In this report on an important religious-freedom trial in the Grahamstown Supreme Court tomorrow, ChristianView Network founder Philip Rosenthal challenges the arguments of Rhodes University in support of its decision to expel Arthur Vamva
Expelled Christian SRC candidate Arthur Vamva is taking Rhodes University to court on Thursday November 20 to overturn an unjust “hate speech” ruling after he spoke up against woke ideology and LGBT, so he can complete his studies.
Vamva has been unable to study since 2022, after a controversial campaign running for SRC President. Rhodes University arguments against Vamva put any Christian or other anti-woke opinion at risk. If they get away with it, it would also leave Christians at risk of similar discrimination by employers or schools elsewhere.
Arthur Vamva campaigned for free speech vs woke ideology at Rhodes. He was not able to afford his own legal representation but thankfully found pro-bono help from the Pan-African Bar Association, who are arguing the right to free speech, without necessarily agreeing with his views.
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Vamva’s lawyers’ arguments include:
– Amongst the charges, the University found Vumva guilty for a statement in a private conversation, which can’t be hate speech under the Equality Act.
– The Vice Chancellor himself testified against Vamva, thus applying political pressure to the process and prejudicing the chances of a fair trial.
– The Rhodes University Board investigated beyond the scope of the original charges against him to look at more of his social media posts to try to justify his findings. [This is the same defence argument used by Tim Noakes lawyers to defend his controversial social media post on the banting diet. An investigation must stick to the original charges. Authorities can’t just go on a fishing expedition to try to find more charges to add as an excuse to find the accused guilty].
– The university made contradictory findings.
– It is unclear how many charges of “hate speec” he was found guilty of.
– The facts of the Qwelane case, which the university used as precedent, were different.
– Even if Vumva was found guilty, the sentence of a 4-year ban is unduly harsh and the endorsement of his academic record with a “hate speech” finding prejudices his chances of getting accepted at another university.
Arguments of Rhodes University against Vamva include:
– Vamva said homosexuality is “sinful”, “spiritual darkness”, “an abomination” and transgenderism “fake”.
– Rhodes dismissed Vamva’s defence that he got the words “sinful” and “abomination” from the Bible (Leviticus 18:22).
[Homosexuality answer: This is highly disturbing because it is a rejection not only of Vamva but the right to argue from the Bible]
[Trans: answer: Firstly, there is good scientific evidence to support the claim that, for example males self-identifying as women. are still male. They still have a Y chromosome in every cell in their body and have hundreds of biologically=verifiable features that are different to biological women. Secondly, the fact that those identifying with a non-biological gender are offended is not a valid reason to be prohibited from stating the truth. In that case, all scientific debate is shut down by hurt feelings. Third, in areas where woke social media culture has become normative, a) the rate of “trans” identification has increased by a factor of a thousand, b) commonly rapid-onset, with people who do not have gender dysphoria from early childhood c) associated with friendship groups and social media following d) more commonly female identifying as male, rather than traditional gender dysphoria of male identifying as female. These factors indicate the popularity of the current phenomenon is due to woke social contagion].
[Spiritual darkness/Satanism answer: Firstly, ironically, a complaint was brought against Shaun Christie at North West University for criticising LGBT by a self-identifying “friendly Satanist” and leader of the “Pagan Rights Alliance”. Such a person would then presumably object to Rhodes University religious discrimination against pagans? Secondly, this is a statement of religious opinion. We do not want the courts or academic authorities to get entangled with religious opinion debates, because if they did it would interfere with freedom of religion and lead to endless unwanted litigation.]
– Risk of violence: Rhodes argue that transgender people are at risk of violence and thus must be protected through such speech censorship. [Answer: Firstly, Vamva was not encouraging violence and violence against trans people is not coming from Christians or Christian motivation. Secondly, such violence is not taking place at universities. Thirdly, this is part of a repeated unreasonable woke line of argument to try to conflate different categories of non-woke people together and thus frame innocent people for the guilt of others. In another absurd example, woke authorities at UWC framed a Christian view social media post for male leadership of the family together with sexual violence against women, thus attempting to blame one for the other].
