Self-described "queer-liberation" activists on the campus of DePaul University are preparing to ambush an event later Wednesday evening featuring a prominent conservative gay rights activist due to his views on radical Islam and the threat they allege those views pose to minority groups.
James Kirchick, a conservative author, reporter, and gay human rights activist, is scheduled to appear at DePaul Wednesday evening for an event titled, "Dictatorships and Radical Islam: The Enemies of LGBT Rights." Kirchick is expected to address the ways in which oppressive regimes endanger gay rights.
The event has generated controversy on campus, with DePaul officials censoring a poster promoting the talk due to its statement: "Gay Lives Matter."
The effort by liberal activists on campus to shutdown Kirchick's event is just the latest salvo in a larger campus war over free speech rights for those with conservative political views. DePaul students appear to object to Kirchick not because of his gay rights activism, but because of his right-leaning political views, despite the fact that Kirchick has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump.
Conservative media personality Ann Coulter was recently forced to cancel a speech at Berkeley University over concerns for her safety following a massive backlash from liberal students on campus who sought to censor the event.
DePaul students have already begun mobilizing on social media in an effort to protest the event, which is being sponsored by Turning Point USA.
"Turning Point DePaul… is bringing James Kirchik [sic], a white, Zionist, neoliberal journalist to speak on shit he knows nothing about: 'Dictatorships and Islam: Enemies of LGBT Rights,'" opponents of the event wrote in a Facebook post obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Activists accuse Kirchick—a longtime supporter of gay rights who has spent years covering oppressive regimes around the globe—of promoting Islamophobia and other forms of racism. They compare Kirchick to alt-right firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos, but fail to note that Kirchick has repeatedly and prominently criticized Yiannopoulos.
Other flyers being handed out on campus mock Kirchick's gay rights activism and accuse him of delivering a "hateful message" due to his opinion that Islamic regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are enemies of gay rights.
DePaul officials also have come under scrutiny for rejecting a promotional poster stating, "Gay Lives Matter."
Internal emails leaked to the press quoted DePaul officials as claiming: "It doesn't appear Turning Point has any connection to the Black Lives Matter movement… using the same look/brand as BLM [Black Lives Matter] pit marginalized groups against each other."
While the Kirchick event has sparked outrage at DePaul, activists have had little to say about anti-Israel campaigns organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, a radical campus group known for promoting anti-Semitic materials on campus.
Kirchick is no stranger to controversy and violence. He was punched in the face by a fascist while covering the 2010 gay pride parade in Belgrade, an episode that was documented in the media.
Kirchick also caused a firestorm in 2013 when he appeared on the Russian state-controlled news station RT while sporting rainbow colored suspenders. Kirchick proceeded to slam Russia's abysmal treatment of homosexuals before being cut off by the network.
Asked to address the controversy Wednesday afternoon, Kirchick told the Free Beacon, "I don't need lectures from these children on standing up for gay rights."
A spokesman for DePaul did not respond to multiple Free Beacon requests for comment on the situation by press time.