( CNN ) Three and a half decades after calling for homosexuals to be stoned , former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III has apologized . `` I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric , '' Jones said . `` This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago . '' The weekend apology came days after the conservative Christian school in South Carolina received a petition asking for an apology for a statement Jones made to the Associated Press in 1980 at the White House . `` I 'm sure this will be greatly misquoted , '' Jones said at the time . `` But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel 's day against murder and rape and homosexuality . I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned , if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands . '' When he made the comments , Jones 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 . `` Upon now reading these long-forgotten words , they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger -- were my name not attached , '' Jones said in Saturday 's statement . `` I can not erase them , but wish I could , because they do not represent the belief of my heart or the content of my preaching . '' Bob Jones University has long been a center of controversy for its fundamentalist stances . In 1975 , the school adopted rules banning interracial dating . BJU received national attention on the issue in 2000 when George W. Bush , then a presidential candidate , visited the campus . The uproar over the ban prompted the school to drop it . The petition by BJUnity , a group that bills itself as a network `` for lesbian , gay , bisexual , transgender , queer , questioning , intersex and straight affirming people affected by fundamentalist Christianity , '' garnered more than 1,900 signatures . `` 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 us knows , '' the group 's website said . `` This means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation . ''
Bob Jones strongly suggested homosexuals should be banned in 1980 . A petition asking for an apology gathered 1,900 signatures .