In February, George W. Bush addressed an audience at Bob Jones University, in Greenville, S.C., never suspecting that his appearance there would incite one of the election season’s most contentious and hotly-debated themes. 

Chiefly at issue were the university’s requirement that students date within their own races and statements from Bob Jones III, the university’s president, connoting a fierce anti-Catholic philosophy. 

Arizona Sen. John McCain, at the time piloting a degenerating presidential campaign against Mr. Bush, approved desperation telephone calls to Catholic voters identifying his challenger as maintaining a careless association with the university. The calls went out under the guise of a “Catholic Voter Alert,” and was authorized by the McCain campaign, even though Mr. McCain misrepresented -- for several weeks -- his campaign’s administration of the calls. 

The text of the recorded phone calls to Washington state voters by Sen. McCain’s campaign read as follows: 

“This is a Catholic Voter Alert. Gov. George Bush Jr. has campaigned against Sen. John McCain by seeking the support of Southern Fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views. Several weeks ago Gov. Bush spoke at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. That’s the same Bob Jones who said the Pope was ‘antichrist’ and called the Church ‘a satanic cult.’ Sen. John McCain has strongly criticized this anti-Catholic bigotry, while Gov. Bush stayed silent while gaining the support of Bob Jones University. For this reason many Washington Catholics now support John McCain for President. Please vote for John McCain. You must mark the Republican ballot and place it in the Republican envelope. And don’t forget to complete the security form on the envelope. Thank you.” 

Gov. Bush accused Sen. McCain of trying to label him as an anti-Catholic bigot. 

When asked why callers did not identify themselves as representatives of his campaign, Mr. Mc-Cain answered, “I think it was straight talk be-cause we wanted to tell people exactly what Gov. Bush had done.” He added, “I did not call him an anti-Catholic bigot. I did not say anything except he was there and waited three weeks before he repudiated it.” 

Bush answered, “If you don’t think those phone calls make me an anti-Catholic bigot, then you weren’t paying attention to what your campaign was putting out. The clear message was that I was an anti-Catholic bigot. That’s why people all over the country were wondering about my heart for a while. The good news is that America rejects that kind of politics.” 

Bush was, however, one of many politicians -- including Ronald Reagan, George Bush and the Democratic governor of South Carolina -- who have addressed audiences at Bob Jones. 

In addition, Rep. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina congressman who had spearheaded Mr. McCain’s campaign in South Carolina, received an honorary degree from Bob Jones. 

Furthermore, Mr. McCain had actually attempted to schedule his own appearance at Bob Jones University prior to suddenly deciding to enact a fraudulent campaign against Mr. Bush. 

Government Hysteria 
As a result of Mr. McCain’s pretentious condemnation against Bob Jones -- and his fierce attack on religious right leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson -- Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) suggested a congressional resolution condemning the university. 

Graham reacted tersely: “This resolution is nothing more than partisan political grandstanding,” he challenged. “Even though I disagree with some of the policies and views expressed by BJU, religious freedom in America allows for such views to be held. Legislative condemnation could have a very chilling effect on religious liberties.” 

Another high-profile state official, South Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Terry Haskins, became disillusioned by McCain’s bitter rebuke of the university. A Greenville Republi-can and Bob Jones graduate, Haskins resigned as co-chairman of McCain’s state campaign following the Arizona senator’s continued rebuke of the university. 

McCain’s national campaign then collapsed. Many political observers believe his careless religious attacks sealed his doom with conservative Christian voters -- a necessary core group for any Republican presidential candidate.

Reproving Religion 
After announcing his school’s termination of the long-standing interracial dating policy, President Bob Jones III said the extraordinary national scrutiny the school received as a result of the Bush controversy led to the school’s decision to retract the ban on interracial dating. 

“This thing has gotten so out of hand,” said Jones. “All of a sudden the university is at the center of a Republican presidential debate.” 

The Greenville school, home of about 3,500 students, banned interracial dating in the 1950s, when an Asian family threatened suit after their son, a student, became engaged to a white girl. 

The first black student was admitted to Bob Jones in the 1970s. The university banned interracial dating because of a biblical interpretation that God had a purpose in creating people differently. Although some may view with satisfaction Bob Jones University’s recent reversal of its policy on interracial dating, there may be reason for people of faith to view this development with apprehension. 

The decision evidences a defeat for religious liberty in which minority religious communities are virtually coerced into cultural and legal conformity. Even Christians who stridently oppose the university’s former racial policies may have cause for concern, specifically since a federal court found that the school’s policy on dating was motivated by sincerely-held religious beliefs. 

Notwithstanding the First Amendment’s freedom of religion guarantee, in 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the IRS’s punitive revocation -- following a 13-year battle -- of the university’s tax exemption because of its “discriminatory” dating policy. 

The university’s recent reversal places the fundamentalist school in the company of other minority religious communities apparently compelled by judicial rulings, politics, IRS policies, or cultural hegemony to abandon religious beliefs and practices in order to conform with the dominant American culture. 

Native Americans, for example, were forced to desist from the sacramental use of the hallucinatory drug peyote. All religions could be diminished when they are coercively stripped by the civil state of their distinctive religious beliefs and practices and denied constitutional protection for the free exercise of religion. 

Some Christians have refused to applaud the Bob Jones decision not because they agree with interracial dating bans, but solely because they see the university as abandoning its sincerely-held religious beliefs in exchange for social acceptance and renewed efforts to resurrect its tax-exempt status. 

NLJ Publisher Jerry Falwell said, “I applaud President Jones for his courageous decision to publicly reverse a bad policy. He did the right thing. However, as a Christian educator, it infuriates me that liberal hypocrites can use demagoguery to assault Christian ministries. I agree that we as Christians must stand on guard against this burgeoning intrusion.”