Letters to the Editor
Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 15
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Evangelicals have long harbored closet cases
[Read the article: After the fall]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Evangelicals would do well to recall George Santayana's
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Jim Bakker, husband of Tammy and lover of many men, was outed 18 years ago. Salon readers seems to have forgotten that. He was certainly one of America's most influential fundamentalists.
Within 15 years, he was "rehabilitated."
Despite being outed, the founder of the Christian Crusade was similarly rehabilitated, when the college he founded came on hard times and had to deal with him to get the mailing list.
His words:
"Americans are tired of "educational professionals" operating in a vacuum, trying out whatever they wish, defying community standards, as they experiment with the minds of our precious children."
-- Billy James "Honeymoon" Hargis
Hargis was the author of "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
'The reverand performed the wedding ceremony for the two students of his Bible college. On their honeymoon wedding night the groom and the bride were stunned to discover that BOTH of them had slept with the Rev. B. J. Hargis.
He will forever after be known as "Honeymoon" Hargis.'
From Time Magazine February 16, 1976, p. 52
Today however, Hargis stands accused by former colleagues of committing some of the very sins he has railed against. Time Correspondent Anne Constable and reporters Richard Walker and Tom Carter have learned that five students -- four of them men -- at his American Christian College in Tulsa have come forward and said that President Hargis has had sexual relations with them.
Asked about the charges Hargis declined to give any specific reply. Through a lawyer he stated: "I have made more than my share of mistakes. I'm not proud of them. Even the Apostle Paul said, 'Christ died to save sinners. of whom I am chief.' Long ago, I made my peace with God, and my ministry continues."
That ministry centers on the Christian Crusade, which was founded by Hargis in 1950 to promote far-right political and religious causes, and includes radio and TV programs and the Christian Crusade Weekly. Hargis rallies have featured such notables as former Major General Edwin Walker and Governor George Wallace.
Hargis founded American Christian College to teach "anti-Communist patriotic Americanism."
It was at the college that Hargis' sexual troubles surfaced in October 1974, when the first of the five students confessed to then Vice President David Noebel.
Later, Noebel says, three more male students told him of having had sexual relations with Hargis over a period of three years. They said the trysts had taken place in Hargis' office, at his farm in the Ozarks, even during
his tours with the college choir, the "All-American Kids." Noebel was told that Hargis justified his homosexual acts by citing the Old Testament friendship between David and Jonathan and threatened to blacklist the youths for life if they talked.
The five students who originally accused Hargis have left town to make new lives for themselves. As for their parents, one father, who reports that his son's three-year involvement with Hargis began at age 15 or 16, wept as he said, "I will forgive him his sins because God's Word tells me what I must do, but I will never forget his acts against my son."
It is hard to distinguish these "Christians" from Rush's "dittoheads."
How many stopped listening to Limpdick after he was discovered with a bag full of Viagra on returning from Haiti? How many realized he'd probably gone there to play tag team tickle with a bevy of 14-year-old black boys?
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Voter intimidation: A time-honored Republican tradition!
[Read the article: Reid vows legislation on robo-calls, phony sample ballot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]War Room gave as an example of vote fraud...
"In Arizona, three men were observed intimidating Hispanic voters by stopping and questioning them outside a Tucson polling place."
For historical perspective we need look no further than a Salon article from Joe Conason article of October '04.
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/conason/2004/10/29/injustice/index.html
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Testifying before the Senate against Rehnquist's elevation to chief justice in 1986, former Assistant United States Attorney James Brosnahan described an earlier encounter with him, circa 1962. As a Justice Department lawyer, Brosnahan visited Phoenix polling places to investigate alleged civil rights violations:
"The complaints we received alleged in various forms that the Republican challengers were aggressively challenging many voters without having a basis for that challenge ...
"Based on my interviews with others, polling officials, and my fellow assistant U.S. attorneys, it was my opinion in 1962 that the challenging effort was designed to reduce the number of black and Hispanic voters by confrontation and intimidation ...
"When we arrived, the situation was tense. At that precinct I saw William Rehnquist, who was serving as the only Republican challenger. The FBI agent and I both showed our identifications to those concerned, including Mr. Rehnquist ... The complaints did involve Mr. Rehnquist's conduct. Our arrival and the showing of our identifications had a quieting effect on the situation and after interviewing several witnesses, we left. Criminal prosecution was declined as a matter of prosecutorial discretion."
Under oath, Rehnquist denied Brosnahan's charges, and based on conflicting testimony from other witnesses, the issue was left sufficiently murky for the Republican-dominated Senate to confirm him....
In 1971 and 1986, when those accusations emerged against Rehnquist, he took pains to deny that he had ever participated in challenges to black and Latino voters. Whether he was telling the complete truth or not may matter less today than the fact that he and his supporters realized such behavior was shameful and unacceptable. Today's Republicans give lip service to equal rights, but seem confident that they can get away with the kind of conduct that Rehnquist tried to conceal.