UNF warns students of church group; members fire back

A local university is warning students about a church group they say is harassing people on campus.

The University of North Florida said that group is the Church of God the Mother.  Members said it just started a club at UNF.

UNF said several complaints that church members have been aggressively harassing students prompted an alert Thursday.

It said members of the Church of God the Mother will be allowed to be on-campus, and if students feel threatened, they should go to university police.

“It made us kind of worried,” said UNF student Emily Slagle.

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“Because there’s so many people that stop you every day to talk to you, and you don’t want to be rude and just keep walking, but now I feel like you have to,” student Gianna Ancatta added.

Students said there are multiple church groups on-campus stopping people.

“They call women derogatory names,” said student Kira Fellows.  “It’s very stressful, it’s very annoying to just be going to class, and because I’m wearing shorts, a guy calls me something rude because he likes Jesus more than I do!”

Action News Jax found a video posted to Twitter showing a man preaching anti-gay rhetoric to a UNF student.

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“Do you know it’s not OK to be gay? That’s from the Bible,” the man said in the video.

“Absolutely not from us.  Absolutely not,” Church of God the Mother member Rita Civil said.  “I can say that with 100% confidence, that is not us.”

“So, the university got this wrong?” Action News Jax reporter Russell Colburn asked.

“Absolutely, absolutely,” Civil replied.

Civil said the university is unfairly targeting them.

“I know that’s definitely not our group, because aggressive, harassment, that goes against everything we believe in,” Civil said.

UNF declined Action News Jax’s request for an interview on the controversy.

Cox Media Group