Notes from Evil Bender

[Update: Awesome. Adams' website currently has the same essay as Townhall, but all references to feminists have been changed to his personal derogatory term for LGBT students. h/t. He's a real deep thinker, that Adams.]

Mike S. Adams, who you may remember, is currently running around screaming about being oppressed. Exactly how a fundie professor who gets to make stupid assertions in public is being oppressed is, as always, unclear. But two things are clear:

1) Adams is yet another wingnut who falsely believes he knows how to use satire;

2) Adams doesn’t understand that a professor has different classroom obligations from his/her students.

Adams begins with a long whine about how feminists didn’t appreciate his satire about silencing feminists students in his classroom, then moves on:

Had the feminists taken the time to read this far they would have understood that a real letter of complaint was filed against me in January simply for a) mentioning my Christianity, b) offering very mild criticism of one assertion of Darwinism, and c) revealing a basic belief about the origins of human rights; namely, that they are endowed by a Creator.

So, Mike, did this student just happen to stumble over your Townhall column, or were you using class time to make this assertion? I suspect you don’t know why that question is relevant. Keep reading, and we’ll get there. I, at least, will promise to avoid misguided attempts at satire.

It is sad that a college student would lack the maturity needed to hear someone say “I’m an outspoken Christian professor” without having an emotional breakdown. It is also sad that he was arrogant enough to write a letter of complaint to my Marxist chairwoman.

“Filing a complaint” is exactly the same having an emotional breakdown. Thanks, Mike S. Adams! Clearly your pedagogy is sound.

I am simply not intimidated by anti-Christian bigots. Nothing short of a bullet in the head will keep me from professing my Christian beliefs. And most anti-Christian bigots don’t own guns.

Accusing your students of bigotry for taking issue with something you said is very classy.

It is also sad that the administration failed to reprimand the narrow-minded Marxist who expressed disappointment that the student’s letter would not result in a formal complaint. This is unmitigated bigotry, plain and simple. If I were not an adult, I would argue that it’s hate speech.

As an adult, are you happy that you can simultaneously argue that using the university guidelines for objecting to a professor’s words is bigotry, but trying to get anyone who agrees with the student reprimanded is just fine? As an adult, are you comfortable accusing someone of hate speech while simultaneously pretending not to do so?

Of course, while sad, none of this is too surprising. This is an administration that removed the word “Christmas” from the tree and “Good Friday” from the university calendar. They even once tried to force faculty and staff to remove Bible verses from their university email signatures.

Gasp! The public university doesn’t want to be seen endorsing religious beliefs! Shocking!!!1!one!

Nor is it surprising that feminists express outrage at satire more often than Christians express outrage at real persecution. That is because most feminists love their ideology more than most Christians love Christ. And that’s the saddest thing of all.

“Real persecution” here is defined as “someone objecting to something I said.”

What Adams leaves out, of course, is what exactly he said and where he said it. If he was discussing his religious beliefs and opinions on science in his criminal justice course, that was, of course, inappropriate. Using one’s expertise in a subject to preach one’s personal views unrelated to one’s subject to a captive audience at a public university is not okay. Naturally someone who declares himself a willing martyr for having his university reject a complaint against him could also think that his classroom is an appropriate place for proselytizing.*

What’s most baffling, though, is that Adams, as indicated by his anger about the complaint filed against him and by his longwinded satire, apparently believes that there is no difference between a professor’s obligation and a student’s. Should one of his students desire to spout off about “Darwinism,” Adams’ responsibility would be either to encourage intellectual engagement or, if the comment did not relate to the subject matter, to return the class to its purpose. As a professor, he has a greater responsibility in how he conducts himself in his classroom, and as an authority figure he has a responsibility not to use his classroom as a soapbox to blather on about subjects unrelated to his course. That’s especially true when, as a representative of a public university, he’s making his religion an issue for his students.

And it’s fucking pathetic that Adams either doesn’t understand this distinction (and hense his role as a professor) or doesn’t care about it.

Perhaps persecution in the form a student being upset at him and a colleague disagreeing with him has blinded him. When he gets down off the cross, we’ll ask him.

*Since Adams has weaseled away from explaining what he said or in what context he said it, we can’t know for certain if this took place in class. But since his long analogy is all about-in class speech, it seems pretty clear what happened here.