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Saturday, Jan. 13, 2001

Ashcroft has come under intense pressure to release the 1999 commencement address in a firestorm of controversy and opposition facing his nomination from a spectrum of left-wing groups, especially those that purport to represent women and racial minorities. At the time of Ashcroft's speech, a since-rescinded ban on interracial dating was still in force at the university, which has also been criticized because of the anti-Catholic views of its founder.

Bush transition officials said Friday that they would supply a transcript of the speech to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings for Ashcroft next week. The hearings are likely to be bruising.

In a Jan. 11 letter to Vice President-elect Richard Cheney, Leahy had demanded that the team hand over a tape of the speech, "its transcription and any correspondence between Senator Ashcroft and the University."

Ashcroft told an audience of graduating students at Bob Jones, "There's a difference between a culture that has no king but Caesar, no standard but the civil authority, and a culture that has no king but Jesus, no standard but the eternal authority."

Ashcroft's speech is laced with references to the centrality of Christian doctrine to America and its people. "Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And we have understood that our source is eternal, America is different. We have no king but Jesus," Ashcroft said.

Civic or temporally based cultures, he said, encouraged "criminality, destruction, thievery…"

What About Lieberman?

Fox News Channel pointed out Friday night that religious views espoused by failed Democrat vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman received little or none of the protest that Ashcroft's enemies are lodging.

Yet these observations were found to be unsettling by several groups that have been following the Ashcroft confirmation process because of concerns about his religious views and their effect on his public positions.

Welton Gaddy, executive director of Interfaith Alliance, a group that purports to protect religious freedom and encourages religion in public life, finds concerns in the view that Ashcroft's only sovereign is God.

"That Sen. Ashcroft places his religious commitments over his civic commitments raises in my mind questions about the real contradiction in his pledges of devotion," Gaddy said.

"To say at Bob Jones University that there is no king but Jesus weakens his ability to take the oath of office for attorney general to protect the Constitution. The depth of his religious convictions might make it impossible for him to take that oath."

Joe Conn of left-leaning Americans for the Separation of Church and State takes an even harsher view of the speech, which he called "completely outrageous."

"I think this could be the smoking gun that brings his nomination to a halt," Conn said. "If you are non-Christian, then you must understand that this attorney general is not looking out for your interests."

In the speech, Ashcroft credited religious devotion with many of the successes achieved by Americans throughout history.

"It is not an accident that America has been the home of the brave and the land of the free, the place where mankind has had the greatest of all opportunities, to approach the potential that God has placed within us," he said. "It has been because we knew that we were endowed not by the king, but by the Creator, with certain unalienable rights."

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the speech simply showed Ashcroft's commitment to his faith. "You can see for yourself it is a speech about faith. It is not much more important than that."

Fleischer did note Lieberman's frequent references to God while on the campaign trail.

Fleischer brushed off possible concern about what the speech might show regarding Ashcroft's thoughts on what opponents of religion refer to as "separation of church and state" – a phrase that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. He quoted a series of other remarks by the senator to back up his point.

"We must embrace the power of faith, but we must never confuse politics and piety," Ashcroft said at a 1998 speech before the Detroit Economic Club.

"For me, may I say that is against my religion to impose my religion. C.S. Lewis wrote that the greatest danger for those who loved God and politics was that they would come to see their faith as a means to their political end ... we must avoid that fate."

But one opponent of Ashcroft's nomination finds grave concerns in parts of the speech that reveal that Ashcroft must have been familiar with the less-tolerant elements of the Bob Jones University dogma. Ashcroft has denied knowing about the anti-Catholic statements on the university Web site and the ban on interracial dating that was in place at that time.

"This speech clearly recognizes that he knew something about Bob Jones University when he spoke there," said Elliot Mincberg, vice president of the leftist group People for the American Way.

"One part of the speech that I found troubling was where Ashcroft evokes the creator to bless an institution that holds the racial and religious views of Bob Jones University. It might be a standard line for his speech, but he should be held responsible for blessing the place."

In that part of the speech, Ashcroft said: "I thank God for this institution and for you, who recognize and commit yourselves to the proposition that we were so created, and that to live with respect to the Creator promises us the greatest potential as a nation and as individuals."

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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