I received a surprising amount of feedback over the weekend about a post from Saturday, so it’s probably worth fleshing the story out a bit.
For those just joining us, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a struggling Republican presidential hopeful, named South Carolinian Henry Jordan one of his campaign co-chairmen late last week. Duncan called Jordan, unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor last year, “a great, conservative Republican leader” who agrees with him on immigration and national defense.
This is the same Henry Jordan who, in 1997 as a member of South Carolina’s Board of Education, wanted to impose Christianity on public school students. When one of his colleagues on the board alluded to concerns about religious minorities in the state, this board member said, on tape, “Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims. And put that in the minutes.” Calls for his resignation were ignored and the GOP establishment in South Carolina stood by Jordan.
I found this significant, not just as an indictment of Hunter and the South Carolina GOP, but in the context of the “controversy” surrounding John Edwards’ former bloggers. A Democratic candidate hired a couple of fairly low-level staffers who’d written some intemperate blog posts about religious fundamentalists, and outrage was everywhere for a week. A Republican presidential candidate gives a high-level position to a man who once publicly announced his belief that Buddhists and Muslims should be “screwed” and “killed,” and it’s barely noticed.
Some emailers found all of this hard to believe, and suggested that there had to be more to the original Jordan quote. Fair enough; I’ll go into more detail.
On May 13, 1997, the South Carolina State School Board met for a public meeting to discuss state endorsement of Ten Commandments displays in the state’s public schools. A debate ensued about the constitutionality of such a proposal, particularly as it relates to religious minorities. Henry Jordan said, “Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims, and put that in the minutes.”
We know that those were his exact words because the meeting was recorded. The State, the Columbia, S.C., newspaper, obtained a copy of the tape and transcribed the relevant portion. When a reporter for The State asked whether he stood by his comments, Jordan acknowledged what he had said and refused to back down. “This nation was founded to worship, honor and glorify Jesus Christ, not Mohammed, not Buddha,” Jordan said.
Asked whether he’d apologize, Jordan told a reporter that it was he who deserved an apology, because his comments had been leaked to the media.
He wasn’t quite done. Five months later, on Sept. 2, 1997, in response to a letter he received from a concerned Muslim about the incident, Jordan wrote a response on his personal letterhead. He told his constituent, “If you are not smart enough to read through the news and see what really transpired from this news event, it is no wonder you think salvation can be obtained by good works and having faith in Allah.” The letter went on to say that Islam ignores “Biblical prophecy,” and Jordan urged the concerned citizen to ask the “God of the Bible, Jehovah, not Allah, and God, the Son, Jesus, to remove the veil from your eyes and hear and reveal the truth to you before it is too late.”
And because Duncan Hunter is anxious to appeal to South Carolina’s GOP base, he believes Henry Jordan should be part of his campaign team.
Now, I appreciate the larger dynamic. Hunter is not considered a top-tier (or even a second-tier) presidential hopeful, so his associations with radicals and extremists are less newsworthy. If Rudy Giuliani added Henry Jordan to his campaign team, this would probably generate a few more headlines.
But it’s an interesting story anyway, isn’t it? At a minimum, it’s further evidence that there’s literally nothing a conservative can say that will get him or her shunned by the GOP establishment. It’s also a reminder that when it comes to religion and politics, the side of the divide that claims to embrace “people of faith,” doesn’t really mean all people.