Love Always Wins At Rowan University
When a protest tried to turn violent, we fought back with love.
I have never been so proud to be a part of Rowan University's student body as I was on Thursday, April 4th, 2019. When the email came through that there was police activity between the student center and the library, one of the busiest areas on campus, I was concerned.
The signs. The yelling. The angry faces. The hate.
Although I was not at the protest, I was on campus just for my biweekly class. However, I was watching it through social media. Snapchat stories were active, and Instagram was firing up. I couldn't ignore it if I wanted to because it was everywhere. But I wanted to ignore it so bad; it was sickening.
These protesters were screaming things so profound and vulgar that it was hard to even look at them. Why would we? They were the faces of hate. We do not condone hate at our school.
This protest showed many emotions. We saw anger, things thrown at these protesters. We saw sadness. This was not what we wanted. We never asked for this. We are always open to anyone, but not haters. We saw fear. Our LGBT friends were targeted, as well as many other groups on campus, such as women.
But the one emotion that was obvious, was love.
Love always wins. Always.
Our student body fought back with love, the one thing they hated. They wanted violence, but we turned our noses up to it. They wanted us to hit them, to physically assault them. They travel to different colleges to get this attention. They wanted us to be angry so that they could get their way.
Whether they believed this or not, their signs were disgusting. Absolutely gross. I don't know if they really had these beliefs that the LGBT community would be damned. I don't really know if they believed in God.
I don't know. But the one thing I do know is that God is love. God wanted love. Jesus said to love your neighbors, to love everyone. I also know that these people were evil, and we do not allow evil here. Rowan does not welcome hate.
When they finally left, we said good riddance. We showed them. We fought back with love, dancing, partying, happiness... LOVE. The Pride Flag was waving, and it was beautiful.
Love always wins at Rowan University. You are all loved and you all amaze me with your strength. Never change.
I am so damn proud to be a Prof!
