Posted on 08/25/2006 7:47:48 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
ORLANDO, Fla. _Rep. Katherine Harris said this week that God did not intend for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws" and that a failure to elect Christians to political office will allow lawmaking bodies to "legislate sin."
The remarks, published in the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, unleashed a torrent of criticism from political and religious officials.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she was "disgusted" by the comments "and deeply disappointed in Rep. Harris personally."
Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, "clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a Representative . . ."
State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, demanded an apology, saying the statements were "outrageous, even by her standards.
"What is going through this woman's mind?" said Slosberg. "We do not live in a theocracy."
The criticism was not limited to Democrats.
Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris' remarks "were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican."
"To me, it's the height of hubris," said Brooks, a former Largo Republican Club president and former member of the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee.
And Jillian Hasner, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said: "I don't think it's representative of the Republican Party at all. Our party is much bigger and better than Katherine Harris is trying to make it."
The fallout follows an interview published in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention. Witness editors interviewed candidates for office asking them to describe their faith and positions on certain issues.
Harris said her religious beliefs "animate" everything she does, including her votes in Congress.
She then warned voters that if they do not send Christians to office, they risk creating a government that is doomed to fail.
"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.
"Whenever we legislate sin," she said, "and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong . . ."
Harris also said the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep religious people out of politics.
In reality, she said, "we have to have the faithful in government" because that is God's will. Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers," she said.
"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our founding fathers intended and that's (sic) certainly isn't what God intended."
Harris campaign spokesman Jennifer Marks would not say what alternative to "a nation of secular laws" Harris would support. She would not answer questions about the Harris interview and, instead, released a two-sentence statement.
"Congresswoman Harris encourages Americans from all walks of life and faith to participate in our government," it stated. "She continues to be an unwavering advocate of religious rights and freedoms."
The notion that non-Christians "don't know better," or are less suited to govern disturbed Rabbi Rick Sherwin, president of the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis.
"Anybody who claims to have a monopoly on God," he said, "doesn't understand the strength of America."
Sherwin and others also said Harris appeared to be voicing support for a religious state when she said God and the founding fathers did not intend the United States to be a "nation of secular laws."
The alternative, they said, would be a nation of religious laws.
"She's talking about a theocracy," said Sherwin. "And that's exactly opposite of what this country is based on." A clause in the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion.
Ahmed Bedier, the Central Florida Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said he was "appalled that a person who's been in politics this long would hold such extreme views."
Bedier said most Christians would find such comments "shameful."
Harris has always professed a deep Christian faith and long been popular with Christian conservative voters.
In the Senate primary race, she has heavily courted that voting bloc, counting on them to put her into the general election against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
But publicly, she rarely expresses such a fervent evangelical perspective.
University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said the comments will appeal to Christian fundamentalists who typically turn out for Republican primaries.
But he said the strong evangelical tone could alienate non-Christians and more moderate Republicans who had been thinking of supporting Harris.
"It's insane," he said. "But it's not out of character for Katherine Harris."
Harris, a Republican from Longboat Key, is running against Orlando attorney Will McBride, retired Adm. LeRoy Collins and developer Peter Monroe in the GOP Senate primary.
McBride and Collins also did interviews with Florida Baptist Witness. Both said faith is an important part of their lives, but Harris' responses most directly tie her role as a policy maker to her religious beliefs.
Ruby Brooks, the Tampa area GOP activist, said such religious "arrogance" only damages the party.
"This notion that you've been chosen or anointed, it's offensive," said Brooks. "We hurt our cause with that more than we help it."
I probably would have voted for Coleman as he would be closer to my values even though he is not Christian. Mondale may be a Christian but his values and mine are 180 degrees opposite.
Yes we do have religious tests in this country. Secular law is just one component of our system. Although the left sure is trying hard to ethnicly cleanse us of religion. By the way that test is the person who pulls the handle on the voting machine.
Baited?? Sorry, I thought this was a forum.
Gee, she seemed okay sitting on that horse... She's alittle nutty.
E Pluribus Unum.
