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."
"Politically stupid, theologically stupid."
I do see the similarities! :)
Yep...both believe they are "entitled" to the nomination and care more about their own egos then about the nation.
It is terrible to watch as it keeps getting worse. I am sending some quotes to a good friend of mine who won't quit laughing when Harris is described as sweet. He considers her one of the most arrogant and tempermental politicians he has ever been around. That's why she doesn't keep her staff. She won't listen to good advice either.
"Actually electing Godless people is the best thing the US and other countries can do."
She's PMS forever; maybe lithium would help. Can she leave already??????????
In 2000, she could have blown it as she went on TV and said the American citizens in Israel had the same amount of time to get their ballots in after the election as our military. She didn't have a clue that ordinary citizens living abroad do not have the same protection as our military "is supposed to have" when it comes to absentee ballots. If she was so good in 2000, she would have stood up for the military ballots that were thrown out by counties like Hillsborough. I hate to think what would have happened if Jeb and others hadn't given her backbone because she would have flounded without that support.
I might add, that my projections were pretty good. :)
I can't imagine any other explanation than Harris being livid at the Republican party and just trying to take them down in flames with her. Telling a Jewish Congresswoman that she's not fit to serve because she's Jewish is about as dumb as it gets. Wasserman Schultz is a liberal and I'm sure that there are numerous things in her record Harris can attack. Anti-Semitism won't win votes, especially in Florida which probably has the most active Jewish voting community in America. What a dumb POS
I will cast my lot with those that keep the same christian-judeo views as i have,over the nutcase,moonbat,kos crowd,RINOS and abortion loving sickos,anyday of the week.Goodluck to Katy.
God sets up all authority's. Please show me where we are stewards of government?
"Our Constitution was made ONLY for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, Founding Father, 2nd President of the U.S.
Is Katherine Harris saying anything different?
Katherine's first mistake was to go for this Senate seat, without having first settled into the House one.
As for Harris wanting to take down the GOPers, she isn't smart enough to even imagine that her fall from grace would do that. This woman is just completely clueless! And I used to like her. The more I know about her, the less I like anything at all about her.
Alls I know is that I feel bad for thinking Jeb and the Florida Republican party were petty RINOs for not getting behind her. They probably had a good idea of her temperment and knew she'd be a huge drag on the ticket. If she does, she may or may not be big enough to drag down Crist, but I think Clay Shaw is not to happy about this.
Apparently she ain't interested in the votes of the rather sizeable Jewish voters of Florida. Her brilliance knows no bounds.
Katherine is right on this one. Can't say I blame her for pandering to her base. Christians. A majority of Republicans in this state are Christians...who cares what Democrats on a a democrat website from a Democrat controlled newspaper (orlando sentinel) have to say about Harris. More of the same old crap.
Let me explain what Katherine is saying in terms that all you worthless pagans can understand.
It is impossible to have law without having morality behind that law, because all law is enacted morality.
There are different kinds of morality. Biblical morality is one thing...Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim morality are radically different moral systems. Some moral laws forbid the eating of meats as sinful, as for example, Hinduism, and others declare that the killing of unbelievers can be a virtue, as in Muslim morality. For Plato's morality, some acts of perversion were noble forms of love, whereas for the Bible the same acts are deserving of capital punishment.
Here's my point: all law is enacted morality and presupposes a moral system, a moral law, and all morality presupposes a religion as its foundation. Laws rest on morality, and morality on religion. Weaken the religious foundation and the result is the progressive collapse of law and order, and the breakdown of society.
Our laws have become increasingly secular or humanistic and so have our courts. Legistlators are giving us a new morality. They offer nothing but salvation by law...and no Christian can accept this. Wherever we look now, whether it be poverty, education, civil rights, human rights, peace, and all things else, we see laws passed designed to save man. Supposedly, these laws are to give us a society free of prejudice, ignorance, disease, poverty, crime, war, and all other things considered to be evil. These legistlative programs add up to one thing and that is salvation by law.
Laws grounded on the Bible do not attempt to save man or to usher in a brave new world, a great society, world peace, a poverty-free world, or any other such ideal. The purpose of Biblical law, and all laws grounded on a Biblical faith, is to punish and restrain evil, and to protect life and property, to provide justice for all people. It is not the purpose of the state and it's law to change or reform men: this is a spiritual matter and a task for religion. Man can be changed only by the grace of God and the ministry of his Word. Man cannot be changed by statist legistlation; he cannot be legistlated into a new character. The evil will or heart of a man can be restrained by law, in that a man can be afraid of the consequences of disobediance.
Katherine Harris understands that as a legistlator the basic function of the law is to restrain, not to regenerate, and when the function of the law is changed from the restraint of evil to the reformation of man and society, then law itself begins to breakdown, because an impossible burden is placed upon it. Too much is expected of it, so it is improperly used.
Secular legistlators will never be satisfied with their sets of laws. They will always be searching for the right set, because their plan of "salvation" depends upon it.
PONG!!
Romans indeed attributes all authorities as being permitted by God to be in power. We do have the ability to impact our governance. Queen Esther went and pleaded with the King--she was born 'for such a time as this.'
God does give free-will choice and personal responsibility. In Proverbs is the passage, "When the righteous are in power, the people rejoice, but when the wicked are in power, they groan."
The Mayflower Compact, our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are applications of our ability to self-govern, "one nation under God."
Note that I'm not saying all 'Christians' are righteous nor that non-Christicans are all wicked, of course...the original context was Jewish.
Cheers.
Yes, yes, let's hope that she finally shuts up and just goes quietly away, after she loses the primary.
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