McCain and Republican Evangelical Fanaticism
Douglass Gaking
IndyTruth
September 3, 2006
As a Catholic and a patriot, I was alarmed by this article I received in the NewsMax.Com Insider Report email:
Catholics Caution McCain on Speaking at Bob Jones University
Catholic League President Bill Donahue says Sen. John McCain should think twice before accepting a speaking invitation from Bob Jones University, a school Donahue says has been blatantly anti-Catholic in the past.
"In 2000, the Catholic League criticized presidential contender George W. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University," Donahue said in a statement.
"The university at that time had policies that were both racist and anti-Catholic ...
"Now Sen. McCain is mulling whether it would be appropriate for him to speak at Bob Jones. 'I understand they have made considerable progress,' he said.
"It looks to us that Bob Jones has made considerable progress, too, but it would behoove Senator McCain to be cautious."
Donahue said that after the Greenville, S.C., school received "a lot of bad PR," President Bob Jones III announced on March 3, 2000, that the university would lift its ban on interracial dating. At the time, Catholics hoped the school would also remove from its Web site disparaging references to Catholicism, such as "satanic cult" and "Mother of Harlots."
"On March 14, 2000, the school nixed any references to Catholicism as a cult, notwithstanding the fact that other disparaging remarks remained," said Donahue.
"That lasted one day. On March 15, the offensive fare was back."
But now, he added, "a thorough check of the Bob Jones University Web site shows that all of the objectionable postings have been deleted.
"Is this a cosmetic change or a real one? That's for McCain to determine."
I dug a little deeper into this. Bob Jones University enforced a ban on interracial relationships up until the year 2000. They are anti-Catholic, Protestant extremists. They are a small school of only 5,000 students, about the same as Butler, yet they somehow attract some of the biggest names in the Republican party to come speak (Bush, Ashcroft, McCain, etc.).
Ashcroft faced a lot of scrutiny after a speech there in 2001, in which he said,
Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And we have understood that our source is eternal, America is different. We have no king but Jesus.
According to these people, America's state religion shall be Protestant. Its laws shall be religious. It is no place for Muslims, Jews, even Catholics, and certainly not agnostics or atheists.
People need to stop seeing McCain as a "moderate Republican" based on a few noble efforts in the Senate. His public image is only a facade. Deep down, McCain has the same agenda as the rest of the Neo-Conservative Republicans. They want America to be the Christian equivalent of Muslim Iran: Conform to the fanatic religious order, or face the punishment of beatings, imprisonment, and even death.
Bush will continue to preach over the next few months about how Iran is ruled by religious fanatics promoting terror and tyranny. Let's not forget that this is the pot calling the kettle black. The Republican leadership intends for America to be frighteningly similar to the very nation they plan to attack this year.