I can't speak for others who claim to be Christian as you know ANYONE can claim to be Christian, but it's by their fruits, behavior, conduct that you know them. OTOH can a non-Christian really determine what's good Christian behavior and what's not?
I still wouldn't legislate my morality over the morality of the community.
You mean like a community of liberals whose morality gives you a phlanderous, godless, God-mocking,immoral, excuse of a man like Clinton, or the possibility of a snide,lying, conniving, power-hungry, opportunistic individual like a Kerry for President, what about a community of homosexuals whose morality will give you same-sex marriage, pedophiles, trans-confused sexual identities, gay adoptions, gay t.v., gay movies, gay sex education such as fisting, the perversion, mocking and oppression of all religions , or how about a community of Hezbollah-loving Dearborn, Mi. based Muslims where Sharia Law morality would dominate?
Either you support and champion biblical morality in our elected officials upon which our system of government was founded and works best under, or be prepared to watch and say goodbye to the Constitution and the country the way it was intended, with all the glorious freedoms that resulted from it.
isn't political ideology enough for you? You know, how one stands on the issues.
You mean like the political ideology that gave us Communism and Stalin, or Nazism and Hitler , or ones that offer the world tyrant dictators like the Romans of old, or even now in some African and Latin American countries?
Pure political ideology will move to the extreme left or right unless balanced and tempered by the God-given principles established by God thru his Commandments and subsequently thru his Son, Jesus Christ.
He guided this country to greatness thru his servants, the Founding Fathers and other great men of Christian faith with the intent being for this great country to become a beacon of Light and Hope, and a witness to the world of his Greatness and Glory.
This cannot possibly take place either under a system that is at its core a godless politically based ideology or any system that has at its core a non-Christian based religious ideology. Christianity's practice and influence would not be tolerated under any other system other than the Judeo-Christian one that we inherited and were blessed with.
We have no religious tests for office in this country. Also, headship is different from stating that God appoints our leaders. He simply doesn't do that, unless you can tell me with a straight face that God put Bill Clinton in the Presidency.
Are you still sticking to your absurd position that the common law is a brand of fruit juice?
The " other side " are people who are not Christians. I have no animosity towards Jews,they are God's chosen people, and I am a big supporter of Israel but when I vote it is for someone who has values similar to mine. CHRISTIAN!
Is this concept to ridiculous for your pea sized brain?
Anyone who tosses around the epithet "pea brain" ought first to make sure that it does not apply to himself.
One who won't vote for a Jew because of his religion certainly qualifies. That's bigotry, plain and simple.
"Second call for Joe Lieberman! Joe Lieberman! Take that yarmulke off and leave the Capitol Building! You don't belong! No point hiding Joe, we'll find you!"
Yes we do have religious tests in this country.
The Founders demonstrably disagreed. You might benefit from reading the Constitution - they made such tests illegal.
Secular law is just one component of our system.
No, it is the entirety of our system of government.
Can you point to the section in the Constitution in which the Founders gave religious tenets supremecy over secular laws?
By the way that test is the person who pulls the handle on the voting machine.
True enough. People may chose to vote based upon whatever criteria they choose.
But if they refuse to vote for a candidate who is Jewish, or Sikh, or whatever, no matter how conservative that candidate is or what his stance on the issue is, solely because of the candidate's religion, that is the very definition of bigotry. And it's sad.
Ah, but you didn't mind inventing a strawman and attributing it to me. Hypocrisy.
They didn't grant the power to impose such tests to the federal government, reserving them instead to the states.
You lie.
Not at all.
Me Q. - Do you know where the common law came from?
You A. - The precedents, standards and customs practiced in the various states. No two states were identical in their common laws.
That would be at post 207. Sounds an awfully lot that you are saying the common law comes from the states.
Your ignorance of history and law is deep and strange.
"The Founders demonstrably disagreed...they made such tests illegal."
They didn't grant the power to impose such tests to the federal government, reserving them instead to the states.
Wow.
That's profoundly ignorant.
Article VI, Clause 3:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Very clear.
You may wish to try reading the Constitution sometime - you'll be amazed at what's in this amazing document.
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