What’s driving you crazy?

Here is the latest on attempts to keep the Boy George Bush library off the campus of Southern Mehodist Univesity (SMU).  If you have not signed the petition to stop this blasphemy, please do so now at www.protectSMU.org .

I am Andrew J. Weaver, organizer of the petition at www.protectSMU.org and an ordained United Methodist clergyman and research psychologist. I am a graduate of Southern Methodist University (SMU) and live in New York City. There are over 12,000 petition signers including hundreds of SMU alum who are deeply concerned about the future of the university.

An Intensive Public Relations Effort Begins
This week an intensive public relations effort begins incorporating print, internet, radio, TV and advertising. It will include designing and uploading a high-quality website and interactive capability. It will also involve creating and circulating a media kit for print and broadcast distribution as well as a quality delegate information kit.

The campaign is being designed and implemented by P&S Associates of Maine LLC (PSA), publication and communications specialists whose CEO is Stephen Swecker. Mr. Swecker is a United Methodist clergyman and award-winning religious journalist and editor. PSA provides publication services for The Progressive Christian (recently named North America’s best general interest religious magazine by the Associated Church Press) and United Methodist NeXus, an online newsletter and recipient of ACP’s Award of Merit.

Our goal is to persuade South Central Jurisdiction delegates to reject the SMU/Bush foundation lease proposal when they meet in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole Hotel, July 15-19. We will also seek to convince the “court of public opinion” through the media that the SMU-Bush linkage is injurious to both SMU and the United Methodist Church (UMC) that owns the university.

Growing the Petition
Finally, please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign the petition. Each name is important. We need to tell officials of the UMC at every level that we find that a partisan institute honoring George W. Bush at SMU to be “utterly unacceptable.”

With best regards,

Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D.

P.S. Links to articles recently published on the SMU Bush Project:

Andrew J. Weaver, et. al.
June 19, 2008

Karl Rove’s Trojan Horse among the SMU Mustangs

Summary
To obtain the George W. Bush presidential library, Southern Methodist University has been required to accept an autonomous partisan institute on campus. Karl Rove is in the middle of the planning of and fund-raising for this Trojan horse project. The institute will give Rove the resources he needs to try to re-write the narrative of the Bush presidency, as well promoting his larger vision — the domination of the right-wing of the Republican Party in American politics. In July the United Methodist Church, which owns SMU “lock stock and barrel,” has one last chance to stop Rove.

Opposition Spokesman Outlines Issues
Posted on Jun 25 2008
Interview with William K. McElvaney

During its July 15-19 meeting in Dallas, TX, The South Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church is expected to consider a petition referred by the 2008 General Conference. The petition, from United Methodist laywoman Diane Smock of Greenville, SC, (see UM NeXus Context, June 11) asks for rejection of a George W. Bush presidential complex, including a library, museum and partisan policy institute, on the campus of Southern Methodist University. A portion of SMU land proposed for the complex is owned by the jurisdiction.

In preparation for the jurisdictional meeting, UM NeXus interviewed representatives of SMU and of a grass-roots opposition campaign that has mounted a final education effort regarding the Bush complex. An informational web site will soon be available.

In this interview, the Rev. William K. McElvaney, one of the public spokesmen, responds to questions about the opposition’s educational campaign. A retired clergy member of the North Texas Annual Conference, Dr. McElvaney is LeVan Professor Emeritus of Preaching at UM-related Perkins School of Theology at SMU and past president of UM-related Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, MO. He recently celebrated his 50th anniversary in ordained ministry. Read SMU interview:

http://www.umnexus.org/?p=99

Petitioner Felt Called to Oppose Bush Complex at SMU
Posted on Jun 10 2008
By Cynthia B. Astle

Diane Smock thinks of herself as an average United Methodist. She attends worship regularly. She has served on church committees and taught Sunday school, but she hasn’t gotten involved in United Methodism’s institutional workings.

However, when the Greenville, SC, city councilwoman learned that Southern Methodist University was proposed as the site for a George W. Bush presidential complex, Ms. Smock did something she’d never done before: She sent a petition opposing the plan to the denomination’s top lawmaking body, the General Conference.

And surprisingly, her voice was heard.

Instead of dismissing her petition outright as they had done with hundreds of others, delegates to the 2008 General Conference, held in late April in Fort Worth, TX, referred Ms. Smock’s petition to the South Central Jurisdiction, a 10-state regional unit which owns the land on which SMU sits. Now Ms. Smock and thousands of other United Methodists are waiting to see what the South Central Jurisdiction does with her petition when it meets July 15-19 in Dallas, TX.

A lawyer by training, Ms. Smock served two terms as a judge in Greenville. Then she campaigned for City Council and is now in her second term. “[City Council] isn’t supposed to be a full-time job, but I’ve made it into one,” she said. Concentrating on local efforts in early childhood education, affordable housing, public art, and the environment, she calls her community service “an avocation and a passion.”