So annoyed!

Question for US peeps. Are missionaries allowed to attend welcome events for new intakes of students at public universities?

I understand that LDS students are entitled to have a campus based societies, fine, there is a Wicca society here, and a Jedi one etc - but these kids are actively seeking to convert 18 year olds. They aren't even registered students.

I did raise it and the answer I got was lots of societies have external helpers at these events. I was wondering if I should go down in my lunch hour tomorrow and make a scene! I particularly worry about intl students, who are quite vulnerable and often lonely.

What are they doing? They probably went for the food. Was there free food there? BINGO. In the US, at least, there are numerous numerous reasons to go to campus-events: proselytizing, chicks, FOOD, free internet-computers/ wifi/ phones, communication, opportunities, learning, studying how to exit tscc, wasting/ passing time...

Any outside solicitation on public college campuses must be approved by Student Affairs Office.

If the campus is a public institution, all individuals are welcome if they abide by state laws and the institutional policies and procedures. Groups are also welcome providing they also follow the above. We live in a free society, missionaries are a part, even if annoying, of that freedom.

Making a scene is optional.

I don't think any school must allow outside cultists an opportunity to prey on students.

Any person who is harassed at home, at school, or anywhere has a right to try to curb the practice.

You're at a school and you pay for the right to be there. Taxpayers also help if it's public. If you and the taxpayers don't want these religious nuts interfering with the normal daily student activity, it should cease. I'd file a complaint.

The rules typically depend on the university and state, but missionaries are typically allowed to be there. There are non-students from many other organizations, religious and non-religious, soliciting for donations, memberships, and so on. Sometimes there are rules that a supporting student must be present, but this is not always the case. Unless the missionaries are stalking students, hunting them down, or physically harming them, they probably are allowed to be there.

In public universities, missionaries are allowed to be there, but they're only allowed to set up a booth in a certain location. They're not allowed to approach or harass students in any way, and must stay by the booth.

My TBM missionary son was invited by an LD$ student to come answer questions for a philosophy class. The professor approved the visit. This was at a large Midwestern research university.

University students are adults. And there's that sometimes pesky First Amendment that permits this. Harvard recently allowEd a Black Mass over the objections of the Catholic Church. Objectionable, fuck yeah, but it's Freedom of Speech and and a foundation of liberty. Boner.

(few yrs at public colleges in Seattle/King County) Never saw mish's on campus,either Shoreline CC or UW; college isn't the place for missionaries to be tracting or teaching unless specifically invited.

move it to a public park or similar.

Really? You never saw any at UW? I actually was a missionary at UW a few years ago. We were only allowed to "recruit" in Red Square (UW's main open spot on campus), and we were typically there the majority of every day if we weren't teaching/at an appointment. Were you near Red Square very often, or not really?

Also, just fyi, there were three sets of missionaries at UW. I believe one of these sets was over Shoreline CC as well, but they typically stayed near UW because there was a lot more people over there.


PS- if anyone plans on warning me about too much personal information in this message, please note that I don't give a @#$%. What's TSCC gonna do? :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2014 12:09PM by smoteheadofshiz.

My son attends UW now and says there are lots of missionaries around Red Square all the time.

On my mission England we often went to the university. The chaplains would some time call us; or we even taught a class during "comparative religion". Mostly though we were helping out institute (LDS) students. There are even assigned missionaries to college wards & branches. You have to think of a college or university as it's own little town-- separate cops, chaplains, housing. If anything it's harder for missionaries to recruit in higher learning locations; than on U.S. armed service bases or in barrios, slums, public housing--which is where they now get most converts.

It sounds to me like missionaries are milling about among at campus welcoming events trying to get them interested in attending the Mormon church.

This isn't a booth where a student can avoid the contact. This isn't a class where these Mormons have been invited to speak. The missionaries seem to be utilizing the vulnerable feelings of new incoming students and fellowshipping them with the intent of getting them to take Mormon lessons.

If a student is harassed or is uncomfortable with being treated this way, they have a right to say so.

Welcoming events have a purpose of helping students mix and meet other students, not outsiders from cults.

Freedom of speech? The students have as much right to speak as anyone else who happens to be on campus. The campus and its facilities are there for student needs.

It makes no sense to say that missionaries have more rights to freedom of speech on my porch or in a student's residence or welcoming event than an outside stranger who comes there to talk students into doing their bidding.

Thanks all! I will go down but not make a scene - everywhere is heaving with young folk, so I suspect it's exciting for the mishies not to bored out of their minds for a change. And almost every society is giving away sweets (candy) so if the mishies are boys, they'll be filling their boots, as we say. Sikh Society will have got the local temple to cook up a storm as well - although they never seek converts.

I am annoyed, as it's another example of TSCC tricking other people into thinking it's just like anything else. We don't permit scientology to have a stall/booth for example.

Someone might listen and you certainly have a right to voice your opinion.

Sounds like the mishies are crashing these parties, taking free food meant for students, and harassing the students with religious tripe.

I wonder if the Mormons have their own events at the seminary? Or on campus? If so, I wonder if anyone attends except a few other Mormons. Would they like it if they provided food and JWs or Seventh Day Adventists from off campus chowed down and filled their pockets while trying to convert Mormons to another church?

According to our local sister missionaries in North Texas, street contacts, university booths, etc., are the new emphasis to replace traditional door-to-door tracting.

It must be the big day for exmos spotting mishies. Just saw a couple of senior ones myself.

I was a missionary in Louisiana in 1997-1999. I was assigned to 3 different college campuses. At LSU, we would set up booths in the student union and on football game days. We were 'allowed' to do this because they thought we were students. There was an lds chapter that was presided over by the student leadership of the CES institute on campus, but we, as missionaries, did all sorts of the things under the guise that we were enrolled students.

For the record, I was never asked to target students in any way. It was simply implied as we were located near campus and our area was basically all student housing and the surrounding area.

I had 3 baptisms in that area and all 3 were students so . . . that tells you something