Is Gov. Mike Parson really belittling Nicole Galloway for attending Catholic school?
Well, it’s happened: A Missouri candidate has been belittled for having attended Catholic school. Not only that, but it’s been suggested that maybe, as a Catholic, she never “learned what it’s like to sit in a church pew.”
That is either some flat-out, old-fashioned bigotry or a great imitation of it. Only, you won’t hear Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who imagines anti-Catholic attacks even in their absence, railing on Fox News about this particular affront.
Because it’s his fellow Republican, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who is trying to make an issue of the fact that his Democratic challenger, State Auditor Nicole Galloway, attended Catholic rather than public schools — St. Paul Catholic School in Fenton, where she grew up, and then the all-girls Ursuline Academy in St. Louis County.
“I grew up in a small town,” Parson said during a Monday campaign stop in St. Robert. “You started working hard when you’re a kid. Fourteen years old, I had my first job. ... My opponent grew up in St. Louis. I went to a public school system; she went to a private school system.”
On Tuesday in Columbia, Parson was at it again: “I learned what it was like to work hard on a farm, to be good neighbors, to respect people, what it’s like to sit in a church pew. My opponent grew up in St. Louis, went to a private school.”
So, his closing argument to voters is to pit country against city and public school against parochial? City and suburban kids have also been known to work hard from a young age, to sit in pews and even kneel. Galloway, too, started working in middle school, babysitting and later waiting tables.
We’re glad to hear Parson values public education, but there is nothing wrong with attending a faith-based school, and for him to suggest otherwise is wrong.
Does Parson only want to be governor of rural Missouri? (OK, yes; that we knew already.)
“The governor is so desperate to distract from his failed record that he is now attacking auditor Galloway for attending Catholic school,” Galloway campaign spokesman Kevin Donohoe said in a statement. “It’s incredibly disrespectful and out-of-bounds to criticize Auditor Galloway for graduating from Ursuline.”
Parson’s campaign responded that the governor wasn’t attacking Galloway but was merely drawing comparisons. Yes, comparisons suggesting that attending a parochial instead of a public school is something that should be called out.
Galloway tweeted, “Read between the lines. When @MikeParson criticized my Ursuline education to ‘draw comparisons’ about our qualifications, here’s what he’s saying to women who went to Catholic, all-girl, or religious schools: You’re not qualified to be governor. This is a new low.”
Galloway did attend a public university, the University of Missouri-Rolla, now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology, and earned her master of business administration at the University of Missouri-Columbia. But had she attended Rockhurst or Avila University, Notre Dame or the Institut Catholique de Paris, would that not have been OK, too?
We can only imagine the reaction if Galloway had chosen to draw a comparison between her education and that of Parson, who went into the Army after high school, attended the University of Maryland and University of Hawaii but didn’t graduate.
That would not be right, either. But when Galloway criticizes Parson, it’s for what he’s done and not done in office and not for who he is. He owes her an apology.