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."
what part of the "conservative" calls for a religious litmus test?
So conservative Jews are no longer welcome in the GOP?
And who determines what a "Christian" is?
(I have heard many here claim that Catholics and Mormons are not "Christian". Fair enough, I guess. To heck with a Pro-Life, Low Tax, Strong Defense, Limited Government candidate...he's Catholic you know!/sarcasm)
I've kept my silence pretty much on Harris because this is basically a Florida issue, in my opinion.
But honestly, what an idiot! What a complete bumbling idiot...
Maybe for an encore on election night she can blame her defeat on the evil Joooooos in Florida.
LOL. Not one of Story's better...stories, for lack of a better word.
In the Year Book 34. H. 6, fo. 38. in Quare impedit,(25) where the question was how far the Common law takes notice of the Ecclesiastical law, Prisot, Chief Justice, in the course of his argument says 'a tiels leis que ils de Seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence; car ces Common ley sur quels touts manners leis sent fondes: et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obliges de conustre lour ley de saint eglise Etc.' (26) Finch begins the business of falsification by mistranslating and mistating the words of Prisot thus 'to such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture our law giveth credence, ' citing the above case and the words of Prisot in the margin, Finch's law. B. I. c. 3. Here then we find ancient scripture, ancient writing, translated 'holy scripture.' This, Wingate in 1658. erects into a Maxim of law, in the very words of Finch, but citing Prisot, and not Finch. And Sheppard tit. Religion, in 1675 laying it down in the same words of Finch, quotes the Year Book, Finch and Wingate Then comes Sr. Matthew Hale, in the case of the King v. Taylor I Ventr 293. 3 Keb. 607· and declares that 'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.' Citing nobody, and resting it, with his judgment against the witches. (27) on his own authority, which indeed was sound and good in all cases into which no superstition or bigotry could enter. Thus strengthened, the court in 1718 in the King v. Woolston, would not suffer it to be questioned whether to write against Christianity was punishable at Common law, saying it had been so settled by Hale in Taylor's case. 2 Stra. 834· Wood therefore, 409· Without scruple, lays down as a principle that all blasphemy and profaneness are offenses at the Common law, and cites Strange. Blackstone, in 1763. repeats in the words of Sr. Matthew Hale that 'Christianity is part of the laws of England,' citing Ventris and Strange ubi supra. And Ld. Mansfield in the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans, in 1767· qualifying somewhat the position, says that 'the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the Common law.(28) Thus we find this string of authorities all hanging by one another on a single hook, a by Finch of the words of Prisot, or on nothing. For all quote Prisot, or one another, or nobody. Thus Finch misquotes Prisot; Wingate also, but using Finch's words; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the court in Woolston s case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone that and Hale; and Ld. Mansfield volunteers his own ipse dixit. And who now can question but that the whole Bible and Testament are a part of the Common law? And that Connecticut, in her blue laws, laying it down as a principle that the laws of god should be the laws of their land, except where their own contradicted them, did anything more than express, with a salve, what the English judges had less cautiously declared without any restriction? And what I dare say our cunning Chief Justice [Marshall] would swear to, and find as many sophisms to twist it out of the general terms of our Declarations of rights, and even the stricter text of the Virginia act for the freedom of religion' as he did to twist Burr's neck out of the halter of treason.(29) May we not say then with him who was all candor and benevolence 'Woe unto you, ye lawyers, for ye lade men with bur dens grievous to bear.'- Thomas Jefferson, 1814
And as far as the rest of your smarmy post is concerned, I've seen a whole LOT worse posted to FR, for many years; including many of your own replies...even though a lot of them do wind up getting deleted.
You and the rest of your Harris-bashing ilk need to stop promoting these media and RNC-fabricated smear jobs.
She's up against 3 no-name jokers who filed at the last minute because the other heavy-hitters didn't have the balls to enter the race to challenge Nelson.
She put her name, money, career, and integrity all on the line and it's pathetic reading these childish, DU-like posts criticizing her when we should be supporting her to the hilt.
BTW, my guess is that Jefferson and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom had some influence on the drafting of the Constitution, particularly the First Amendment. Which part of the Constitution do you suppose ten-year-old Joseph Story chose in order to exercise his influence during the convention?
I'll wait for the actual transcript instead of the media spin on what Harris said, thanks.
My guess it that most people would realize that the common law exists at the state level.
ROFLCOPTER
The internet is serious business, lol.
LOL, the internet is serious buisness...
She's a helluva lot smarter than you are. Even the horse she's on is probably smarter.
Ah. And which states existed at the inception of the common law, then?
I haven't "bashed" Harris at all and have been one of her supporters here. And unlike the little boys around her, who only like her because of the pictures of her on a horse, that show off her implants ( and no, not only don't I have fake boobs, I don't need to get them ), I actually used to think that she was a pretty good politician, who made a lot of sense. Now, she doesn't make any sense at all and her entire campaign is imploding.
You live in Wisconsin. So just WHAT do you REALLY know about her and her actual base?
I'm moving down to where her staunchest support lies and have been going down there, several times a year and actually DO know the area, some of the people who live there, and far more about her and things in Florida than you do. So back off!
LOL! My cat is smarter then her...at least she spews her hair balls in private. So, why don't you and Kathleen get a room. The two of you could compare notes on why non-Christians are somehow less of citizens in your Amerika.
"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."
She hasn't denied any of the statements yet.....
But this is probably just the work of another evil conspiracy bent on her destruction.
Probably all those Jews who write the Florida Baptist Convention Newsletter who decided to "twist her words"...hehe
:-)
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
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