Major Scandal Hits Oral Roberts University - Another Sex Mess for the Religious Right!

Scandals and televangelism seem to go hand in hand. Now, Richard Roberts, Oral Robert’s son and President of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa is deep in the middle of a swirling scandal that involves tales of lavish spending, lawsuits from fired faculty and the Big Kahoona, sex!

Roberts is accused on illegal involvement in a local political campaign for starters but now a lawsuit by former professors makes the following charges as reported by the Associated Press:

- A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.

- Mrs. Roberts - who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site - frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."

- The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."

- Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off." The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.

- Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.

- University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework.

- The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts' children.

- The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.

Not bad for starters, but Friday another suit was filed and this one included charges that Mrs. Roberts spent the night in the university's guest house with an underage male on 9 separate occasions. It further states there are numerous photos of Mrs. Roberts and the underage male alone in her sports car after city-wide curfew.

I will refrain from dancing the Schadenfreude Polka until the dust settles.

UPDATE: The scandal from a student's perspective, sounds like everyone on campus saw this coming.