Students say preachers spouting hate-speech on campus

OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Some people at Grand Valley State University are fed up with a group of protesters on campus.

For three days the group has been there promoting it's point of view and students are calling it harassment.

One teacher at Grand Valley told Newschannel 3 that students at the University are simply mad about this.

For three days GVSU students have been arguing with folks who call themselves visiting preachers from an organization called Soulwinners Ministries International, but now many of them are fed up with it.

"I thought it was absolutely ridiculous how they were literally screaming at us," said Kassie Steelman a GVSU student. "They said all the women at GVSU and all the other campuses were going to hell because we weren't at home submitting to our husbands."

The visiting preachers have been on campus all week long, students say they've been harassing people and creating a disturbance.

"There were girls very upset at them screaming at them," Steelman said, "swearing at them."

Wednesday the bickering continued, and admittedly, school administrators are losing patience with the visitors and trying to calm angry students in the huge crowd.

"If you don't like what you're hearing, don't give the speaker a nanosecond of your time," said Bart Merkle the Dean of Students at GVSU. "It bothers all of us, I think, when we have speakers come on our campus and say things that are intentionally hurtful and hateful."

Soulwinners hits college campuses across the country regularly. It's website says it preaches the gospel, but many students say the things they are saying are ridiculous and defamatory.

"It's totally off the subject of Christianity," said Steelman, "and now it's personal and I don't understand who they think they are to come here and judge us when that would be a sin as well."

Some students are asking why these people are allowed to preach on the campus in the first place, but school administrators told Newschannel 3 that it's free speech on a public campus, private institutions can say no to such visits, but GVSU cannot.