GOVERNOR BUSH SPOKE TO BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, FAILED TO CONDEMN IT
Bush Campaigned at Bob Jones University. On February 2, 2000, George W. Bush campaigned at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The university has long been a stop on the campaign trail for conservatives, including Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole. The university, which touts itself as "the world's most unusual university," is known for its strong Christian fundamentalist teachings and beliefs, which are strongly opposed to non-fundamentalist religions, anti-Catholic, racist, and anti-gay.
Bob Jones University Lost Tax-Exempt Status Because of Racial Discrimination. Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status in 1970 for refusing to admit African-Americans. The school then changed its policy but still prohibited any interracial dating or marriage. In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court supported an IRS decision to remove tax-exempt status from the school for its dating policy, which included rules such as "students who date outside their own race will be expelled." [The Tax Lawyer, Winter 1984; World News Digest, 5/27/83]
University Leader Protested Against Catholicism, Other Religions. In 1994, Jones III protested an agreement between evangelicals and Catholics in the south, saying that "The Christian Church has as much reason to separate from Catholicism as it does from Islam, Mormonism, or any other of the world's religious deceptions." The university's website referred to Catholicism as "a cult which calls itself Christian." A fifth-grade social studies textbook produced by the university called Catholicism a "false religion," and former university president and founder Bob Jones Jr. called the Pope the antichrist and referred the University's collection of Catholic art as false, saying that "There is not a lot of good Protestant Christian painting. I had to buy Catholic pictures, despite the falsehoods in them." [ Associated Press, 4/8/94, 9/11/87; Christian Century, 5/5/93; Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/30/91; Arizona Star, 3/7/00]
Bob Jones Jr. Criticized Pope and Catholicism in Series of Iowa Addresses. In 1982, then-chancellor of Bob Jones University Bob Jones Jr. criticized the Pope and Catholicism in a series of addresses during a spring rally at Iowa's Saylorville Baptist Church. During the addresses, Jones said that "I believe some of the leaders of the World Council of Churches and the Pope are in conscious service to the Antichrist. ... All the popes are demon-possessed." Jones also went on to say that Pope John Paul II was "the greatest danger we face today. He is doing more to spread Antichrist Communism than anyone around. The papacy is the religion of Antichrist and is a satanic system. ... when you know the State Department is staffed almost completely by Roman Catholics, you can be almost sure public policy is anti-God." Jones Jr. has also been quoted calling the Pope the "archpriest of Satan, a deceiver ..." [National Catholic Reporter, 4/9/82; Arizona Star, 3/7/00]
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