Bible?
Or bunny?
The way members of the Atheist Agenda at the University of Texas-San Antonio see it, UTSA students have more use for Penthouse or Playboy than the Quran or the Bible.
The student atheists kicked off their highly publicized annual “Smut for Smut” campaign on Monday, manning a booth in the middle of a crowded campus plaza where passersby can trade in religious texts for pornography.
In past years, the controversial publicity stunt has garnered new members and a ton of press, including a chance for an Atheist Agenda president to debate Tucker Carlson on MSNBC in 2005.
This year, hundreds of protesters circled the booth, singing hymns and holding signs that read “Jesus Saves” and “Jesus Loves the Atheist Agenda”. The student atheists held their ground on the stairs of a campus building, proclaiming their belief that texts like the Bible promote misogyny, intolerance, violence and genocide. Meanwhile, agnostics sat in the middle, attempting to keep the peace between the two sides.
And now for a breakdown of the factions. From the San Antonio Express-News:
“It’s a First Amendment right,” said Bradley Lewis, 18-year-old freshman from Pearland who said he plans to join the Atheist Agenda. “If religious groups can put out missionaries and go knock on my door and wake me up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I can put a table outside of the college.”
Robin Lorkovic, an 18-year-old freshman from Houston, disagreed. Lorkovic stood near the “Smut for Smut” table holding a cardboard sign that said “God Loves You! Keep your Bible and learn from it!”
“I don’t really feel like that is appropriate at all,” Lorkovic said. “I am a Christian, I believe in God’s love and I am here to stand my ground and stand up for what I believe in.”
Let’s hear from the agnostics, quoted in the UTSA student newspaper The Paisano:
“Well, we don’t really believe in either side. We believe both foster hate,” UTSA junior Victoria Arzu said. “They know they’re doing it for show, and they know that either party could be mistaken in their beliefs. We choose an agnostic position because it’s the smartest thing to do.”
Later in the afternoon, Atheist Agenda president Carlos Morales debated one of the Christian protesters in a civil fashion before the crowd. And that’s really what the event is all about, those involved say:
“This is ultimately why this is going on,” Lewis said. “It’s an ice breaker to get people talking about these things.”