Reply #17: Yes, a real rainbow of conservative "family values"

[Bozita]

salon.com > Books Jan. 19, 2000
URL: http://www.salon.com/books/it/2000/01/19/hillsdale


Sex, lies and suicide

While championing family values, former Hillsdale President George Roche III was sleeping with his daughter-in-law.

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BY JONATHAN ELLIS

In November, another right-wing wolf cloaked in family values sheepskin was unzipped to the American public. George Roche III resigned as president of conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan after accusations of a quasi-incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, Lissa.

On the morning of Oct. 17, 42-year-old Lissa and her husband, George Roche IV, visited the 64-year-old Roche at the hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for diabetes. With her husband and father-in-law as witnesses, Lissa claimed that she and the elder Roche had been off-and-on lovers for 19 of the 21 years she and her husband had been married. Lissa returned to her campus house after the confession and armed herself with a .38-caliber handgun. She walked out of her backyard and through the college's arboretum to a stone gazebo, a secluded location where students once went to relax, guzzle a few beers or liaise with members of the opposite sex. There, Lissa ended her life.

Earlier in the year, George Roche III had shocked Hillsdale by divorcing his wife of 44 years (who had cancer) and remarrying five months later. Lissa, according to George IV in an interview with National Review, was very disturbed by the presence of a new woman in her father-in-law's life. On Nov. 9, with the story breaking in the national media, Roche resigned after 28 years as Hillsdale's president.

"We have proved that integrity, values and courage can still triumph in a corrupt world," he wrote in his letter of resignation. "Hillsdale College is a monument to those beliefs." His statement made no reference to the firestorm raging at Hillsdale.

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