Last week, a mysterious man showed up on the Suny Albany campus podium. Dressed wearing a tan flat cap, white button-down and tan slacks with suspenders I assumed he was a professor. This mysterious man began setting up a box stand and held in his left hand was a bible. For some odd reason, I still did not think him to be out of the ordinary. I continued with my assumption thinking he was a professor of Christian studies or philosophy of some sorts. Ignoring the man, I went about my day going to classes as usual. Around 4:05pm as I was walking towards the bus stop to catch my ride home, I noticed a crowd of people gathering around the box stand the mysterious man had once set up. I decided to join the crowd asking people why they were gathering here only to find that the mysterious man was the cause of the commotion. As I walked further into the crowd I could hear people shouting all kinds of things, “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “My sexuality has nothing to do with God”. I realized that the mysterious man would later be deemed a christian radical. This is only the second time I’ve seen a rally like this, the only other time being my freshman year. According to the Podium Man, “we were all going to die for our sins and burn in hell for our sinful ways”. Although I and everyone else disagreed with his irrational statements I thought it was very unfair to ridicule this man just for speaking his mind. We all were born into a free country, a country where we are allowed freedom of speech so the podium man had every right under the law to show up and speak out on matters that concerned him. After a while the mood of the rally went for argumentative to “Let’s jump him” a fellow student shouted from the crowd. The intensity from both ends of the spectrum made it uncomfortable and I decided to leave before things got out of control. I think the podium man taught me a lesson about speaking your mind to others. Not everyone will understand your perspective and furthermore, many will not care enough to try to understand. When we speak to each other it should be a dialect, an open conversation aimed at understanding one another. Until Next time podium man.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Albany chapter.