By Barley Lewis-McCabe
On Tuesday, Sept. 14, a man named Keith Darrell — who identifies himself as the Campus Preacher — visited the Cal Poly Humboldt campus. Campus preachers aren’t uncommon, or even unexpected given the school’s proximity to several churches, but Keith’s from Idaho, and his fellowship is located in Ohio. He explained his plan of driving down from Seattle to preach in San Francisco, he said he was drawn to our university due to its open-minded reputation, and he came to have a dialogue. Keith has visited a number of campuses around America, including Cal Poly Pomona. He began preaching in the quad around 12 p.m., near Nelson Hall East, and a large group of students quickly began to form. As he continued talking, he began to say things students took offense to.
“Homosexuality is unnatural,” Keith said. “Men, you are not meant to have something put in your anus … I should be allowed to drop N-bombs!”
This event called into question whether preachers should be allowed on college campuses, especially if they are making inappropriate remarks toward students. Some students began challenging his beliefs, either with their own logic or their personal knowledge of the Bible.
Despite his claims to be here simply to talk, he continued to preach on topics the crowd found to be shocking and offensive, at one point going on an unrelated tangent about how cannibalism isn’t wrong. As he began to make more eccentric claims, students began to protest in more comedic ways, such as singing Les Misérables, handing out phallic balloon animals, and waving pride flags at him. About halfway through his sermon, some representatives from the Eric Rofes Multicultural Queer Center (ERC) showed up to counter Keith’s homophobic rhetoric and to hand out Narcan, safe sex supplies, water, and pride flags.
Jesse Benefiel, Volunteer & Resource Director of ERC, was one of those handing out supplies to students.
“Just, make sure that they know that our voices are here too,” Benefiel said. “While there may be people like that out there, there are also people on the other side willing to support everyone here.”
Some people chose more aggressive measures, getting up-close with Keith and yelling in his face. The person who got the most aggressive with him did not appear to be a student, did not give any other information and insisted that Keith is just a troll, and students shouldn’t give him attention.
Administrators and police officers were monitoring the scene to make sure it didn’t get violent. When asked if his sermon, which extended past lunchtime, violated the new Time, Place, and Manner regulations, admin representatives declined to give a statement.
Cal Poly Humboldt is a public campus, which allows Keith free speech. He’s allowed to preach his beliefs, but students are also within their rights to respond to rhetoric they disagree with. Students saw a man spreading, what they believed to be, hateful messages against women, BIPOC and queer people, and the Cal Poly Humboldt community, and took a stance against it.
The students unified in response to the speaker.
“As you stand here, you are the minority,” Jacob Carter, a freshman, said. “We are the collective, we are unified.”