Worthless Drivel

The following is the original text of an article that I, Emily Rutherford, wrote for The Nassau Weekly at Princeton University. The version that appeared in the April 24th, 2009 print edition of the paper was heavily edited and did not reflect my voice or my intent. Therefore, I would ask that you read and refer to this original version instead.

“There’s a storm gathering,” proclaims a white, suburban-looking woman dressed in business attire, staring seriously into the camera.

“The clouds are dark, and the winds are strong,” adds a man in a suit and tie, similarly white and suburban-looking, as a lighting bolt illuminates the green-screened clouds in the background, which are, in fact, quite dark.

“And I am afraid,” says an earnest young black woman in jeans and fashionable glasses.

Then a Latino man in a collared shirt explains why the atmosphere of impending doom: “Some who advocate for same-sex marriage have taken the issue far beyond same-sex couples.” A host of well-dressed and -coiffured people of a variety of ages, genders, and hues explain how this is so: if we don’t oppose same-sex marriage, you see, we will lose our freedom, and the American way of life will be destroyed. But the people upstaged by the brilliant Weather Channel special effects aren’t going to let that stop them! They’re fighting back! As Damon Owens of the National Organization for Marriage proclaims, “A rainbow coalition of people of every creed and color are coming together in love to protect marriage.” However, said coalition appears to have no sense of irony where the word “rainbow” is concerned.

This is all footage from an ad, titled “Gathering Storm,” that is the latest word from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a non-profit group dedicated to opposing same-sex marriage that was one of the largest single donors to the “Yes on 8″ campaign that passed California’s Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage in that state last November. But NOM isn’t limited to California. Its reach is national, and the “Gathering Storm” ad is currently running in several states, including Massachusetts and New York—and New Jersey. This is in large part because New York and New Jersey are widely considered likely to be the next states to legalize same-sex marriage, but it’s also vitally important because NOM is based out of New Jersey—and not just New Jersey, but Princeton. Its offices are at 20 Nassau St., and the president of its board of directors is Professor Robert George of the Princeton politics department. In fact, as Frank Rich pointed out in an April 18 New York Times column about the ad, three of NOM’s six board members have ties to Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, an academic discussion group with a conservative slant that was also founded by George. As others have said—notably Rich, and Max Blumenthal in a 2006 article in The Nation—George has, through his involvement in both academic life on-campus and social advocacy off-campus, cemented a very modern link between social conservatism and Princeton that’s far removed from age-old debates about the value of the eating clubs or about coeducation. Of course, George is entitled to academic freedom and more general freedom of expression; it’s his right to be involved in conservative initiatives both on- and off-campus. But this connection enables us to examine how the politics of organizations like NOM play out in the Princeton microcosm.

One of the first things to notice about NOM’s message in the “Gathering Storm” ad is its focus on diversity. The “rainbow coalition” phrase is an unfortunate choice, to be sure, but in referencing Jesse Jackson, who originated the term, the ad appeals to demographics beyond anti-marriage campaigns’ usual right-wing Christian base. It is also overwhelmingly focused on diversity—as some YouTube parodies have highlighted, almost excessively so—making an effort to demonstrate how all Americans, whatever their racial or cultural or even political backgrounds, can become part of a grassroots movement to fight same-sex marriage and the looming specter of gay rights.

We can see real-world parallels to this crafting of the “traditional family values” message on Princeton’s own campus. The student social conservative movement here is careful not to define itself in terms of any one religion or any one ethnicity—for example, the Anscombe Society, despite taking its name from a Catholic philosopher, refrains from making any reference to religious doctrine in its position statements; many of its members are Latino, Asian, Jewish, or from backgrounds other than the stereotypical white Catholic or evangelical tradition one might expect. Its identity as a student organization gives it the aura of grassroots, in much the same way that the “ordinary people” of the “Gathering Storm” ad do to NOM. However, this is certainly only an aura.

The Human Rights Campaign discovered, and subsequently announced on its website, that NOM’s “ordinary people” were in fact actors, who auditioned for the roles of concerned professionals terrified of the impending apocalyptic storm. The Anscombe Society’s members—or, indeed, the staff of the Tory, or the members of the College Republicans or Princeton Pro-Life, because there is considerable overlap between the organizations—are most certainly real people, but their status as grassroots is called into question by Professor George’s involvement in their lives and their organizations as well as in political affairs that at least lie north of the campus border.

