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Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry

By TChris, Section Elections 2006
Posted on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 08:57:50 AM EST
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by TChris

Katherine Harris, as quoted in the Florida Baptist Witness:

Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

Here's Katherine Harris "clarifying" her stated belief that there should be a religious test for public office, and that the Establish Clause of the First Amendment is a lie:

"My comments were specifically directed toward a Christian group," said Harris ....

Yes, we know they were. That's hardly an excuse. Does this mean Harris would have advocated electing members of a different faith if she'd been speaking to representatives of that faith?

Really, Katherine, if God chooses our rulers, why should we vote at all? It seems a lot of work to stand in line, only to be confused by Diebold machines, if God is making the choice for us. (Although divine intervention might explain why some Diebold machines recorded votes for Republicans when voters cast their ballots for Democrats. Yeah, that must be it. Thanks for enlightening us, Katherine.)

Another clarification:

Harris' campaign also released a statement Saturday. It said when Harris called the separation of church and state a "lie," she was addressing a "misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government."

Some of them shouldn't, Katherine Harris in particular. God will presumably tell her that in November, when He chooses her opponent to win the Senate seat she covets.

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    Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry | 23 comments (23 topical)
    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#1)
    by cpinva on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 09:27:58 AM EST
    ms. harris' campaign is a trainwreck. i could run against her and win, merely by not saying anything. her stupidity speaks for itself, to anyone with at least half a functioning brain. however did this woman get elected to office to begin with? surely, someone should have picked up on her apparent detachment from reality, as the rest of us know it. watch the republicans flee from her, as rats from a sinking ship. if they have any sense at all. actually, she's a bipartisan embarrasment.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#2)
    by Al on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 09:33:34 AM EST
    She may be an embarrassment, but never forget this woman played a pivotal role in helping Bush steal his first election. Presumably, she thinks that's OK because God elected him.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#3)
    by Johnny on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 09:34:36 AM EST
    Some people do not believe me when I say wrong-wingers hate the 1st amendment. They loathe it. Not the speech part, the religion part.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 09:51:26 AM EST
    Theocratic Characteristics
    "No matter what the belief system or religion," wrote Lawrence Butt, February 20, 2005, "theocracies all have similar characteristics." 1. The society and its leaders believe they have a divine right. 2. The divine mandate is interpreted in specific political contexts. 3. Civil rights and a code of conduct are dictated by religious dogma. 4. Individual aspirations are subordinate to the priorities of the state/religion. 5. Domestic and foreign policy is guided by a religious ideology. 6. Leaders are part of a theologically trained elite. 7. Leadership is limited by religious dogma and is rarely skilled in economics.
    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:01:40 AM EST
    What would she have said if she'd been speaking to an atheist group? If she would ever do so, that is. Johnny, they hate the non-religion part of the First Amendment, too.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#6)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:06:45 AM EST
    DavidD: they hate the non-religion part of the First Amendment, too. Except (and only) when it comes to their speech...

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#7)
    by scribe on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:16:37 AM EST
    Just so long as she stays in long enough to win the Republican primary....

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#8)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:21:56 AM EST
    Thta's evil, Scribe. Good thinking. ;-)

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#9)
    by Sumner on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:51:38 AM EST
    "But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances." Poetics -- Aristotle Perhaps my metaphor with parking meters and Indulgences wasn't all that clear, elsewhere, but BTW, circuit9.blogspot.com is addressing the Booker solicitation. Since no one else has pointed to it yet, der Spiegel has an interview with Salman Rushdie about church and state, today.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#10)
    by Sailor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:57:43 AM EST
    You'd think politicians would learn by now with the internets that you can't say opposing things to different audiences and not expect someone to compare the messages in the tubes. But she's been a wackdoodle from the start; her main advisor is 'Dr. Dale'
    Colleagues say Harris' closest confidante lately appears to be spiritual adviser Dale Burroughs, founder of the Biblical Heritage Institute in Bradenton.
    "Dr. Dale," as she is known among campaign staffers, describes herself as a licensed clinical pastoral counselor who counsels in behavior temperament, career, crisis and disaster, among other things.
    "behavior temperament, career, crisis and disaster!?"she's doing a heckuva job. This Dr Dale:
    She is a spiritual adviser, for instance, to members of the Arlington Group, a coalition of religious conservatives that includes James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Gary Bauer of American Values, Don Wildmon of the American Family Association and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell.
    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 11:00:05 AM EST
    Sumner - Bill Moyers also recently interviewed Salman Rushdie in his June 23, 2006 PBS broadcast "Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason". The interview is well worth the read, if you haven't already seen it.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#12)
    by demohypocrates on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 11:16:03 AM EST
    SALMAN RUSHDIE: --using the language of religion. Using the language of Islam, but which is in fact totalitarianism. Which you can compare to Nazism, you can compare to Stalinism. And which operates against its own people as well as the rest of the world in very fascistic and oppressive ways. And this is I think important to know that people most oppressed by this radical Islamism are Muslims. You know, the people suffering most from the Taliban were Afghans. So this fascistic project, political project, wearing the language of religion like a cloak, like a protective cloak, needs to be called by its true name. And that's really what this manifesto existed to say. Dayum Rethuglican fear-monger.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#13)
    by oldtree on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 11:45:41 AM EST
    when are we going to grow up? religion is bogus crap to make money, always has been, no change will ever occur to the world's oldest profession. it is much like terror, it is based on fear. If you are afraid, you are religious, any argument?

