{"id":60,"date":"2007-10-17T12:06:38","date_gmt":"2007-10-17T12:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html"},"modified":"2007-10-17T12:06:38","modified_gmt":"2007-10-17T12:06:38","slug":"bob-jones-iii-backs-romney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html","title":{"rendered":"Bob Jones III backs Romney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In coup for Mitt Romney, who&#8217;s still working overtime to pick up Christian Right support <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/10\/16\/us\/politics\/16romney.html?n=Top\/Reference\/Times%20Topics\/Subjects\/E\/Elections\">after a year of trying<\/a>, Bob Jones III announced yesterday that he&#8217;s endorsing <a href=\"http:\/\/ap.google.com\/article\/ALeqM5g1MPzP4uRnuJ1ldRR7SFBHb5GnNAD8SAKM500\">the former Massachusetts governor<\/a>. The chancellor of the fundamentalist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bju.edu\/\">Bob Jones University<\/a> is more culturally and theologically conservative than many Christian Right bigwigs, with George W. Bush&#8217;s 2000 speech at the school <a href=\"http:\/\/archives.cnn.com\/2000\/ALLPOLITICS\/stories\/02\/27\/campaign.wrap\/\">causing an uproar<\/a> over BJU&#8217;s ban on interracial dating (which has since <a href=\"http:\/\/archives.cnn.com\/2000\/US\/03\/04\/bob.jones\/\">been ended<\/a>) and negative statements its leaders have made about Catholicism. God-o-Meter&#8217;s bottom line: the Jones endorsement provides the kind of far-right support that will make it easier for more mainstream evangelical leaders to accept Romney.<br \/>\nThe Romney campaign couldn&#8217;t have crafted a better press statement than the one Jones gave, with its wholesale rejection of Romney&#8217;s Mormonism even as it embraces his politics. Here&#8217;s what he said, according to the Associated Press:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism,&#8221; Jones told [a Greenville] newspaper. &#8220;But I&#8217;m not voting for a preacher. I&#8217;m voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In coup for Mitt Romney, who&#8217;s still working overtime to pick up Christian Right support after a year of trying, Bob Jones III announced yesterday that he&#8217;s endorsing the former Massachusetts governor. The chancellor of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University is more culturally and theologically conservative than many Christian Right bigwigs, with George W. Bush&#8217;s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitt-romney"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bob Jones III backs Romney - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bob Jones III backs Romney - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In coup for Mitt Romney, who&#8217;s still working overtime to pick up Christian Right support after a year of trying, Bob Jones III announced yesterday that he&#8217;s endorsing the former Massachusetts governor. The chancellor of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University is more culturally and theologically conservative than many Christian Right bigwigs, with George W. Bush&#8217;s&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-10-17T12:06:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bob Jones III backs Romney - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bob Jones III backs Romney - God-O-Meter","og_description":"In coup for Mitt Romney, who&#8217;s still working overtime to pick up Christian Right support after a year of trying, Bob Jones III announced yesterday that he&#8217;s endorsing the former Massachusetts governor. The chancellor of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University is more culturally and theologically conservative than many Christian Right bigwigs, with George W. Bush&#8217;s&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2007-10-17T12:06:38+00:00","author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html","name":"Bob Jones III backs Romney - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-10-17T12:06:38+00:00","dateModified":"2007-10-17T12:06:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/10\/bob-jones-iii-backs-romney.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bob Jones III backs Romney"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}