Robertson orders Regent U. to return arts grant, after Americans United expose.

Regent University Chancellor Pat Robertson has asked school officials to return a National Endowment for the Arts grant, after Americans United charged the TV preacher with hypocrisy.

In a July 16 press release, Americans United revealed that Robertson's Virginia Beach graduate school had received a $1,000 grant funded in part through the NEA, while Robertson was campaigning to shut down the federal arts agency.

Said Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn, "Robertson's hypocrisy has been legendary for some time, but this is ridiculous. If a multimillionaire like Robertson is so opposed to public arts funding, one has to wonder why he would go to the government for a handout."

Regent's School of Communications and the Arts applied for a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts to help complete a film called "Pavel's Chariot." The commission distributes $3.4 million in grants each year, with about $500,000 coming from the NEA.

As part of the grant contract, Regent faculty and students were required to include a credit at the end of the film for the Virginia agency and the NEA.

Robertson has repeatedly crusaded against federal arts funding. On his nationally televised "700 Club," he once observed, "These people are wasting your money and mine on what amounts to garbage, homosexuality, pornography, kiddie porn, and other offensive, blasphemous material against God, against Jesus, against the pope, and some terrible stuff going on and it just doesn't need to be."

After the AU press release was circulated and reporters started calling, Robertson denied any knowledge of the grant.

Regent spokesman Baxter Ennis told The Washington Post, "Dr. Robertson was not aware, had no knowledge about the grant involving the NEA. He is not in favor of any money coming from the NEA and is requesting the university administration return the grant they received from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the NEA."

In other news about Robertson, recent actions indicate the TV preacher's commitment to wholesome family entertainment isn't absolute. Last year, he sold his Family Channel cable network to Rupert Murdoch, a media entrepreneur best known for the sleazy programming on his Fox Television Network.

Robertson fans may have been shocked when they tuned in at 10 a.m., Aug. 15, and found not Robertson's "700 Club" show, but "Heathcliff," a cartoon cat. As part of the Murdoch deal, Robertson's program had been bumped to the 11 p.m. time slot.

Although most of the Fox Family Channel fare during the day will be children's cartoons (as well as reruns of "PeeWee's Playhouse"), evening programming will include movies.

On CNN's "Evans & Novak" Aug. 15, interviewers told Robertson that one of the movies scheduled is "Mrs. Doubtfire," a film about "a divorced man who is a cross-dresser." "Do you feel you're betraying your viewers," Rowland Evans asked, "by letting another network take them over?"

Replied Robertson, "Well, I don't think we've betrayed them. I think there comes a time in business when it' s just a time to sell something. And when the price got into the nosebleed territory, I think it was time to deploy the assets."

The Family Channel, bought by Murdoch in a $1.9-billion deal, was part of a for-profit corporation created by Robertson out of his Christian Broadcasting Network, a religious nonprofit built through the tax-deductible donations of Robertson's followers.