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."
She's a nice lady in over her head. Torie have mercy. :-}
You just can't bring yourself to finish the sentence.
"As we have seen the basis of Common Law was custom."
So much for the pernicious nonsense that courts just made it up.
"As we have seen the basis of Common Law was custom."
Courts didn't "make it up", no matter how many times you beg the question.
Game. Set. Match.
"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?"
I guess that makes you a bigot, according to the definition here
I would vote for a Jew when his opponents values are not aligned with mine. Religion really has less to do with it than values. It's just that Christians have values that are more in step with my values. Often you end up voting for the lesser of two evils.
So now if you disagree you are a bigot or a racist or a this or a that. You must be a liberal, that's how they think.
The person in the voting booth is the religious test. So voters are illegal? Secular law in this country is based on the Ten Commandments. I never said I wouldn't vote for a person who wasn't Christian. I said I would vote for the person who represented my values, and that is usually a Christian. Check out my post #341. And quit calling people bigots because they disagree with you. LIB Troll
So now if you disagree you are a bigot or a racist or a this or a that.
It's not about "disagreeing" with anything.
If you refuse to vote for a Jew solely because he's a Jew, and not because of any reason to do with his stands on the issues, then yes. You are a bigot. That's what the word means.
If you have a problem with the application of the word, you had better take it up with Messrs. Merriam and Webster.
Next are some of you folks going to say only your church is the true Christian religion?
Now that is what the Constitution is talking about. That is the power of man made religious control the founder's experienced that they didn't want to have happen again. Using religion as a litmus test. It is about a value system and we all have one, although some bury it very deep because if others were to see it in the harsh light of day they couldn't get elected dog catcher.
Secular law in this country is based on the Ten Commandments.
No, it isn't.
Some of our secular laws overlap the Ten Commandments, but most of the Commandments are simply not applicable to secular law. If you think the Founders intended to base our laws on the Decalogue, you must have a low opinion of them to think they could do such a poor job to have missed the big ones like "no other Gods."
Heck, our entire economy is predicated on violating the 10th Commandment. We'd be in a lot of trouble if coveting was against the law.
I said I would vote for the person who represented my values, and that is usually a Christian. Check out my post #341.
I did. I also read your post #340, where you leave no wiggle room when asked if you would vote for a Jew:
"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 (sic) ridiculous for your pea sized brain?"
If you would like to backtrack from that statement, I don't blame you. If I said something that silly and bigoted, I'd try to downplay it, too.
And quit calling people bigots because they disagree with you. LIB Troll
Ah, the personal insult. And a silly one, a demonstrably untrue one, at that. A final admission that you don't have a substantive leg to stand on in the debate.
Never said that. The premise was put forth that Katherine Harris wasn't fit for office because she expressed her opinion that we should elect Christians into office. How does that differ from someones opinion that we should elect conservatives? Does that make you a bigot or racist or whatever? Jesse Jackson says he is a Christian but I wouldn't vote for him. It is about VALUES.
Lieberman is a Liberal. I wouldn't vote for him because of it. Being a Jew means nothing. The same for Specter. Wouldn't vote for him either Figure out that it has more to do with the values that these people have or do not have. It just so happens that Christian values are more in line with what I believe so I usually vote for the Christian candidate that best represents MY values. If that is bigotry, then everyone in the entire world is a bigot. You don't vote for someone who has values that don't represent you.
Let me see if I can spell this out for you real easy like:
There is a legal dispute, the judge decides the case using local custom, practice, etc. (and deciding which local custom, practices, etc., to use and not to use). The judges written opinion on the legal dispute using local custom, practice, etc., is published, thusly becoming the law. Therefore, because the judge decideds, it is judge made law.
How do you reconcile that with the statement you made earlier in this thread:
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!
You "usually" vote for the Christian candidate? I take it you then sometimes vote for what you characterize as "the other side"? If it were actually about values, "your side" would be anyone who represented your values - not only those who are also Christian.
nobody is having trouble with the word customs, I stated many times in previous replies ...
Fine let's finish the sentence as you like it "As we have seen the basis of Common Law was customs" - now why don't you reply to the question that has been addressed to you multiple times and you apparently can't or won't answer -
"As we have seen the basis of Common Law was customs" ... why bother distinguishing "the basis of Common Law" if the local customs by themselves already equal to Common Law. It should just straight forward said "Common Law was customs"
English comprehension 101 - Basis of Common Law was customs, which means someone (i.e. the courts and judges) had to take these "basis" and use them to "make up" the Common Law.
Nobody is arguing with the existence of customs and local practices, the question is, by what process did they become Common Law?
Or maybe in your mind the mere existence of "basis of something" is the same as that something, and no action / process need to be applied to that "basis" for the final "something" to come into being.
The basis of scrambed egg is an egg, now did the egg just scrambed itself or something external had to be done to the egg?
What will Katherine Harris do at her next campaign stop? Muliply fish and bread to feed the multitudes? Turn wine into water? Walk across Tampa Bay? Go to a local cemetary and raise the dead?
I'm starting to think that the unfair abuse she experienced in 2000 affected her more than anybody imagined.
"This gets worse and worse with her campaign."
Very true. Observing Harris's campaign is like watching a disaster movie that never ends. Fans of Irwin Allen would enjoy this.
The fact that we don't have a Conservative Senate candidate in Florida that can trounce Nelson is very disturbing. This should be a State where we can pick up a seat and it looks like we won't. I'm disgusted.
And Harris to me just comes off as strange. I'm sorry but when I see her talk her speech patterns and her mannerisms just put me off. I don't know why, she just seems odd.
I was hoping that someone else would take over and win the primary, but we can't even settle on a single candidate to beat her. It's like it is being run by people who want to lose.
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