Michael Smalanskas has been having a rough semester. The 22-year-old philosophy and theology major has taken quite a bit of heat from his classmates after putting up an antigay bulletin board with the headline “Marriage: The Way God Intended It” in his dorm hallway.
“Traditional marriage: God ordained it. Nature reveals it. Science affirms it,” the bulletin board said. “Marriage should be reinforced. Not redefined!”
The billboard also included a quote from Pope Francis that read: “We must affirm the right of children to grow up in a family with a mother and a father.”
Interesting, Smalanskas attends Providence College, a private Roman Catholic college in Rhode Island. So you’d think that sorta thing wouldn’t be frowned upon. But evidently Smalanskas’ housemates didn’t appreciate his homophobia.
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“I immediately [started] getting all sorts of harassing text messages,” Smalanskas tells the Christian news site LifeSiteNews.
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Not just that, but people started “milling around” his room and ganging up on him in the hallways, he claims.
“I couldn’t even go brush my teeth for several nights without facing a mob!”
Then he found this very intimidating cartoon of himself being raped by another man taped to a mirror in the men’s bathroom:
Smalanskas insists his homophobic billboard was “not an act of aggression in any way.”
In fact, he adds, “there had been a pro-lesbian bulletin board up for the entire month of February in one of the female residence halls.”
“But nobody was rioting outside the girl’s door!”
To add insult to injury, Smalanskas says the college has not been supportive of his ordeal. When he went to the chaplain for help, “he basically begged and pleaded with me to ‘graduate in peace’…he told me that I was ‘throwing culture bombs.’”
Not just that, but shortly after the scandal broke, the Vice President of Student Affairs sent out an email to students encouraging them to attend a protest “against homophobia and transphobia.”
“There’s a tremendous double standard when it comes to Catholic teaching or conservative views,” Smalanskas whines. “They are just not protected in the same way.”
He calls the treatment he’s received, and especially the cartoon picture of himself, a “very disturbing threat” and “a Title IX issue now.”
“A lawsuit’s not off the table by any stretch!”
tham
Huh? He puts up something…some people don’t like it. Someone draws a pic of him in the bathroom…
Lawsuit?
Huh?
DCguy
Do you notice how in each of these mocked up “I’m a victim of the evil left” stories there is one glaring similarity.
No evidence. It reminds me when one of the Republicans of the “A List” Dallas” tried to claim that “Liberals” vandalized his house, but there was no police report, and when they finally looked at the pictures the cops immediately spotted that the window had been broken from the inside, not the outside.
irbaboon
I was just thinking the same thing
ChrisK
I seriously doubt anyone really gives enough of a shit about the conservative douchebag. I think the picture is fitting though. Small dicked homophobe enjoying himself.
ChrisK
He also needs to realize that being hateful does not = a pro lesbian message. Akin to saying all Christians are nuts.
Sam6969
Mike, there is a difference between fighting for one’s rights and fighting against people’s rights. You clearly belong to the second category. Opinions do not equate the right to live a decent life.
Not sure also you would appreciate mobs in the streets manifesting against the right of free religion, or antireligious bulletin boards.
Juanjo
So he received text messages, someone posted a crudely drawn caricature of him being buggered, and people have been rude to him in the dorm. Let’s see the text messages because that sort of thing can be traced to the original source. Let’s examine the drawing and see if there are any clues on the paper like say, fingerprints other than his own. And let’s interview the dormmates.
If someone did this then it is harassment and it should be stopped. The texts and the drawing may be the work on one person only not everyone. And frankly, if this guy is a complete tool which his little display indicates he might well be, then his dormmates treating him like a tool may have less to do with the content of his message and a lot to do with a severe character lack on his part. I can recall one douche bag in my dorm back in the day who ended up gaffing taped to a chair naked and sent to the lobby in an elevator with every floor button pushed for the trip down. He was also a bit of a homophobe but it was his total douche bag nature that got him that treatment.
Kieran
That’s the funniest cartoon I’ve seen in awhile.
starkraver
I call BS.
Kangol
I strongly disagree with the views of Mike Smalanskas on same-sex marriage, but I also do not think he or anyone should be censored or bullied for expressing those views. Ironically enough, he’s enrolled at a Roman Catholic college, and the Catholic Church still has pretty retrograde views on sexuality, especially homosexuality, but many (most?) practicing Catholics are much more open and progressive when it comes to views on sexuality. We should all remember that across the USA, there has been a strong though not exact correlation between states with large Catholic populations (in New England, the Midwest, the West Coast, etc.) and the adoption of laws to protect LGBTQ people and permit same-sex marriage.
BTW, the Texas terrorist Mark Anthony Conditt, who blew up two people (including a teenager) and injured five more with his bombs before blowing himself up as the FBI and local cops were closing in on him, also turns out to have been a self-described conservative with blog posts against same-sex marriage and abortion, etc.
Tombear
I have a very good friend who is an alum of Providence college. He stated many of the professors who are priests are gay. So we were having a beer at The Providence Eagle and who shows up but two of his Providence College professors.