Give me liberty...or give me death.

I wonder how Patrick Henry would feel about sharing his name with a college whose mission it is to train home-schooled evangelical conservatives to be right-wing political operatives. I read about this is the New Yorker and I don't know what frightened me most: the whole idea of it, or the fact that one of the young couples featured in the story hugged when they became engaged because "they wanted their first kiss to be at their wedding." Can you imagine marrying someone you've never kissed?

"Michael Farris...founded the school after getting requests from two constituencies: homeschooling parents and conservative congressmen. The parents would ask him where they could find a Christian college with a 'courtship' atmosphere, meaning one where dating is regulated and subject to parental approval." (The emphases are all mine.) I can't imagine, as the parent of a college-age child, wanting to have approval over dating. If you've raised your child with the values and morals that are important to you, I don't think you should need to be "approving" your 21-year-old's choice of dates. I can't imagine that hundreds of young men and women put up with, even embrace, this weirdness.

Ooh, this kind of Stepford Wives/Manchurian Candidate/Oral Roberts stuff just sends shivers down my spine.