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#14)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 11:55:30 AM EST
    Oldtree: any argument? None here. All major institutionalized religions are psychological terrorism.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 12:12:29 PM EST
    See a tongue-in-cheek visual of two of Florida's finest...Katherine Harris & Anita Bryant...here: www.thoughttheater.com

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#16)
    by kdog on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 01:04:51 PM EST
    That's funny...I thought christians didn't like whores...cuz thats what Harris is...a vote whore. She'd tell them she will personally guarantee the 2nd coming of Jesus during her term if she thought it would help her chances.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#17)
    by cpinva on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 01:21:33 PM EST
    scribe, you dog! hehe i am sort of curious, did anyone here know of ms. harris, prior to the 2000 election? it would seem that someone as obviously idiotic as she would have been a known commodity, or did she just stop taking her meds recently? i found the "clarification" even more ludicrous than the speech that precipitated it. in effect, her people are admitting that their candidate believes in everything, and nothing at all. i've often thought she was a "blank" slate, this just proves it. lol

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 02:57:14 PM EST
    ON a related note: did you see other voting and election related content at that BAPTIST website? How can that religious (and presumably nonprofit) publication openly advocate for specific [republican] candidates? isn't that a violation of IRS and other rules?

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#19)
    by Sailor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 03:21:48 PM EST
    I am sort of curious, did anyone here know of ms. harris, prior to the 2000 election?
    Only the rumors in FL that she was Jeb's mistress.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#20)
    by Sumner on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 04:07:05 PM EST
    edger, the Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason interview of Salman Rushdie is quite instructive. Bill Moyers does some heavy lifting in the area of state and religion generally, and has for quite some time. Rushdie's personal experience draws largely from facing and then fleeing Fundamentalism in another part of the world, but he makes the case for pertinent parallels to Fundamentalists from here too. Just so JM doesn't think she lost my post drawing a direct metaphor, previously: that was an implied metaphor, (as in subtlety). This community is by far sharp enough to know about things such as subtext. But in case that isn't clear, by "subtext", I refer to things meant, although not directly said. For example, when JimakaPPJ once wrote that he couldn't Google up a quote that I had referenced, I considered that he might have actually been referring (in subtext) to my suggestion to Google for the NSA handbook, (and he maybe didnt want to say it), but was having trouble with that, (as that would make much more sense). It is precisely the subtext in Katherine Harris' words that I find most disconcerting. History is replete with examples of contests that unambiguously have staked out lines of demarcation in this field of battle. So does she simply chose to ignore history, or does she actually claim that the "wall" has been successfully and irreversibly breached? Roy Moore was a judge. He was removed from office because he put religion before his role as a secular officer. A Senator from his state, on the US Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to criminals in general, once remarked, "There can never be enough punishment". That remark probably issues from his fervent religion. But Harris is correct to some degree, in that the Realpolitik of the current-state-of-affairs is that something of a defacto theocracy already has enacted much religion into law. Those laws still need be vitiated. Victims of those laws should be released, and/or made whole again.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 05:04:56 PM EST
    Ah, yes, the ever-popular Madwoman of Florida, Katherine "Lying Republic**t" Harris, is continuing to prove that big tits doesn't mean rocket scientist, no matter how much Skinemax one watches...

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#22)
    by Peter G on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 06:33:33 PM EST
    In case anyone didn't pick up TChris's reference to a "religious test" for office, remember that the original guarantee in our Constituiton of freedom of religion was not the First Amendment but rather Article VI, clause 3, which states, in part, after requiring that public officers of the United States "and of the several States" must take an oath (or affirm -- an alternative which is itself a protection of freedom of religion for the oath-objecting Quakers) to support the Constitution of the U.S.: "but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The Constitution itself thus provides that being a Christian cannot be a qualification for being a U.S. Senator, nor can even belief in God be required.

    Re: Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry (none / 0) (#23)
    by Edger on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 07:20:44 PM EST
    Sumner: So does she simply chose to ignore history, or does she actually claim that the "wall" has been successfully and irreversibly breached? My immediate reaction, born of years of trying to decipher by what methods "religiosos", to coin a word (with "mafioso" as my own subtext here) assume their power and create followers, is to suspect she is not herself ignoring history, but rather is quite aware of its lessons, and is trying here to define and set the parameters of any debate on this with her claim that: Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," I think that is a factually correct statement by her, though not in the manner in which it will be understood by the religious segment of society that wishes for a theocratic basis to lawmaking and governance. When Harris says separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers." she is using, I think, the well used trick of sliding in unnoticed and getting acceptance for a deceitful premise (God is the one who chooses our rulers) by focusing attention on something many religious people will accept without questioning (separating religion and politics is wrong). And she does it again with the emotional argument "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," leading people to accept the concept of sin as a given, when in fact it is a fabrication of christianity. She uses the circular reasoning so common to churches and "religiosos" in their long history of manipulation of people to their own detriment. The churches' only powers over people derive from what people either willingly or unknowingly hand them through either being intellectually lazy or simply being too preoccupied with the toil of daily life to think through and analyse what they are told and understand how easily they are led and manipulated. In these sense I think you are, unfortunately, right on the mark with your assertion that: Harris is correct to some degree, in that the Realpolitik of the current-state-of-affairs is that something of a defacto theocracy already has enacted much religion into law. She is dangerous, sociopathic, poisonous, and probably evil by any reasonable definition.

    Harris Clarifies Her Religious Bigotry | 23 comments (23 topical)