The First Amendment Is #1

-Every once and a while Micah Armstrong comes out in front of one of USF's main buildings (Cooper Hall) and preaches sermons on how everyone is going to hell. There's a video online with him at USF, but some idiot dubbed over it with music. Here he is in action, at UCF I believe.

I know that what he does is purely shock treatment because I've sat next to the guy before and listened in on him having a very polite, calm conversation with someone else. When Armstrong's at rest he usually has another evangelist fill his space for a little while. Yesterday, something different on campus happened:

Around 12:45 p.m. in the courtyard outside Cooper Hall, USF student Steve Jorgenson rushed evangelist Micah Armstrong, wrapped his hands around the preacher's throat and choked him for several seconds. Jorgenson then yanked off Armstrong's blue-and-yellow sandwich sign and snapped it over his knee. The front of the sign read "God Hates Sin."[Source:http://tinyurl.com/3cujks]

-Who initiated the violence? Not the fanatical Christian guy. Guess what happened to the Jorgenson (which by the way is a 6-foot-2, 225-pound flanker for the USF rugby team)? Absolutely nothing.

Shortly after Jorgenson and Engert left the courtyard and Armstrong continued his sermon, University Police officer Sgt. Drew Cafarelli questioned them about the incident. Cafarelli responded to a third-party complaint of a disturbance and assault received by UP and used a camcorder to document the remainder of Armstrong's sermon.

"When you get into a woman's face and call her a whore, slut, bitch and tell her she's going to hell without knowing her, there's a limit," Cafarelli said.

Engert was not the only student Armstrong insulted. Abdullah Ramadham, an exchange student from Saudi Arabia, said Armstrong called him a "terrorist."[Source:http://tinyurl.com/3cujks]

-I guess a University Police officer has the capability to render the 1st Amendment applicable and inapplicable whenever they feel like it. I personally find the worst part of this whole ordeal to be the fact that every comment on the Oracle's website (when I first looked at it earlier today) is for Armstrong being choked out and silenced! This is America, right?

-Here's one of the comments on the forum, to help you visualize what I am talking about.

This preacher should be thrown off campus for provoking trouble. This is NOT freedom of speech. Is it fine for the KKK or Nazi's to do this on campus? These so called preachers intend to provoke and make trouble. If someone has such a pig mouth I say cart him off to jail! Certainly off campus![Source:http://tinyurl.com/3acnbl]

-Off to jail?! Are you f*&@%$^ kidding me?!

-Here's what Mr. Armstrong, who happens to have his own website which I came across, has to say about what happened, via The Oracle comment board.

Jorgenson is definitely not a Christian. He and his girlfriend openly admitted to being involved in premarital sex. This is fornication and fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). His girlfriend got up and called herself a sorority slut and I merely repeated what she called herself by warning the young men about loose women. If they are willing to repent of premarital sex, and turn their lives to Jesus Christ and live in obedience to God's commands they can become Christians but until then they are sinners headed towards hell.

It is such a shame most people have heard so much of a false image of God for so long that they don't know the truth when they hear it. Or they do know the truth and that is why they are mad.

Jesus said the world hated Him because He spoke against the sins of the world (John 7:7).

God is holy, and a person cannot go to heaven unless they live holy (...without holiness no man shall see the Lord) Hebrews 12:14.

Fornication is not holy. It is sin. He that commits sin is of the devil (1 John 3:8).[Source:http://tinyurl.com/3acnbl]

-As much as I disagree with what Armstrong (in red above) says, I still know that he should be allowed to say it.

-I must say I was kind of glad - in a weird way - to see him back out there again today.