Penn Secular Society poster defaced for fourth time

Penn Secular Society’s poster on Locust Walk was defaced again on Wednesday for the fourth time in two weeks in acts that have been condemned by campus religious leaders.

The poster now has the phrases “hell is real” and “no way” written at the top and bottom of a quote by Thomas à Kempis reading: “If God were our one and only desire we would not be so easily upset when our opinions do not find outside acceptance.” The defacements have led to three guest columns in The Daily Pennsylvanian over the past week.

A quote about becoming accustomed to one’s beliefs was torn down from the same poster earlier this week, Penn Secular Society President Seth Koren said. A poster with quotes about women’s roles from various religious texts and another which had a “partial list of Gods you don’t believe in” had liquid thrown on them. On Tuesday, Koren filed a police report with Penn Police for two of the defacement incidents.

Campus religious leaders have spoken out against the vandalism.

“It’s not OK,” University Chaplain Chaz Howard said. “Efforts to deface or hinder open expression at Penn is not what Penn’s about at all.”

Related: Letter to the Editor | To the defacers of Penn Secular Society’s poster…

“It’s a very childish and intellectually immature thing to do,” Koren said in an interview Wednesday night. He said he was “saddened” that the defacements had continued despite the dialogue inspired by guest columns in The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Hillel President Josh Cooper, a College senior who penned a guest column denouncing the defacement of the society’s posters, agreed.

“You should handle opposing opinions like a grown up,” Cooper said. “I try and let my religion cultivate a sense of respect for the people around me, and I hope that any religion would do that.”

The poster intends to “encourage thought on the value of being exposed to and of considering opinions different from one’s own,” according to a statement of intent on the display.

Related: Letter to the Editor | Misunderstanding both religion and secularism

However, before that was added to the poster — at the suggestion of the Chaplain’s Office — Cooper and other religious leaders questioned the use of a poster to convey the society’s message, suggesting that there are more effective ways of engaging people in conversation.

“The fact that there are so many religious students that objected to the banner is indicative that the banner wasn’t tactfully [executing] its goals,” Cooper said, adding that he applauded the society’s intent to spur discussion.

College senior Julie Berez, the co-chair of Programs in Religion, Interfaith and Spirituality Matters, the umbrella organization for religious groups, said PRISM favors in-person conversations “rather than dialogue based on statements.” Penn Secular Society is not a constituent member of PRISM.

Howard and Cooper both praised the addition of the statement of intent to the posters on Locust.

“Now that they have a letter of intent on the banner,” Cooper said, “that goes a long long way” toward showing and furthering their goals.

Related: Guest Column by Seth Koren | The value of critical reflection

The purpose of the poster was always to get people to think about their religion, Koren said.

The quotes about how to treat women, he said, were “intended to encourage people to think about how they view these particularly egregious parts of their holy books.”

One quote on the poster, from the Book of Deuteronomy, said that if an engaged virgin woman sleeps with a man other than her fiance, she should be stoned to death “because she did not cry for help.”

“I absolutely agree with everyone who said that it’s an offensive quote,” Koren said. “It is an offensive quote. That’s the point.”

“If you think that the Bible is a perfect moral document … then that [quote] is something you have to think about,” he said.

However, not all agreed with Koren.

Although he said that he does not support certain parts of religion, such as the stoning of women, College junior Noah Sanders, who wrote a guest column criticizing two of the society’s posters, said that the banner merely attempted to impose one belief system on everyone.

“They’re not adding anything to the argument besides attacking people for these beliefs,” he added.

However, he added that the defacement was not an appropriate response.

“The defacement of the banners is just another embodiment of the intolerance that I criticized [in my DP column], and I am against it. It’s immature,” Sanders said.

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