Alan Keyes, pro-lifers plan to be jailed at Notre Dame

Alan Keyes meets with Randall Terry outside entrance to Notre Dame

Editor's note: This story contains imagery that some readers might find offensive.

With just more than a week until President Obama is scheduled to speak at the University of Notre Dame commencement and accept an honorary degree, the campus is bustling with protests against the Catholic college's invitation to one of the most pro-abortion presidents in U.S. history – and some, including former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, are planning to go to jail.

University President John Jenkins prompted national outrage when he invited the president to speak at the May 17 event. Despite at least 55 bishops publicly denouncing or questioning the university's decision, Jenkins has refused to rescind the offer.

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry made headlines Friday after he was arrested for pushing a stroller carrying a doll covered in fake blood on the Notre Dame campus – and today Alan Keyes announced that he too is ready to be locked up for the pro-life cause. He invited other pro-lifers across the nation to join him.

"With the arrest of Randall Terry, Father Jenkins and the University administration at Notre Dame take their advocacy of evil to a new level of spiritual atrocity," Keyes said in a statement. "[T]hey will welcome to the university campus a man who represents the most abominable and extreme commitment ever known in U.S. politics to destroying the God given right to life of innocent human offspring."

Keyes said he will go to South Bend to join Terry and be thrown in jail.

"I will step foot on the Notre Dame campus to lift up the standard that protects the life of the innocent children of this and every generation," Keyes said. "I will do it all day and every day from now until the Master comes if need be, though it means I shall be housed every day in the prison house of lies and injustice that Obama, Jenkins and their minions now mean to construct for those who will never be still and silent in the face of their mockery of God and justice, their celebration of evil."

Keyes continued, "If this be trespass, then forgive us our trespasses and join us in trespassing until the South Bend jail is filled to overflowing with witnesses to truth; filled beyond capacity; filled until we break the most onerous shackles – the ones that bind the heart and mind to evil and our nation to the path of its destruction."

Terry told WND he is thrilled that Keyes has decided to be arrested and to urge others to join him.

"I think it may be the thing that causes President Obama to cancel," he said. "There would be no better witness to the world of the value of these babies – who Obama is even now slaughtering – than if there are hundreds of people sitting in jail."

Terry said his group has been creating an "absolute ruckus" outside the university.

"When it comes to stuff like this, I don't play games," he said. "When I heard that President Obama was speaking, I knew that this would be a seminal fight. So we stopped everything we were doing, relocated here, brought my family here, opened an office and brought in staff so that we could create the social tension necessary to highlight this evil – first the evil of people dying under Obama's orders and second the evil of Notre Dame honoring him."

Other organizations such as the Center for Bioethical Reform, Citizens for a Pro-life Society and the Pro-Life Action League have also mobilized against Notre Dame's invitation to Obama.

The Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society erected two large billboards located near campus that read, "NOTRE DAME: Obama is pro-abortion. How dare you honor him."

The signs feature a baby in utero sucking its thumb and list a website where people may find more information about graduation weekend protests.

Citizens for a Pro-Life Society has also placed a "Do it for Jacob" ad in two local newspapers, the Notre Dame Observer and the South Bend Tribune.

On Tuesday, one protester from Terry's group entered the cafeteria wearing an Obama mask and blood on his hands. He littered 12-week plastic unborn babies on the floor. On the back of the dolls was written, "Obama killed me."

Protester pretends to be bloody Obama

"We have people in front of the gate holding up huge signs," he said. "We have 8-foot banners and have been standing in front of Notre Dame every single day."

The group also sent 50,000 letters to university alumni.

"That has caused an enormous firestorm," Terry said. "Our phone was ringing off the hook. We gave people post cards to send to trustees, alumni, the pope and other Vatican people. We've been to several trustees' homes and businesses."

The protesters had at least a dozen children dressed in garbage bags hold signs that said, "Obama throws children in the garbage" and "Tell Obama children are not garbage."

Yesterday, two people went on campus with strollers and one more wore the Obama mask. They were all issued trespass warnings and told to leave.

"So, they'll throw people off campus who defend babies, but they'll honor the man who kills them," Terry said. "It's crazy."

He believes the administration is discussing ways to cancel the speaking engagement after widespread public outcry.

"Father Jenkins has to know that his job is history," he said. "He will be replaced. There's no way – none – that he can weather this storm."

While 2007 statistics show that more than 80 percent of Notre Dame students identify themselves as Catholic and 13 percent of students are of non-Catholic Christian denominations, Terry said the student response has been "abysmal" and that they have "caved in."

"They are victims of diversity and tolerance and moral relativism training," he said. "University professors have systematically disemboweled them."

Several pro-life student groups are planning to hold peaceful prayer demonstrations during the president's speech. However, students are not permitted to bring "graphic images" or carry "negatively-worded signs" on campus.

Terry said "muzzled and sterile" gatherings and petitions are not enough to force the administration to act. People must be prepared to speak out and even be arrested for the cause – just as Rev. Martin Luther King did.

"A petition is useless," he said. "If Martin Luther King had chosen to simply collect signatures for the freedom of black people, he'd still be riding in the back of the bus."

He continued, "That's where we're taking our cue. If we do not follow the examples of the civil rights movement and the abolitionist movement, we will never win in this fight to end child killing."

Protesters stand outside Notre Dame with 8-foot anti-abortion banner every day

Terry is promoting a website called StopObamaNotreDame.com so others may join the protests. He hopes to create such a stir that the president will excuse himself from the speaking engagement.

"My goal, and my challenge to everyone, is to create such a political mud pit here that Obama chooses to not walk through it in order to speak," he said. "The only way that's going to happen is by massive social tension on the ground. That's why these arrests are going to be so critical."