For the fourth time in three years, South Patio was home to evangelical speakers John McGlone and Josh Yeshua from Pinpoint Evangelism. The displayed open-air preaching elicited different responses from students.
“We just preach the truth and we take the gospel of Jesus Christ where it belongs: in the streets,” McGlone said in an April 2013 Tennessean article.
Some students accept that McGlone is using his constituted rights.
“It’s not something I like, but it’s his freedom of speech,” said Austin Long, exercise science major.
Thais Bock thinks it’s a good presentation.
“I think it’s good and nice. There’s always lots of people listening,” Bock said.
Others think it’s an inappropriate way to demonstrate.
“I think it’s nonsense,” said Brandon Mitchell, senior computer science major. “I don’t think this is the appropriate setting to voice his opinions. Here at this University, you have many different people with many different views, and I don’t think it’s a bright idea to show them here.”
Eva Dingwall, secretary of the communication department, finds it embarrassing.
“He irritates me,” she said. “He is an embarrassment to Christianity.”
McGlone used a poster with a picture of an aborted fetus during his demonstration.
“I was literally just walking by and saw a picture and thought ‘that’s disgusting,’” Trevor Maloney said.
After McGlone was removed from Tech’s campus in 2012, he sued the University and won the case, stating that the University violated his First Amendment right, according to News and Communications director Lori Shull.
