Following Falwell Jr.’s acceptance of sexual predator for President---Students issue statement:

[kpete]

Liberty United Against Trump

In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him.

A majority of Liberty students, faculty, and staff feel as we do. Donald Trump received a pitiful 90 votes from Liberty students in Virginia’s primary election, a colossal rejection of his campaign. Nevertheless, President Falwell eagerly uses his national platform to advocate for Donald Trump. While he occasionally clarifies that supporting Trump is not the official position of Liberty University, he knows it is his title of president of the largest Christian university in the world that gives him political credentials.

Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose.

A recently uncovered tape revealed his comments bragging about sexually assaulting women. Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense – taking the name “Liberty University” with him. “We’re all sinners,” Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.

It is not enough to criticize these kinds of comments. We must make clear to the world that while everyone is a sinner and everyone can be forgiven, a man who constantly and proudly speaks evil does not deserve our support for the nation’s highest office.

Jesus tells a story in the Bible about a man who tries to remove a speck of dust from his brother’s eye, while he has a log stuck in his own. “You hypocrite,” Jesus says, “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

We Liberty students are often told to support Donald Trump because the other leading candidate is a bad option. Perhaps this is true. But the only candidate who is directly associated with Liberty University is Donald Trump.

Because our president has led the world to believe that Liberty University supports Donald Trump, we students must take it upon ourselves to make clear that Donald Trump is absolutely opposed to what we believe, and does not have our support.

We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. While our president Jerry Falwell Jr. tours the country championing the log in his eye, we want the world to know how many students oppose him. We don’t want to champion Donald Trump; we want only to be champions for Christ.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdLe5fbVw0d12MtiYcJCf-hLDjpr7AdiYTIkMBttqdLuTQbg/viewform
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/12/1581673/-From-a-student-leader-at-Liberty-University-Enough
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/12/liberty-is-not-trump-u-students-protest-donald-trump/?utm_campaign=pubexchange&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=huffingtonpost.com

[saltpoint]

1. Seems very likely that many of these

students are more emotionally mature than Falwell Junior.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. And, Have Worked To Achieve Something As Well

Something i'm quite sure Falwell Jr did not do. Exactly what would be his "credentials" to be a university president, aside from his last name.

[FrodosPet]

27. Well, he is, ummm...

Of course, he... ahhh...

Remember that time in 1993 that he... hmmmm... Nope, that was somebody else.

I got nothing.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. Nothing?

I'm shocked! I would have thought somebody had something. What a maroon that kid must be!

[saltpoint]

28. Yep. He was his daddy's son and

presto -- he's the president of the college.

[Lucinda]

2. KNR

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Wow.

Seems there are some who are lucid going there!

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Trump is a fetish to Falwell's world

Can't imagine pouring my life's blood into an institution like that

[lark]

5. My husband, based on horrible examples from his folks,

firmly believed all self-professed Christians are total hypocrites and liars. My folks were deeply religious and very active in their church. I told him that yes, they were RW and wrong in their political affiliations, but they were true to their beliefs and were not hypocrites about their values or morals. So glad to see these brave and committed students stand up for theirs as well. I do not agree with them on lots of thing, but i sure respect this principled stand and am very impressed with them!

[Big_K]

23. Same here

My Mom was conservative, and very involved in her Evangelical church. She also made blankets and caps for babies in the hospital, volunteered everywhere she could, literally rocked crack-addicted babies at the hospital, helped support several generations of poor cousins in Appalachia, helped in a food kitchen, and did many other things Jesus himself would have approved of. She lived her faith. As frustrated as I got with her, I couldn't ever accuse her of being a hypocrite.

PLUS, she drove the only car I ever saw with conservative/Republican/anti-abortion bumper stickers right next to bumper stickers for PETA and the ASPCA. (She loved animals.)

[lark]

30. Sounds like our mothers are cut from the sme cloth.

Bet they would have been friends if they had known each other.

[Ligyron]

6. Those students obviously acquired some critical thinking skills

in spite of the fundy education and home schooling they were no doubt raised in.

Heck, they even spelled everything correctly.

