Cagle
Posted on 05/10/2003 7:00:42 AM PDT by schaketo
COLUMBIA - During last weekend's visit to South Carolina, a woman asked U.S. Sen. John Kerry if he would be willing to speak at Bob Jones University, and Kerry said he'd love to do it.
It was "clearly a spontaneous but a serious answer," Kerry's spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"Is he crazy?" school spokesman Jonathan Pait asked Friday. Any politician, Republican or Democrat, "would be inviting media scrutiny" similar to what happened to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race, Pait said.
Bush spoke at the private Christian fundamentalist university in February 2000 while the school still banned interracial dating and had anti-Roman Catholic material on its Web site. The school has since dropped the dating ban but still maintains material questioning Roman Catholicism on its Internet site.
Bush came under fire for the visit but defended it. He later wrote Cardinal John O'Connor of New York to apologize.
Kerry has stirred criticism himself, questioning U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft for receiving an honorary degree from the Greenville school.
College President Bob Jones III has said he would consider inviting Democrats, but Pait said no invitations have gone out to the current crop of presidential candidates. For the most part, their social views don't mesh with the school's message, Pait said.
Kerry "would accept an invitation to speak - and challenge the university on some of the beliefs that it has that don't belong in our society," Gibbs said. Kerry "wouldn't go to bash, but would certainly go to challenge the university on some of its views."
Coming in with an agenda of criticizing the university would cause the school to "roll up the welcome mat," Pait said. "Why would we invite someone to come and speak for the purpose of reinforcing the misrepresentations that have been generated about us?"
The university invites people who can share views that are consistent with what it teaches its students, Pait said. "Of all the presidential candidates on the Democratic ticket, there aren't many that share our ideology," Pait said. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's social views "would be the closest" to those taught by the school, Pait said.
Lieberman's campaign did not immediately respond Friday to questions from The Associated Press. Neither did the campaign of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
However, several of Kerry's opponents in South Carolina's Feb. 3, 2004, Democratic presidential primary said they have no plans to visit the university.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he would consider speaking at the school if invited but only after consulting with leaders of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and with the understanding that he would be speaking against "the racist policies of Bob Jones University."
Kerry "would accept an invitation to speak - and should challenge the DEMOCRATIC PARTY on some of the beliefs that it has that don't belong in our society,"
Nonsense. This was a cleverly orchestrated media firestorm, set up through McCain, and calculated to get conservative Evanglicals and Catholics at each others throats, thus destroying Bush's most important base, tradional Christians.
It failed. Bush didn't call Cardinal O'Connor to apologize for visiting Bob Jones University. He called as a gesture of solidarity between Evangelicals and Catholics, who have in common their opposition to the Culture of Death represented by McCain and the New York Times.
Right, the only that may be questioned is conservativsm or Republicanism (until they finish the take-over). Seriesly, these Totalitarians are out to obliterate our American way of life.
HF
You have been accepting as your own beliefs what has been written about the University in the liberal Press.
I live 1 mile from BJU Campus. All students attend BJU voluntarily. The Students all sign documents agreeing that they desire to, and choose to attend the University.
Perhaps you should visit the University some time.
Don in Greenville
That's why they decided to CHANGE them.
However, BJU never gets a break for its outstanding academics. I might know a little more about the place than you might imagine.
People do tend to get worked up over BJU. Here I was, thinking I had come to their defense, only to stir up the defensive. Whatever the missteps (and I certainly call their early policies less than prudent), there is no sense of proportion in reactions to BJU.
Their academic standards are impressive.
They accept no government money at all--not even GI bills. As far as I am concerned they can say that only brown hair, blue eyed people can attend, no tax dollars go to pay a penny to that place.
Compared to the foolishness that goes on at state universities, folks should just leave this little place alone.
Uh, Reverand....don't worry about consulting with your "buds" at the NAACP; I seriously doubt you'll be getting an invitation. And as far as "racist policies of BJU," ... check the record, dude...there aren't any!
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