Approximately 100 people gathered outside the closed doors after Agricultural Science 106 was filled to capacity at the Toxic Matriarchy event Monday night.
Those gathered in the lobby asked for doors to be opened so they could hear the talk. Christ Church Executive Minister, Ben Zornes, advised the executive security manager to keep the door shut.
Collegiate Reformed Fellowship President Josiah Anderson introduced speaker C.R. Wiley and encouraged attendees to keep things respectful, adding that anyone acting disruptively would be removed by security.
Wiley began by reading P.D. Eastman’s 1960 children’s book, “Are You My Mother?”
Wiley said as a child he thought it was an excellent book, and still believes it to be an important part of Western literature that he read to his kids and now his grandkids.
Wiley said the book is great for mothers because it confirms the bond between mother and child, uniting them.
Alex Brizee | Argonaut
C.R. Wiley, Senior Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Manchester in Manchester, Connecticut speaks at the Toxic Matriarchy event Monday.
“The bond is precious because it is singular and exclusive,” said Wiley. “The only thing a mother can really know is her own household.”
Wiley said that he has seen men become more nurturing “even without the expectation of a sex-change operation.”
He said that nurture has been lifted to such a measure that it has become the master virtue.
Wiley also said he would like to remind everyone that no one would be here without a biological mother and a biological father. He said most of the mothers he has known have abstained from partaking in harmful activities, noting that his own mother stopped smoking during her pregnancy. Wiley said he was present for the birth of his three children.
“It was a time where having a baby was like having your appendix out,” Wiley said.
Audience members periodically erupted in cheers playing BINGO created by fourth year student Seth Parker that included squares reading “affiliates religion and patriotism,” “woman’s duty” and “emasculated.”
Mag Haener, organizer of the peaceful protest, said that over 100 BINGO sheets were handed out.
Third-year student Bailey O’Bryant said it was important to attend the event to prove to Christ Church and CFR that the people they wish to undermine won’t stand for their hateful speech being passed off as “god’s word.”
“We showed up to laugh at that hate and show them they are outnumbered,” O’Bryant said. “There’s going to be change and we are going to be the people fighting for it whatever way we can.”
After 30 minutes, Wiley was joined on stage by Christ Church Pastor Douglas Wilson to answer audience questions.
One audience member was escorted out by a Moscow police officer after remaining in his seat after being asked to leave by Christ Church members for playing the Kazoo during the question and answer session.
When asked whether a man should be able to command a woman in a heterosexual marriage, Wiley said he would have to know the context of the situation. After uproar from the crowd, Wiley said he would like to elaborate, adding the household has become recreational where nothing particularly important happens where it was formerly an economic center.
“Households in the past, because they were the center of the economy there was a dimension to household life that people today just can’t identify with,” Wiley said. “So, it seems like bullying and controlling to use words like command in a household environment.”
Wiley also responded to the question, “If a man marries a transgender woman, who stays home?”
Wiley said they are not actually married.
“So, it’s like flip a coin here,” Wilson said.
The Toxic Matriarchy Event was scheduled to run from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. but was ended by Wilson, a Christ Church pastor, at 8:30 p.m.
Ellamae Burnell can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @EllamaeBurnell