ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told graduates of Liberty University on Saturday that he refuses to cloak his belief in God because it allowed him and his wife to endure his contentious Supreme Court confirmation proceedings.
``We are now called upon through pressure and criticism to hide it under a bushel basket,'' Thomas said at commencement exercises for the Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell. ``We cannot turn our backs on the essence of our current sanity and well-being. We cannot turn our backs publicly or privately.''
Thomas said the Bible has a role in his work on the Supreme Court.
``We don't decide cases by referring to the Bible, but as you will see in my speech, what we believe is important,'' Thomas told the audience of about 9,000. ``Though it is not used to interpret the laws of this country, it is a positive document.''
During his confirmation hearings in 1991, Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexually harassing her while she worked for him at the Equal Opportunity Commission. The hearings were nationally televised.
``It is only by God's grace and his mighty shoulders that my wife and I endured the unpleasantness of my confirmation,'' Thomas said. ``In the end, our strategy was to rely on him to endure the agony and then transcend the aftermath of bitterness.''
Thomas said he had given up on God and his plans to become a Roman Catholic priest on the day of his graduation from Holy Cross College in 1971, referring to that day as ``the dark night of my soul.''
Thomas, the grandson of a Georgia sharecropper, said: ``I had often thought of giving up and going back home. To my core, I was a swirling combination of frustration, of anger, disappointment and anxiety. I had alienated my grandfather. The dreams of my youth to become a Catholic priest evaporated, and with that my faith also evaporated.''
After his graduation from Holy Cross in Massachusetts, Thomas received his law degree at Yale University.
Thomas said in retrospect he realized his anxiety was caused by forgetting that the true heroes in his life were his grandparents, and not the better-educated peers and mentors he was surrounded by in college.
``Maintain your faith and your beliefs,'' he urged the graduates.
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