It is undeniable that George is subject to something of a personality cult at Princeton—even those who disagree with his politics are sure to point to how charming, amiable, and reasonable he is, and how interesting it is to take a class with him—but his influence is even more profound, it seems, among the group of students with whom he shares certain political views. George acts as an informal advisor to groups such as Anscombe, the Tory, and Princeton Pro-Life in a campus extracurricular structure where faculty advisors do not usually exist, frequently giving talks at group events and offering less formalized advice. Many of the students involved in these extracurricular activities are also politics majors, and George serves as not just their thesis advisor, but their confidant, mentor, and maybe something else that’s not quite describable, but certainly isn’t the relationship you’d expect to exist between a professor and a group of undergraduates.

For an example of how this unconventional relationship operates, take a look at the extensive media coverage of last year’s scandal concerning the “attacks” Francisco Nava ‘09 alleged occurred against him as a result of his membership in Anscombe and his advocacy of conservative sexual values. Nava, who was since asked to leave the university as a result of this scandal, fabricated a number of written threats that were “sent” to him, in addition to other members of Anscombe and the various other conservative groups already mentioned—and in addition to Professor George. The climax of the narrative came when Nava reported that he was attacked by two shadowy figures with an Orangina bottle, and subsequently treated at the Princeton Medical Center for the ensuing injuries. It was eventually discovered that the entire thing was a hoax and that Nava had injured himself, a fact that certainly could not have escaped the notice of any Princeton student at the time, nor anyone else who could have read coverage of the events in the New York Times, Time, the New Yorker, or a number of blogs, liberal and conservative alike.

One such conservative media outlet is First Things, which bills itself as “The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life”—it’s published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life, which (interestingly enough) counts Professor George among the members of its Editorial and Advisory Board. The December 2007 issue of the journal featured an article by Ryan T. Anderson that discussed in great detail the events of Nava’s “assault,” and in the process it places a considerable emphasis on the degree to which George was involved in the daily lives of the students in the story, who were linked by their membership in Anscombe. The substance of that article is worth summarizing here.

According to Anderson (who relies heavily on interviews with George and with the students involved), the first thing Nava did when he received a death threat was to call George; subsequently, when the Anscombe officers were drafting a response to a Prince op-ed criticizing the organization, they emailed George for help. These aren’t particularly shocking incidents, to be sure; it’s not unreasonable to expect that a student would ask a professor for advice. It does, however, serve to indicate the relationship these students had with George—a relationship that Nava’s “attackers” (who were, as we later found out, Nava himself) recognized when “they” sent death threats to Anscombe leaders and to George, the only faculty member to receive a threatening letter.

After Nava wound up at PMC claiming to have been attacked, he called George, who immediately came to the hospital, stayed with Nava there, and then invited the student to spend the night at his house once he was discharged from PMC. Another student—Jonathan Hwang ‘09, former vice president of Anscombe—accompanied George and Nava, and in the process heard a rumor from another student that Nava had previously faked a threat against himself when he was a student at Groton. Hwang confronted Nava; Nava, according to Anderson, “got out of bed… walked into the kitchen and asked to speak with Professor George alone. George took him into another room in the house and Nava told George all about the Groton incident.” Professor and student sat in professor’s house talking about this situation, and then, “[a]s soon as Nava had breakfast and got dressed, George drove him to the Public Safety office and Nava informed the detective responsible for the case of what had happened at Groton.”

Let me just repeat that: “[a]s soon as Nava had breakfast and got dressed….” It is one thing to look up to a faculty member as a mentor, or to come to him for help with a writing project or for advice about a student organization. It is one thing for a faculty member to have an informal advisor position in a number of student organizations, and for the students in those organizations to also study his discipline and have him as their official advisor in the department. But it is quite another thing to speak privately to a professor, in his house, in the middle of the night, while in a state of undress. If this were any other professor, and any other student, that situation would have been called into question.

I don’t mean to insinuate that anything untoward happened between George and Nava, or that George had anything but the most noble and generous of intentions. But no group whose members have that close of a relationship with their advisor and mentor can be said to function independently as a grassroots, entirely student-run organization. The Anscombe Society, the Tory, and any other organizations that identify with a campus conservative movement are not anything of the sort. They are the Robert George Personality Cult.

Media and our own perceptions have a tendency to misrepresent religious conservative movements in America. There is an inclination to assume that, because such groups are loud and attention-grabbing, invest millions of dollars in flashy ads like “Gathering Storm,” and have high-profile leaders like Professor George, they must have a huge groundswell of support among ordinary people. But to look into these organizations is to see that the “ordinary people” are just actors in a commercial; that the high-profile leaders pop up again and again in different organizations, meaning it’s really the same few people running the whole show; and that grassroots conservatism is just some easily-awed college undergraduates who get to hang out in their professor’s kitchen. If the storm really is gathering, all it’s doing is pointing out how invalid and desperately out-of-touch this brand of social conservatism really is.