Wielding large banners that read "Obey Jesus or Perish" and "All That Matters, Hell Awaits You," a handful of protesters staged a demonstration next to the West Campus bus stop early Wednesday afternoon.
The non-student trio, which also distributed flyers and shouted statements about its religious beliefs, attracted a crowd of curious students and was eventually escorted off campus by Duke University Police Department officers.
Leanora Minai, senior public relations specialist for DUPD, said one of the protester told a police lieutenant the group was traveling to area colleges to convey its religious message.
Minai noted that one of the protesters identified himself as Abraham Paul Woroniecki, 18.
The group's flyers also directed people to contact Michael Woroniecki, a radical self-ordained preacher whose work with followers has been criticized as being psychologically abusive.
He gained nationwide notoriety for allegedly influencing Andrea Yates, a Texas woman convicted of murdering her five children in 2001.
Marching between the main West quadrangles Wednesday with the Duke Chapel as a backdrop, the protesters yelled phrases such as "Jesus saves" and "New Orleans was not an accident."
Some students snapped photos on camera phones or heckled the demonstrators. Others, who objected to the trio's comments, angrily shouted back.
"One of the Duke students walked up to the girl holding the 'Obey Jesus or Perish' sign and started yelling that homosexuality was not a sin," sophomore Roberto Bazzani said. "The girl holding the sign started yelling, 'It is a sin, it is a sin.'"
Bazzani pointed out that the group came to campus during Coming Out Week, an annual AQUADuke-sponsored event supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual students. Minai said she did not know if the protesters decided to come to campus because of COW.
DUPD responded to a call from a student who reported that the protesters were disruptive and their comments rude, Minai explained. "I think several students were offended at their remarks," Minai said. "Our officers politely asked them to take it somewhere else, and they did."
Some students voiced concern that DUPD should have allowed the protest to continue, but others disagreed. Though he stressed that he believes in free speech, Bazzani said the demonstrators should have at least had a permit to be on campus if they were going to "stir up that emotion."
"I thought it was a really intolerant and a really harsh message, because they were basically condemning everybody to hell except people who think like them," he said.
Saidi Chen contributed to this story.
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