The 5-foot-tall pictures of aborted fetuses on campus last week were disturbing. They made me angry. They made me depressed. They made me nauseous. Most importantly, they made me think.

Because of the nature of these photos, I began thinking about the nature of free speech.

I found those photos to be incredibly offensive, horribly atrocious and otherwise just plain wrong. I strongly disagree with the anti-abortion movement and disagreed even more with this group's idea that abortion is a holocaust and that the women who have abortions are murderers.

Yet in spite of these things, I still believe that the religious group that brought those disturbing photos to campus had every right to be there, because I believe that the more controversial the speech, the more that speech needs to be protected.

After the shock of seeing the photos wore off, I was more disturbed by the reaction people had toward the photographs than the photos themselves.

Passersby that day harassed these people when they came to protest. The Student Activities Office told them to move because they'd received complaints from the women's group that had booked the Free Speech Area. And in one of my classes, a group of women talked about how these people needed to be run off of campus for no other reason than the pictures were offensive.

I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Isn't college supposed to be the sanctuary of liberal thought where people acknowledge all ideas, no matter how controversial? My experience has taught me just the opposite. Some of the people claiming to be the most liberal on campus are the least likely to listen to the positions of another viewpoint.

I've seen members of the Progressive Student Union on campus say that we need to censor advertisements because they showed the debasement of women. The Orion has received letters to the editor from members of the same group criticizing us for running a story that showed a conservative point of view. I've also received e-mails from students on campus telling me that I have no right to express my opinion because they were offended by my message. I just don't get it.