Barney Frank, who knows Mitt Romney better than any of us, detected something very mean in Mitt Romney. The latest news on a hazing incident back in Mitt Romney's high school years may prove Mr. Frank right. thinkingblue.
With Mitt Romney set to give the commencement address at Liberty University on Saturday, here are 10 things you might not know about the private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia.
1. Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist Baptist preacher who died in 2007.
2. Costs about $25,834 per year, including tuition, fees and housing.
3. “Handholding is the only appropriate form of personal contact,” according to the school handbook, “The Liberty Way.”
4. Is the largest Christian university in the world, with some 12,500 on-campus students and 70,000 online.
5. Students may go to the movie theater — but R-rated films are strictly prohibited.
6. Dress code for women prohibits “anything tight, scant, backless, see-through, low in the neckline or revealing the midriff (in any position) is immodest and unacceptable.”
7. Canned the campus Democratic club in 2009 because of the national party’s stance on abortion and gay rights.
8. Banned at commencement: silly string, noisemakers, firearms, balloons, alcohol, needles, and wrapped presents.
9. The school mascot’s name: Sparky, an eagle.
10. And its athletic clubs: The Flames.
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Jerry Falwell Quotes
The 10 Craziest Things Rev. Jerry Falwell Ever Said
10. "The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."
9. "The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews."
8. "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
7. "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."
6. "Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton - not even a run by the devil himself ... I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate. She has $300 million so far. But I hope she's the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't." --at a "Values Voter Summit"
5. "Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."
4. "Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America."
3. "He is purple — the gay-pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay pride symbol." –from a "Parents Alert" issued in Jerry Falwell's National Liberty Journal, warning that "Tinky Winky," a character on the popular PBS children's show, "Teletubbies," may be gay
2. "You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."
1. "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" --on the 9/11 attacks
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What was it like back in the 60's during Romney's high-school years?
Before Stonewall
Laws against sodomy, broadly defined as a sexual "crime against nature," date back to colonial times, but homosexuality wasn't considered a public issue in American life until 1948, when Alfred Kinsey, an Indiana University scientist published his report on human sexuality, insisting, contrary to psychiatric conjecture up to that point, that homosexual inclinations are in fact not "abnormal or unnatural." The national best seller is considered the first essential document of gay liberation. The reaction to the momentary visibility was swift and repressive in the 50s, when homosexuals were targeted along with communists as security risks.
Oppression of gays was pervasive in the government and all aspects of American life throughout the 50s and 60s. Attitudes towards homosexuals didn't change until 1969 when a riot sparked by a few drag queens outside of Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village marked the beginning of modern gay life in America.
Stonewall
"The day before Stonewall, everyone was in the closet. The next day, everyone was out of the closet," says Dick Leitsch, former president of the Mattachines, an early gay-rights group.
Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 60s but on June 28th, gays and lesbians fought back against the persecution. Tensions between the New York City police and gay party goers erupted into more protests over the next several days. Within weeks, the gay community organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested. Months later, three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. dosomething.org/tipsandtools/the-new-gay-rights-movement