Say it ain’t so!

I was jogging yesterday morning when I ran by the Pit on main campus and saw Gary Birdsong standing in his usual spot. Birdsong is a preacher who goes to different college campuses in North Carolina where he will find the most visible spot on campus, take out his Bible, and preach at the top of his lungs. He is controversial because he tends to present the gospel in ways that don’t necessarily conform to modern day norms of what’s socially acceptable. But among all the preachers I have seen at UVA or UNC, he is by far the most entertaining. There was one time in November when I heard him speak (picture above) and he was complaining about women who want to see other women “nekkid” and about men who hang out in the bathroom trying to look at other men through the holes in the stalls.

But yesterday was different. Instead of being surrounded by students who were laughing at or mocking him, the students were mostly silent. The ones engaging Birdsong this time were three officers from the Department of Public Safety. Apparently a student group called Carolina Adventures had a permit to use the Pit and felt that Birdsong was infringing upon its rights by standing there practicing his schtick.

The officers asked him to move, he refused. They stepped back and the lead officer used his cell phone to ask for clarification. Meanwhile Birdsong turned to his audience and started telling a story about one time when he was in Raleigh and some restaurant owners called the police because he was talking too loud onthe sidewalk. The officers returned and the lead officer as politely as possible told him they would arrest him for trespassing unless he agreed to move to the other side of the Pit. When Birdsong asked to see Carolina Adventure’s permit, he was denied. Eventually he agreed to move and as he was walking said to his audience “ya see … I abyde by da law!” It was at that point that I figured the show was over and returned to my car.

So imagine my shock this morning when I opened the Daily Tar Heel and saw the headline on the front page, above the fold, “Police remove Pit Preacher.”

“Birdsong finally agreed to move, but Yeargan (that’s the hippie from Carolina Adventures who was standing by the tents hoping to preach to students about the virtues of living in the woods) said he moved only five feet and refused to move again - opting to take the punishment rather than accept the attempt to regulate his speech.

Officers then wrote the warning and escorted Birdsong off campus, amid jeers from students about violation of free-speech rights.”

The article said that unless Birdsong wins his appeal, he would be barred from setting foot on UNC for the next two years. It would be a great shame if he is not allowed to return. Birdsong is a bit of an institution at UNC, where he is commonly known as “the Pit Preacher.” He has his own entry in Wikipedia and judging from some of the pictures of him on the internet, he has been doing this for at least 20 years. I was really counting on him toprovide endless hours of entertainment during Mod IV (which begins on Monday) when I’d much rather be entertained than to do school work or worry about finding a job. I have seen video clips of him on Youtube where he is on another campus saying he wouldn’t allow his daughter to marry a non-white and I was hoping I’d get to ask him if he’d rather have his daughter bring home Clarence Thomas or Bill Clinton.