quickly did he forget?
Rep. King: 'As a Catholic, I Can No Longer Support Governor Bush' Transcript, 2/21/00
REP. PETER KING, (R-N.Y.): Good morning, Carol. How are you?
CAROL LIN, CNN: Very well. Give me an idea of what happened here. What -- why did you change your mind?
KING: Actually, I felt that I had no choice after the South Carolina primary. The way that Governor Bush took the low road in going to Bob Jones University, speaking at a school which is anti- Catholic, anti-black. I happen to be a Roman Catholic myself, and I was shocked that the person who wants to be the leader of my party and the leader of the country would allow his campaign to be used by anti- Catholic bigoted forces. And, no matter how he tries to explain it, going to a school which is anti-Catholic with his campaign's seal of approval on that school or on its policies, and as a Catholic, I can no longer support President Bush -- Governor Bush in the primary.
LIN: Well, Congressman King, are you saying that his campaign was used? Or are you saying that Governor Bush is a bigot?
KING: I think he allowed himself to be used. I think he was so desperate to be elected in South Carolina that he was willing to run the risk of speaking at a bigoted school. And to me, that shows a clear lack of judgment and also, quite frankly, a lack of moral compass.
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BUSH DID NOT REPUDIATE BOB JONES U'S ANTI-CATHOLIC STANCE.
Although the AP reports George W. Bush was warned in advance of going there, Bush did not repudiate Bob Jones University's blatantly anti-Catholic position when asked to do so in last week's debate which took place the day after the visit. When Alan Keyes called Bush's attention to the school's "religious bigotry and racial bigotry," Bush choose to ignore the question of religious bigotry. A campaign spokesperson has said Bush gave the speech there for the anticipated votes, and Bush, himself, decried the school's raciist policies during the debate, but he never said anything about its equally well known anti-Catholic attitudes. In last Tuesday's New York Times columnist Bob Herbert reports a conversation he recently had with a representative of the school.
"The former head of the university, Bob Jones Jr., engaged in an astonishing series of attacks on Catholics in the 1980's, asserting that "all the popes are demon-possessed" and that Pope John Paul II was "the greatest danger we face today." "The papacy," he said, "is the religion of Antichrist and is a satanic system."
"On Tuesday I asked a spokesman for the university, Jonathan Pait, if the school had ever repudiated Mr. Jones's statements, or backed off of them in any way. "I don't believe so," he said. According to Mr. Pait, "There is a disagreement about what the Bible teaches between Catholicism and Protestantism. And the university takes a very strong stand that Protestantism is the correct interpretation of Scripture.""
However, according to a story in yesterday's NYT, "Many voters interviewed
insisted that the campaign in South Carolina would not influence them. Mr. McCain today attacked Mr. Bush for appearing at Bob Jones University, a conservative Christian college in South Carolina whose president has made critical comments about Catholics. But Ned McGrath, the spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, said that he had not even heard about any controversy involving Mr. Bush's appearance at the college. The local media has made no mention of the issue, nor has the archdiocese's weekly newspaper, The Michigan Catholic, he said." --Politex, www.bushwatch.com, 2/21/00
edit to add - whoops! forgot the link
http://www.bushnews.com/catholics.htm
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