I'm impressed!

[Nitram]

7. There are some real christians at Liberty U? Who knew!

[pangaia]

15. While that may be the case,

I am not so sure this necessarily proves it.

[HughBeaumont]

8. And when you lose students at Nutjob U . . . .

[malaise]

9. As President Obama said last night

You can forgive but that doesn't mean you elect the person as President of the United States.

[Ilsa]

10. The Board of Trustees needs to can Falwell's ass.

Of course, I suspect most of them are probably trumpeters, so it'll never happen.

[HenryWallace]

12. Welcome to the dark side!

Faith, if done earnestly, leads where it leads….

[Saviolo]

13. Trump's "revolution" may have the opposite effect than intended

Instead of "taking America back" to traditional conservative "values" (not that I believe Trump has values of any kind), the reaction to Trump's candidacy is actively pushing the socially conservative people away and into far more liberal territory. The thing that stood out to me here was an actual acknowledgement of rape culture on campuses by the letter writer:

A recently uncovered tape revealed his comments bragging about sexually assaulting women. Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense – taking the name “Liberty University” with him. “We’re all sinners,” Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.

The further down Trump drags the discourse, the more morally repugnant it's going to look to those religious and conservative people who still have a functioning moral compass and any critical thinking whatsoever. Those without these two items will go wallow deep in the Alex Jones mire.

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. I certainly believe that is true of Utah.

I lived there for 6 years and most of the Mormons I knew were really nice, good people. They would not like someone like Trump.

[pangaia]

14. Perhaps now you guys will realize what a douchbag

your president is, and his father was.

[phylny]

16. I've said it before - I work in Lynchburg, in the shadow of Liberty. I have to drive on

"Jerry Falwell Highway" and try not to barf. I hear about the creationist biology class and hope none of those students goes on to be my doctor.

Having said that, we have had many Liberty students intern at our clinic. They are unfailingly nice and polite. Most were great, some not so much, but I find they are sort of shocked to meet another Christian (me) who doesn't subscribe to the same b.s. they're peddling at Liberty. It's as if they don't understand things outside of their insular experiences.

I can't imagine what's being preached at Thomas Road Baptist Church (Jonathan Falwell's job upon daddy's death) and to hear that the students are urged to vote for Trump doesn't surprise me in the least. I'm very pleased to see that this group of students has spoken up.

On an unrelated topic, look at what the very rich Liberty University is doing to people in Bedford County regarding a lake that they were gifted:

http://wset.com/news/local/liberty-university-sues-over-400-homeowners

[homegirl]

22. Do you know

if Liberty University has a tax free status? If so, how can the University endorse political candidates? Shouldn't they lose the tax free status, I know they have in the past.

[phylny]

26. Yes, they are tax exempt.

Falwell says that he speaks only for himself, not for the university, and the university's public line is that they are merely "informing their students" about how important it is for them to vote.

Lies and the lying liars that tell them (paraphrasing Al Franken there).

[white_wolf]

32. Oh that is such bullshit.

By that logic couldn't a priest tell his congregation to vote for Clinton and simply claim he was giving his own position instead of the position of the Catholic Church? It might be technically true, but the intent is to give the illusion of endorsement and that makes it no better.

[Iggo]

18. I didn't even know there was such a person as Jerry Falwell Jr.

Happily.

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. Good for these kids! nt

[Initech]

20. Wow, Liberty University doing what Jesus would actually do?

[retrowire]

21. and i say that these Christians in particular

Are blessed. I am thankful for their words.

[Jim Beard]

24. The fundies leaders want complete government funding of religious schools

so they stay with the republicans for the cash.

[Homer Wells]

31. Mrs Wells and I were very concerned

When our niece opted to complete her degree at Liberty. We told her that we were upset because of the
Way the Falwell people were fleecing their flock of young impressionable kids.
Some years later, when talking with her she told me that LU had made her more of an atheist than when
she first began attending there.
I should not have worried, as she was always been one of the sharpest tools in the family shed.

[Divine Discontent]

33. I'm glad they're showing they have some Christianity in them, enough to go against one that clearly

doesn't....