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The Bible College That Leads to the White House
...At Patrick Henry, the students - about 75 per cent of whom have been taught at home rather than in schools - are required to sign a statement of faith before they arrive, confirming (among other things) that they have a literal belief in the teachings of the Bible. At Patrick Henry, students must obey a curfew. They must wear their hair neatly and dress "modestly".

Students must also obey a rule stating that if they wish to hold hands with a member of the opposite sex, they must do so while walking: standing while holding hands is not permitted. And at Patrick Henry, students must sign an honor pledge that bans them from drinking alcohol unless under parental supervision.

Yet these things alone do not make the college special. There are, after all, a number of Christian establishments across the United States that enforce such a strict fundamentalist code for their students.

No, what makes Patrick Henry unique is the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links this recently established, right-wing Christian college has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment as a whole. This spring, of the almost 100 interns working in the White House, seven are from Patrick Henry. Another intern works for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, while another works for President George Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove. Yet another works for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Over the past four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns. Janet Ashcroft, the wife of Bush's Bible-thumping Attorney General, is one of the college's trustees.

And this is no coincidence. Rather, it is the very point. Students at Patrick Henry are on a mission to change the world: indeed, to lead the world. When, after four years or so of study, they leave their neatly-kept campus with its close-mown lawns, they do so with a drive and commitment to reshape their new environments according to the fundamentalist, right-wing vision of their college.

Critics say that Patrick Henry's system cannot help but produce narrow-minded students with extremist views, but the college's openly stated aim is to train young men and women "who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values".

Nancy Keenan, of the liberal campaign group People for the American Way, says: "The number of interns [from Patrick Henry] going into the White House scares me to death. People have a right to choose [where their children are educated], but we are concerned that they are not exposed to the kind of diversity this country has. They are training people with a very limited ideological and political view. If these young people are going into positions of power, they have to govern with all people in mind, not just a limited number."...

...efore being hired by Patrick Henry, all members of the teaching faculty, too, have to sign a pledge stating that they share a generally literalist belief in the Bible. Oddly, only staff teaching biology and theology have to hold a literal view specifically of the six-day creation story. And what is Bonicelli's own view? He smiles. "I am basically persuaded by the young Earth. I believe in six literal days, but I remain open to someone persuading me otherwise."...

...It was at this point, walking past the single-sex dormitories and the campaign posters of suited students running for college office, towards the main building with its classrooms of attentive students, that one was struck with a sense of being on a film set. One could not help but recall the 1998 film Pleasantville, in which two teenagers are transported back to their parents' 1950s town of bland, unquestioning niceness.

The staff and students at Patrick Henry may laugh at this - if, that is, they have seen the film. The MTV and VH1 pop-culture channels are blocked from campus televisions, because their contents are considered inappropriate. The students' computers are set up with a program called Covenant Eyes, which monitors the websites they visit....