The Blackwell of the South

If you are white, you know all about something that my friend iomi calls the "racist elbow." That's when you are alone with other white people and they think that they can feel free to share some sort of racist remark with you, and you will be on the same page as them. TomPaine.com recently reported on just such a thing, which they call a "just us" moment, that happened with Katherine Harris, the Ken Blackwell of the 'O2 elections. Only this time it wasn't about race. In fact, it sounds eerily like what I just blogged about Blackwell. While being interviewd by a reporter from a Baptist publication she said:

… that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that certainly isn’t what God intended.

Yikes!! The lie about the separation of church and state?! Our founding fathers didn't want separation of church and state? Then why exactly, as the Interfaith Alliance pointed out, it mentioned in line ONE of the Bill of Rights? I guess its easy to say that, and get away with it because its not like people actually pay attention to what happened last year, let alone pay attention to some dusty old document like that. People like Harris seem to forget that,

If there is not freedom from the imposition of religion, there is not freedom for the free practice of religion.
-Kim Baldwin, director of public policy at the Interfaith Alliance

But then here is my favorite part of the interview:

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. They can legislate sin.

Wow. I'll just leave it at that.