro-Life societies on campus. Even some pro-abortion students were against the ban as they felt it restricted freedom of expression and how the Students' Union blatantly went after Students for Life. I can safely say that it's not that often you'll find a coalition of Catholics, Muslims, pro-lifers, and abortion advocates joining together. In keeping with the normal progressive liberal "tolerance" for those that disagree with them, the Students' Union only gave three days notice before their hearing to vote on banning pro-life rallies. The debate lasted three-and-a-half hours before the vote was held. An unofficial vote was held first to gauge support for the ban, then a secret ballot vote was held. While the banning measure passed, it was realized that there was not the required number of members in attendance, so the vote was invalid. All this means that the Students' Union will have to try at a later date to ban pro-life rallies...What needs to be banned is the so-called "students' union".
No they don't use the same technique. In a miscarriage the baby is born dead, so all your ID of parts in a hospital is after the fact.
In an abortion, the "same technique" is used on a living baby to kill it.
So actually, the photographs, if of a miscarriage, do NOT represent that of a late-term abortion, because they are not horrible enough. Additional photographs have to be added to represent the killing of the baby, and not just the resulting dismembered parts.
Thanks for pointing that out.
The fact that this vote and related effort took place is the most disturbing aspect of the story.
Seems these leftist little pricks didn’t read their own country’s history about the development of free speech and associated rights, which cost them hundreds of thousands of lives in two world wars.
Seems like the Nazis did win some of their war on human rights, in England.
“In a miscarriage the baby is born dead”
Not always true. They do DNC’s on women if the miscarriage is not complete.
http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/dandc.html
“One of the problems we have seen on campus is the amount of “abortion porn” displayed by some of the pro-life folks. If they just displayed babies in the womb, it would have the desired effect but there is always one faction that wants to show dismembered children.”
Why is that? I am always hearing from libtards that if I were to actually attend an execution that I would change my mind about capital punishment. So, I did go to one, and I support capital punishment more than ever now.
If you want to engage libs using the “Queen’s” rules that is fine, but I am tired of being nice and having my a$$ handed to me. Fight fire with fire. If they cannot handle the truth about abortion, then force them to make a decision. They do it to us all of the time, problem is, most Conservatives do not base their positions on emotion. Libs cannot stand to see the negative outcomes of their policies and ideas. They deny them with all that they have. When you take that away from them you expose them for who they really are.
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