Loony home-schooled fundamentalists plotting to take over America

Or so Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) would like you to believe. A bit of background information before getting to the meat of this post. SBS is a national, public broadcaster – total appropriation for SBS in the 2004-05 Budget is AU$165.540 million. According to the SBS Charter:

The principal function of SBS is to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians, and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society.

SBS might well be entertaining – racy programs are common – but its ability, and especially its desire, to inform and educate are open to question. Take a recent segment, The Right Stuff, on its International Current Affairs program, Dateline, as an example. Here's the segment's intro:

In the US last November, the votes of conservative Christians were credited with getting fellow conservative Christian George W. Bush, into the White House for his second term as President of the world's most powerful nation. Energised by their resounding victory and with a new-found sense of political legitimacy, the American Christian right has been confidently pushing ahead with plans to stamp its moral agenda on the country. As part of this religious revolution, a unique educational institution has emerged - specifically designed to produce the next generation of conservative Christian leaders. Dateline's Sophie McNeill visited the state of Virginia to find out precisely what the youngsters at Patrick Henry College are learning.

The segment is anything but precise.

First class is finish (sic) at Patrick Henry College but there's no cigarette break for these uni students. They're off for a fix of another kind - daily chapel service. It's a highlight of 19-year-old Michael Holcomb's day. In fact, Michael's still on a high from prayer group last night.

High, as in detached from reality? That's how it's meant.

There are now over 500,000 American kids, taught at home for religious reasons, and this is the country's first university for these evangelical home-schooled Christian children. Just five years old, this small, privately funded college has become one of the top Christian universities in the US. For the staff and the students here, it's a calling to lead America towards a new morale agenda.

500,000 out of a population approaching 300 million is no big deal. The college - now referred to by SBS as a university to give an illusion of size and influence – invites attendance by the home-schooled but also accepts mainstream (ACT and SAT) students. With an enrolment of 260, the college isn't small, it's tiny. The college's homepage indicates it is "... one of America's top 10 conservative colleges". This is the opinion of a like minded organization, the Young America's Foundation. There are lots of Christian universities in America, many of them much larger. It's already easy to see this segment has believeability problems and it doesn't get any better:

Michael Farris founded Patrick Henry College. He is a major player within the evangelical Christian community in Washington. A father of 10, all home schooled, Farris believes America's universities are dominated by left leaning liberal ideology.

As the father of 10 Farris must be nuts; who cares that he thinks universities lean left?

The segment then focuses on students and their nutty lifestyle:

Your typical Patrick Henry student, Michael is deeply conservative. He is against gay marriage, adamantly pro-life and he believes that religion is central to good governance.

Like all students here, 21-year-old Rachel Williams had to pledge allegiance to a literal interpretation of the Bible before she was allowed to enrol.

The honour code forbids any kind of public affection, except holding hands and then only outside in the quadrangle.

The college also blocks certain TV channels that are considered inappropriate, such as the music channel MTV.

But the strict rules aren't a turn off for these students.

Well, if I had it to do over again, I'd make a few rules like these for my kids and strictly enforce them. It certainly couldn't do any harm. But, there are sinister motives behind some of these rules:

Almost all the kids here are full fee paying, white and middle class. In fact, any student who takes a government loan isn't even allowed to enrol at Patrick Henry. This enables the college to operate outside government regulations that would normally forbid discrimination against homosexuals and non-Christians.

Yep, it had to be, only straight white kids from families' with money need apply. This exceptionalism must surely carry over into the students' political activities:

This fundamentalist Christian philosophy has distinct political leanings. These students spent last November at different Republican campaigns around the US.

The trips were paid for by an organisation linked to the college.

With such a supply of ready recruits, the college has made a strong impression in George Bush's White House.

MICHAEL FARRIS: It's a warm relationship. Perhaps the best way to measure that is there are - there's an open door at the White House for interns from Patrick Henry College. We've placed a number of interns in the White House over the last four years and at one point we had more interns there than any other college in the country.

That's more than Harvard and more than Yale. The success of this tiny college is extraordinary.

The actual number must have come up but would probably disappoint so let's move on:

REPORTER: Don't you think you would receive a better education and be more challenged if every day you were in a classroom with people who thought, you know, a lot different from you?

You know, like at one of the mainstream universities where you fail if you're don't toe the lefty line.

But enough of politics and religion, tonight is the chance to let your hair down. It's the Patrick Henry Liberty Ball.

RACHEL WILLIAMS: This is my dress. I'll be wearing this to liberty ball. I'm looking forward to it. I bought it this summer.

MICHAEL HOLCOMB: We get together, we go to this old classical home up in north of Leesburg and a bunch of the student body get together, dress up in 17th, 18th century dress and we do a classical English country dance with waltzes and a live string quartet. Just really, really fun event for the whole student body.

REPORTER: What's in store for this evening?

STUDENT: Well, right now this is just kind of everybody gets here, mills around, eats, drinks punch.

REPORTER: Is there going to be any drinking this evening?

STUDENT: No, this is a dry event. Actually there's a school policy while school is in session and you're in the greater DC area, you may not consume alcohol except for during the communion service.

REPORTER: So lots of good, clean fun?

STUDENT: Very good clean fun, yes.

And much lusting in their hearts, no doubt. Or, as lefties like to believe, these old fashionedly wholesome conservatives will be drunkenly fucking each others' brains out.

SBS should at least try to hide it's contempt for religious conservatives. Either that or bill such segments as what they are, entertainment for its mostly lefty audience.