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 a maroon. So Jews, Buddhists, LDS, Deists and others need not apply? That really is offensive. She deserves to go down in the flames she is fanning so busily for herself.
She has it all wrong, big time. Two lessons everyone in the world should learn.
1. You cannot legislate morality. Morality is in people's hearts, not in the laws. Moral people will be moral no matter the law. One example is muslim countries. Their laws are nothing but their "morality." I do not want a country telling when to pray, what I can pray, or that I cannot change religions if I so choose. If there is going to be a change in people, it has to come from within, not from Congress.
2. You cannot legislate sin. Sin has been around since Adam and Eve decided to pick fruit. Laws can make it easier to sin, but if someone is going to sin, they really don't care if there is a law allowing them to do it or not, they are going to do it.
Learn these lessons and you will not have ulcers and you will sleep better at night.
Interesting post, but some values amoung those of good faith are univeral, and yes American secular humanists (both of Jewish and gentile ancestry), have poached off some of the teachings of Christ for some of their moral compass, whether they know it or not. I happen to know it. And of course, some of faith, and some not, in my view, get it wrong, because of poor judgment. The issue however, is the values, not their pedigree. This secular humanist would suggest that it is the values which are timeless, not the pedigree, even while one acknowledges the contributions of the wise ones, and how persons of faith, many faiths, can help foster such timeless values to ensuing generations. I would suggest that is a more universal and inclusive take, than the string of words Harris used, whatever she thought they meant.
Pure nonsense.
Bump!
Harris's main and staunchest constituency is in the Bradenton/Sarasota area, many of whom are GOP JEWS!
Our FFs demanded that our nation NOT have a national religion. Just so you understand that, that means that it was and IS secular, even though GOD was mentioned a lot. Our laws are based on ENGLISH common law; NOT on Biblical tenents.
And anytime some FREEPER says that he/she will explain what SO AND SO really means, that just means that that politician has stuck at least one foot and all of that leg down their throat.
I don't happen to be a "pagan" and I doubt that anyone else you are calling a pagan, is one either.
Worry about your own state sinky.
I'm a pagan. Well, actually an Apostolic Pagan...does that qualify?
Harris will easily win the primary.
One other thing. The purpose of law is not to effect salvation, in the mind of those who think they know the road. The purpose of law is to effect a just society while on this moral coil, for those on it, whatever their perceived road to salvation, or lack of such perception. Any other purpose of law, is the road to internecine conflict, and deflection, of maximizing the human potential, and rest, and security, while they reside on this motal coil. It is hubris to legislate the road to salvation through law, as opposed to legislating those time tested moral values which seem to have worked per the experience of man while on this mortal coil, as elucidated by the wise ones, including some religious wise ones.
LOL...perhaps. :-)
Seriously, "True conservatives" like Harris are their own worst enemy.
Deist.
She's whirling out of sanity now and can't seem to stop herself.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in 1829 wrote, "There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations."
The Harris campaign is defying the most basic premises of physiology. It appears to have an indefinite number of feet and an indefinite number of mouths to put them into.
Sad that you believe in liberal media falsehoods and fabrications.
Do you believe in Santa Claus too?
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