Huckabee and "Character Cities"

I'm really starting to hope that MFer gets the nomination.

http://ethicsdaily.org/article_detail.cfm?AID=9889

Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has ties to a controversial Bible teacher known for authoritarian views that critics say border on spiritual abuse.

Most Americans never heard of Chicago-based teacher Bill Gothard until newspapers wrote about Colorado church shooter Matthew Murray's 2006 Internet rant about growing up under strict homeschool teaching developed as part of Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles.

...

Huckabee also endorsed Gothard's "Character Cities" program. Gothard described a meeting in Little Rock as laying groundwork for "the most exciting opportunity I can imagine" to merge his institute's teachings with government programs.

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Critics say IBLP bears many marks of a spiritually abusive fellowship. Some describe the organization as cult-like. A 2002 newspaper story described a Gothard-inspired program in Indiana where misbehaving youth were locked in a "prayer closet" and forced to pray to Jesus for hours or days at a time.

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Gothard's popularity peaked in the 1970s, when his Basic Youth Conflicts Seminar drew crowds of 10,000 and 20,000 in venues across the United States. Attendance declined in the 1980s after allegations of sexual misconduct marred the ministry.

I can't vouch for ethicsdaily.org, but it did name Al Gore "Baptist of the Year":

http://ethicsdaily.org/article_detail.cfm?AID=9895

....

and last I heard was tied with Mittens. But he's such a loon, I'm not sure I want it to burst!

For better or worse, whether you do or not, people like him. They like his message. If the media liked Huckabee, we'd be fed lots more positive stories about him instead of stories designed to promote fear of him.

As for this article, was Huckabee aware of the spiritual abuse angle of Gothard's work? Within your article, it states that Huckabee was a long-time admirer of Gothard and described himself in a letter promoting Gothard's prison ministry's as "As a person who has actually been through the Basic Seminar, I am confident that these are some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people." Huckabee is able to testify because he has personal experience, and was not paid to endorse a product he never touched. Unfortunately, I don't know if that personal experience is on a par with Tom Cruise's non-typical experiences with Scientology. But it is a start.

As for Charter Cities, the ethics page gave a link to
http://www.charactercouncil.org/whoweare/HowtoBuildaCharaterCity.pdf
which didn't explain anything about what a Character City actually is. The misspelling within the link is the site's own. Need more information.

After Jim Guy Tucker, in the middle of the whole Paula Jones scandal. It's a wonder Bristow got any votes at all.

The rest of the country will be horrified by Huckabee, regardless of how well he plays in Arkansas.