article_snippet: (CNN)Three and a half decades after calling for homosexuals to be stoned, former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III has apologized.
article_snippet: I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric," former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III said.  
article_snippet: an apology came days after the conservative Christian school in South Carolina received a petition asking for an apology for a statement former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III made to the Associated Press in 1980 at the White House.
article_snippet: I'm sure this will be greatly misquoted," former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III said at the time.
article_snippet: When he made the comments, former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III was part of a group of fundamentalist ministers who went to the White House with 70,000 signatures on a petition opposed to extending provisions of the Civil Rights Act to homosexuals.
article_snippet: Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger -- were my name not attached,former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III said in Saturday's statement.  
article_snippet: Bob Jones University has long been a center of controversy for Bob Jones University fundamentalist stances.
article_snippet: We are grateful that Bob Jones III has taken responsibility for these words; words that have caused deep harm for many more people than any of We knows," the group's website said.  
highlights_snippet: Bob Jones III suggested homosexuals should be stoned in 1980 .
  