Towson Students Engage In Large Counter-Protest Against Fundamentalist Church: Report

TOWSON - More than 100 Towson University students gathered for a counter-protest against members of the Key Of David Christian Church on Thursday.

The Towson Towerlight reports that the five members of the organization, which operates out of Philadelphia, held signs with messages like “God hates f—” and “H—s deserve aids.” outside the Towsontown Garage. The Key Of David members were led in protest by their leader, Aden Rusfeldt.

Key Of David members were quickly outnumbered by Towson students holding signs reading “Pro-Life until they’re born” and “I’m a slut, and I’m proud.” Students started their counter-protest across the street from the Towsontown Garage before moving towards the Key of David members, prompting university officials to erect barriers.

Rustfelt taunted the counter-protesters after the barriers came up. The Towerlight reports that he called several Towson students “whores” and told women protestors to relay their messages through a man.

Junior Liliana Wolf, a Christian and counter-protestor told the Towerlight that she wanted to distance her beliefs and the organization’s, specifically, the Key of David Church’s homophobic views.

“I’m just very disappointed as a Christian and how they’re representing, and I’m here to just try to represent Jesus better so that they don’t get the wrong impression of who he is.”

According to their website, Rusfeldt and his church are enemies of the Nation of Islam and the Catholic Church. The group also espouses misogynistic and homophobic views, with their website reading, “a wife is to submit to her husband in all areas except sin.” and “Feminist[s] HATE our church. Women can’t be pastors or in any church leadership.”

Thursday was not the first time Key of David protested on a college campus. According to the group’s Facebook page, they rallied at the University of Maryland, College Park, in early April. The group has even visited Towson before, sparking a similar counter-protest in April of 2022.

According to the Towerlight, Rusfeldt said that their mission on Towson’s Campus was to “spread the good word of God today and encourage the women to Stop spreading their legs before marriage. To warn people about STDs and Eternal Hellfire.”

Despite the outcry from students and on social media, as a publicly funded university, Towson is required to observe the First Amendment and allow the group to protest. University policy states that “TU is tasked with protecting every student’s freedom to speak and to hear all views. Hateful or offensive speech that does not rise to the level of a true threat or unlawful harassment cannot be banned or punished.”