South Carolina’s School of Conservatism

[SecularMotion]

The non-Romneys are making what look to be their last stands in Saturday’s South Carolina primary—the “firewall” where, since the primary’s inception in 1980, the winning Republican has always gone on to win the party’s nomination.

I have a personal connection to South Carolina that is almost entirely centered around Bob Jones University: a sleepy, ultra-right-wing, evangelical Christian school that Ronald Reagan spoke at in 1980, and—though the Jones’ later backed his opponent John Connally—Republicans began making pilgrimages to every four years. The school made headlines in 2000, when then-presidential candidate George W. Bush visited immediately following his loss in the New Hampshire primary. His trip spurred controversy because the university still had a policy prohibiting interracial dating on campus. (After the trip sparked an outcry about the policy, it was ended later that year). Bush, though, won the South Carolina primary and would go on to claim the nomination and then the White House.

My connection to Bob Jones University started well before I was born. My father’s side of the family is legend at the infamous school in Greenville, which rests in the northwest portion of the state. Among his many titles between 1949 and 1987, my grandfather was the director of religious studies, the dean of the school of religion and a staff evangelist. My grandmother was one of the founders and most famous directors at the university’s cinema department, whose main mission was to spread the word of the gospel through the medium of film. Late last Summer I returned to Greenville for the first time in over a decade to visit my grandmother, who at ninety-four years old remains the sweetest person I have ever had the pleasure to know. My grandparents’ legacy as spiritual leaders is alive and well today on the campus. As I walked the grounds, I stopped to look at my grandfather’s bust in a memorial hall, and to listen to the kind words of my grandmother’s former students and colleagues regarding her many years of service at the university, and even to watch a documentary detailing their evangelical journey together.

For all my affection for my family and for the Bob Jones campus where I spent my youth, I returned to the campus last year as a bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, liberal Democrat who has voted for leftist candidates and causes every chance I’ve had since I was of legal age to do so. I am an agnostic who works and lives in Hollywood, who believes that climate change is man-made crisis, and believes in strict gun control laws, universal healthcare, and gay marriage. My liberalism has developed out of experience, study and geography, having grown up just outside of Chicago and attended college in Los Angeles. I like to think my family’s background helped me earn my liberalism, and give it credibility—had my grandparents been Berkley professors, it might have been less genuine and organic.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/15/south-carolina-s-cult-of-conservatism.html

[izquierdista]

1. I wouldn't exactly call it a "school"

"School" implies education; I prefer the word "Ignatorium".

[Doctor_J]

2. It's an indoctrination center

Seriously not much better that the camps where Al Qaeda convinces the teen suicide bombers that 80 virgins await them.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Excellent article. Sometimes it takes swallowing the Jim Jones Kool-Aid to see what bs conservatism

is. Or was that the Bob Jones Kool-Aid?