Last month’s opening debate in the campaign for governor of Virginia followed standard form – with one notable exception. Many Virginians were alarmed that Don Beyer dismissed Jim Gilmore’s education proposals by pejoratively invoking the name of a prominent religious figure.
Specifically, Beyer accused Gilmore of trying to implement Pat Robertson’s education agenda.
Americans are accustomed to the rough and tumble of political campaign rhetoric. In Virginia, however, there is a line of decency beyond which any mature statewide candidate would be wise to avoid crossing: exploiting prejudice of race, religion, national origin, age, or gender to discredit ideas and the citizens who may support them.
It is both disturbing and disappointing that Beyer, an aspirant to the commonwealth’s highest office who is familiar with Virginia’s rich tradition of religious liberty, crossed this line.
This is not the first time that Beyer has singled out a group of citizens and subjected them to derision. During the 1993 campaign, Beyer chose religious conservatives for public criticism and political attack. What sends chills to the bone about this demonstrated pattern of negative labeling is that it relies on public ignorance and prejudice.
Virginia citizens should pay close attention to the remainder of the 1997 gubernatorial race. When a candidate is well-informed about a group of citizens, yet consciously uses the language of prejudice, it represents the most extreme form of intolerance. Our parents taught us a word for this: bigotry.
Beyer’s debate faux pas, whether deliberate or accidental, betrays both ignorance and a callousness toward a significant population of Virginia taxpayers, religious conservatives. Perhaps candidate Beyer, like the Washington Post a few years ago, intends to write off religious conservatives and evangelical Christians as “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.” This seems strategically unsound and irresponsible for a candidate purportedly committed to representing the best interests of all Virginians if elected governor.
As a member of the Virginia State School Board and as Dean of the School of Government at Regent University, a graduate institution founded by Robertson, some might attempt to portray me as a vehicle for the implementation of Robertson’s education agenda. The fact is that Chancellor Robertson and I have not discussed education policy issues, nor has he ever attempted to influence my deliberations as a member of the state school board.
Additionally, a fellow dean at Regent University and I respectfully held opposing viewpoints on a controversial issue recently before the state school board. Could it be that Republicans and religious conservatives actually have more tolerance for competing views on education issues than the liberal education elitists and lobbyists supporting candidate Beyer?
Thomas Sowell has written that with each successive wave of 19th century immigrants, new prejudices and bigotries have surfaced. Even after a century of struggles and strides to rise above racial prejudice and religious intolerance, the specter of “No Irish Need Apply” seems to have been replaced with: religious conservatives have no legitimate voice in the public debate about the future education of their children. Virginians deserve and expect better. Beyer should ignore the advice of his political consultants and end his destructive pattern of exploiting religious prejudice for political gain.
If Beyer disagrees with Gilmore’s education ideas, he should outline his own policy proposals in detail and trust the voters to decide which candidate’s agenda they prefer. One of the consequences of prejudice and bigotry targeted at one group is that the rights and dignity of all citizens are compromised and threatened. Who knows – will the next Beyer political attack dismiss ideas as simply part of a larger Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, evangelical Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist agenda?
Parents of school-aged children, indeed every citizen, should demand a gubernatorial debate and campaign fought on the higher level of principle and policy. Anything less represents a backward slide away from Virginia’s standard of decency and tradition of religious liberty.
This article was originally published in the editorial section of the Roanoke Times on August 20, 1997.
