A top official at Bob Jones University has announced he’s backing Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate and practicing Mormon, despite the evangelical institution’s history of anti-Mormon rhetoric, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Robert R. Taylor, dean of the university’s college of arts and sciences, said he believes the former Massachusetts governor is the only Republican candidate who has a chance of winning the White House and will stand with Christian conservatives on opposing gay marriage and abortion, among other key issues.
“The fact that I’m seen as a religious right person would hopefully get others to step out for him,” Mr. Taylor told the Journal.
Mr. Taylor’s endorsement, which he said he would officially announce soon, is notable in light of the university’s past. In 2000, Bob Jones III, then president of the university, wrote a public letter that referred to Mormonism and Catholicism as “cults which call themselves Christian.”
Mr. Jones’s comments helped spark a furor when then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush spoke at the university that same year. Mr. Bush came under fire from his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain, and others for not condemning its policies.
