A small of group of people preaching what police called "hateful speech" drew a strong rebuke from students Wednesday at Northampton Community College.

Three people holding signs joined a suited man speaking into a megaphone just before noon outside College Center in the heart of the Bethlehem Township campus.

Video posted on Facebook by student Haylie Coombs shows the speaker opening with an assault on homosexuality. He is immediately surrounded by campus police as students form a half-circle and launch a loud chant of "Kick him out!"

Another student, Christine Semanek, snapped a photo of the group just as they were about to get started. She called campus security and was told they were already responding.

"i've never seen anything like that before" on campus, Semanek, of Forks Township, told lehighvalleylive.com. "That was completely out of the ordinary."

Sporting signs such as one saying, "Stop sinning obey Jesus or hellfire" with christianinterviews.com across the bottom, the protesters were relocated on campus, surrounded by orange-and-white striped sawhorses and allowed to continue.

The activity is protected as free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution, said township police Chief Daniel Pancoast. He responded with five officers and said the campus sent another six or so officers out, as well.

The rally continued as 3:30 p.m. approached, Pancoast said.

"What happened initially was that as they spoke, a group of about 200 students filled in around them in a horseshoe pattern and began debating their speech and it got loud and it got a little aggressive, and eventually all the students realized that they were feeding into the hateful talk and stopped talking to them," the police chief said.

Outside College Center, Coombs' video shows a female student run up to a man wearing a Sikh head covering and hug him, then kiss a fellow female student amid loud cheering. Another man cups his hands around his mouth and sings/shouts to the crowd, "All we are saying is give peace a chance," over the exhortations of the speaker, the video shows.

Campus security could be seen asking the students to back away from the anti-accpetance rally.

"I pay to go to this school," one student is heard saying on video. "This (expletive) doesn't."

Caution: Video contains explicit content

Welcome to Community college guys Posted by Haylie Madisen Coombs on Wednesday, May 3, 2017

After the rally was relocated, students got a speaker of their own and began playing music, and they gathered in the college's gym for an impromptu party, Pancoast said.

"I'm very impressed with the student body, with their composure and their maturity in addressing the hateful speech situation," he said.

Facebook Live video also posted by Coombs, a Bangor Area High School graduate, showed the speaker -- he told police his name is Pastor Jared -- railing against sinning, pornography, flirting, vanity and abortion. He was also making racist jokes -- including about his own wife's Mexican heritage.

He warned women against wearing revealing clothing, because "they might rape you," and called lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender groups examples of "terrorist" organizations. At one point, he got into an argument with a veteran wearing a U.S. Navy cap standing alongside the school's Spartan mascot, who was waiving the rainbow flag of gay rights.

Semanek, who called campus security about the rally, said she was hoping the group would be removed because of the hate speech.

"A community college is supposed to be a safe space for the community," she said.

College President Mark Erickson, in a statement Wednesday afternoon, reacted to the rally and response as follows:

"NCC is an amazing place and we saw just how amazing earlier today. This afternoon our campus was disrupted by a group of individuals promoting a message of hate and intolerance. In response, our students, faculty and staff set up speakers and countered with a positive, high-energy dance party drowning out the offensive message of our visitors.

"Quite literally, our students responded to hate with love. I applaud them for their measured and effective reaction. As president, they made me, our faculty and staff immensely proud! While it is great to live in a world where free speech is protected, it is sometimes painful and frustrating when protection of that free speech subjects us all to vile and hateful rhetoric."

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.