I take a pretty hard line against those crude online name-callers who say that conservatives are just a band of pathological liars constantly using this or that scam or felony to pump up their fantasies of victimization at the hands of the repressive liberal establishment. But the likes of Francisco Nava don't make my job any easier.

Nava is a Junior at Princeton University making a name for himself as a comer in the conservative, pro-chastity community on campus. Along those lines he was an officer of something called the Anscombe Society, which has charted for itself the uphill battle of making abstinence until marriage the norm on campus.

Not surprisingly, Anscombe's faculty advisor is none other than theocon icon Robert George, professor of jurisprudence and all-around moral values macher, who is as up on Aristotle as he is down on condoms. And now he seems to have developed a sideline in mentoring undergraduates intent on unintentionally demonstrating that pro-abstinence student activists, not surprisingly, show pretty clearly they haven't had sex when they try to write about sex. For example, from the Anscombe Society website ...

Within marriage, sex serves as the ultimate physical expression of love and unity. Because in marriage spouses are united to one another on the mental, emotional, legal, and perhaps spiritual levels, it is appropriate and good that they also be united on a physical level. Such physical union is actualized in sexual intercourse. The nature of this sexual act is itself unitive—two become one flesh. Sex is thus the actualization of the marital union, concretizing the mutual gift of self between the partners. If experienced outside the context of marriage, therefore, it cannot actualize the union, for no union exists.

But, I digress.

Last month, Nava gained attention for a column in the Daily Princetonian ("Princeton's Latex Lies") criticizing a university condom hand-out program as "tacit sponsorship of hookup sex." But the message didn't fit well with campus sex and free love advocates. Soon Nava began receiving a series of email death threats telling Nava, among other things, to "shut the f-ck up", that "you are not welcome here" and that "we will destroy you."

Indeed, Nava wasn't the only one getting the emails. They also went to the other officers of the Anscombe Society and even Professor George himself.

"It would be safe to say that the Anscombe Society is a common factor linking all of us," Anscombe Society Veep Jonathan Hwang told the student paper. "It is the most intense reaction to the Anscombe Society that I've ever received."

The emails prompted new calls from conservatives about the repressive pro-sex, anti-conservative atmosphere on campus and claims of a double standard applied to intimidation against conservative students. And the outrage only spiraled further out of control when Nava claimed that on Friday evening two pro-sex advocates wearing black clothes and ski caps accosted Nava near campus and severely beat him.

Nava told the campus paper he was sure the attack "at least had something to do with" the threats against the Anscombe Society and noted that his attackers, like the threatening emailer, had used the phrase "shut the f-ck up."

"I'm still committed to having the beliefs that I do," said Nava, "and I hope that Princeton will show these two characters that intimidation doesn't work."

Nor were others bending to the threats. Aptly named campus right-winger Wyatt Yankus wrote at Princeton Tory blog: "An assault on those who express their opinion hurts all of us who might want to express their views. If you have a problem with what I say, then come and get me."

Right-wing rage-addict David Horowitz told the New York Sun, "It's a terrible incident, but it doesn't surprise me. The left has now become the hate group."

The Sun picked up the mood on campus over the weekend ...

Over the weekend, Mr. Nava's jaw was badly swollen, his face was covered with cuts and abrasions, and the inside of his mouth was bleeding, Mr. George, who was also a target of the death threats, said after visiting Mr. Nava in the emergency room.

Mr. Nava was moved over the weekend to the McCosh Health Center on campus.

Yesterday, a line of solemn-looking students, including Mr. Nava's girlfriend, stood outside his room while a nurse allowed two police officers to enter. The nurse eventually turned the friends and this reporter away, and said too many visitors were creating a disruptive atmosphere.

With an active Republicans Club, a pro-life club, three major Evangelical groups, and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions that is led by Professor George, Princeton University is considered one of the Ivy League's more conservative campuses.

But many conservative students at Princeton say they were being singled out for expressing unpopular views.

"There would rightly be outrage had the student been part of some other minority on campus," said a 2006 Princeton graduate who works at a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., Michael Fragoso. "I have yet to see that right now, and that's rather disappointing."

"Are there double standards and reforms that need to be made? Absolutely," Mr. George said in an interview.

Now, at this point, I have to confess, I think I would have been a bit skeptical. It's been going on two decades since I was on campus. But in my day at least, I can't see the hounds who were the biggest advocates of hookup sex reacting in quite this fashion. I think they'd have been far more likely to be happy one more potential competitor had taken himself out of the running than beat the guy's head in for promoting dangerous anti-sex views. But apparently, George bought into Nava's story big time.

In fact, his belief sustained him even when it emerged that Nava had gotten busted for fabricating a death threat against himself and his roommate while he was at prep school at Groton. "Those of us who saw him at the emergency room find it difficult to believe he could have done this himself. The physical manifestations were too evident, too severe," George told the Sun.

Alas, George's credulity has not been rewarded.

After finding discrepancies in Nava's account of the beating, Princeton Township detectives confronted Nava. And Nava admitted fabricating both the bogus assault and the campaign of pro-sex, anti-Anscombe Society death threats.

George now says that he became suspicious of Nava from the moment he heard of the earlier Groton incident. And he's looking on the bright side about the fallout from the Nava hoax.

"The administration, Public Safety, the students who were threatened [and] the other members of Anscombe have all acted in an exemplary manner," George told the Daily Princetonian late today. "They have worked together and cooperated together. Within 72 hours, we were able to expose this as a hoax ... Princeton, all the way from the administrators down, had the good sense to hold their fire, get the facts first, before drawing conclusions. There's a good example for other institutions. Follow the example of Princeton, not Duke."