– Reputation of University: There had been a woke activist social media outcry particularly from Eusebius McKaiser which brought the university into disrepute and was evidence that Vamva’s posts were unreasonable. [Answer: Firstly, the university should not be influenced by the pressure of social media woke mobs who are routinely unjust. Second, woke online mob leaders are continually attacking people and institutions. One cannot give them power to manipulate justice structures. Third, if public opinion was to be taken into account, a poll by the Human Sciences Research Council showed that 9/10 South Africans believe homosexuality is always wrong. Thus the majority agree with Vamva. Why is the university only concerned about woke opinion but not Christian opinion or majority opinion. Fourth, their action of intolerance of free speech is more likely to bring the university into disrepute. Fifth, one must apply objective judgment rather than be influenced by a social media mob to judge what is reasonable vs what is “hate speech”, else one is succumbing to mob justice.]
– Rhodes University say that Vamva’s distinguishing between “homosexuality” (the sin) and “homosexuals” (as people) is nonsensical. [Answer: Firstly, the Bible repeatedly draws the distinction between “sin” and “people” (the sinner committing the sin) on multiple issues — not only homosexuality. For example, Psalm 36:2 ‘…he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin’. Secondly, upholding the sanctity of marriage requires everyone before and during marriage (and not only homosexual people to exercise sexual restraint against temptation and lust). Thirdly, a homosexual person can repent or turn from practicing the sin of homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:11). Many have done so and speak up against homosexual sin. For example, see video clip below, at the recent Marriage Bill hearings.
– Rhodes argue they need to create a “safe space” for LGBT people. [Answer: They are not creating a safe space for Christians to express their viewpoint.]
Further problems with the Rhodes judgment against Vamva
– The Rhodes University 2022 judgment expelling Christian SRC candidate Arthur Vamva for statements against LGBT assumes a very narrow view of the right to express a religious viewpoint, namely evangelism, but without the essential component of a definition of sin or the threat of God’s judgment on it, which is part of the essential argument.
– It further denies the right to propagate a worldview that challenges the oppressed/oppressor assumptions held by the university, or challenge the social impacts of such a worldview. Such challenge is then reframed as oppression within their binary framework. It thus rests on a closed-minded-circular-reasoning system of which any challenge is evidence of guilt.
– It further sets a double standard, by which one side is judged by one set of narrow, strict, academic-level standards and the other side is free to say whatever they wish, including repeated public abuse of Vamva as recorded in the video of his SRC candidate speech disruptions.There are different levels of debate, with the most intellectual being academic debate and the lowest level being social-media banter, with popular plain language debate in the middle. Rhodes University standard wants to prohibit non-woke people from casual social media and popular debate under threat of hate speech charges. Other woke universities seldom present anti-woke views at all.
– One of the charges against Vamva was sharing someone else’s post which said that LGBT was a “white supremacist” movement. [Answer: Firstly, this is the sharing of someone else’s post, not his own post, which should give it less scrutiny. If you are going to charge someone with “hate speech” for every post they share or like, the potential for conflict on the internet is endless. Secondly, even if it was a debatable or incorrect allegation, woke activists are regularly accusing people of being “white supremacists” (for example Trump, Afriforum). Would Rhodes University then charge such woke activists with “hate speech” for doing so? If not, they have a double standard. Thirdly, such an allegation doesn’t fit the definition of hate speech which Rhodes University cites from the Qwelane judgment. Fourthly, the historic “Gay Association of South Africa” during the apartheid era was an example of a voluntary whites-only movement.]
– Rhodes University rejected Vamva’s request for a re-trial in a one sentence letter, saying the application “has no substance”.
– It is further disturbing that he was disqualified from running for SRC just before the vote count was released.
Action
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