…and this is a 
Katherine Harris for President!
Category: Kooks • Politics • Religion
Posted on: August 28, 2006 8:17 AM, by PZ Myers
The Florida Baptist Witness got various candidates for office to answer a few questions. They're bad questions, almost entirely focused on the issues of the religious right, but Katherine Harris clasped them to her bosom and ran with them. It's actually kind of creepy.
The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, 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's certainly isn't what God intended. So it's really important that members of the church know people's stands. It's really important that they get involved in campaigns. I said I'm going to run a campaign of integrity. I'm not going to run it like all of the campaigns that I've seen before…. And you know, it's hard to find people that are gonna behave that way in a campaign and be honorable that way in a campaign. But that's why we need the faithful and we need to take back this country. It's time that the churches get involved. Pastors, from the pulpit, can invite people to speak, not on politics, but of their faith. But they can discern, they can ask those people running for election, in the pulpit, what is your position on gay marriage? What is your position on abortion? That is totally permissible in 5013C organizations. They simply cannot endorse from the pulpit. And that's why I've gone to churches and I've spoken in four churches, five churches a day on Sunday and people line up afterwards because it's so important that they know. And if we don't get involved as Christians then how could we possibly take this back?
There's a kind of ahistorical cluelessness to telling Baptists that the separation of church and state is a lie…but then again, it seems that most Baptists nowadays are completely unaware of the history of the principle anyway.
I will tell you that everywhere I go throughout the state and even the nation, people say the pollsters, the politicians and spiritually--that Florida is the forerunner state. That what happens in Florida sets the trend for what happens nationally. And with this election, if Bill Nelson wins, it's going to be a very frightening proposition in 2008 in the presidential elections because whoever wins Florida will win the presidency. And he'll be in a position to largely influence. No other candidate can beat Bill Nelson except for me. No one even has a chance because of name identification and fund raising abilities and things like that. But the real issue is why should Baptists care, why should people care? 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. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin 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. …
So, should we take the words "whoever wins Florida will win the presidency" as a confession? Does anyone believe that Harris was an impartial official overseeing the 2000 election anymore? I suspect she believes that God did not choose Al Gore.
I believe that in Katherine Harris we have finally found someone more insane, more deluded, and more ignorant than GW Bush. I insist that the Republican party continue their trend and make her their next presidential candidate, because crazy as she is, she personifies the Republican party platform. The other candidates, such as LeRoy Collins, clearly have not drunk enough of the kool-aid.
I will regret this if she wins, of course, but I'll just have to console myself with the fact that God chooses our rulers.
Comments
Posted by: Sean | August 28, 2006 8:32 AM
A new fundamentalist we have found.
Posted by: Kleyau | August 28, 2006 8:36 AM
I would say this makes a great case to label the religious as mentally ill. They're certainly creepy enough.
Posted by: pastor maker | August 28, 2006 8:38 AM
Well, I for one plan to switch from Absolut to Katherine Harris's blessed kabbalah water.It seems to offer more bang for your bucks.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | August 28, 2006 8:41 AM
Y'know, there's a persistent rumor to the effect that Harris got the Secretary of State job because she was sleeping with Jeb Bush. After reading this article, the story's that much more gross--and plausible.
Posted by: nerf | August 28, 2006 9:02 AM
She's got a nice set of tits tho. I don't mind looking at her when she thrusts them sweater puppies out in an effport to mesmerize me. She should do porn.
Posted by: Julia | August 28, 2006 9:15 AM
"There's a kind of ahistorical cluelessness to telling Baptists that the separation of church and state is a lie...but then again, it seems that most Baptists nowadays are completely unaware of the history of the principle anyway."
Yes, it's very sad to see modern Baptists joining those who push for a conflation of church and state. As for Harris's views on gay marriage, these are not only a conflation of state with religion, but with her own personal very narrow religious views, as there are Christian groups that support gay marriage.
I sometimes wish the government would get out of the marriage business entirely. It seems to me that as so many religious groups, not just Christians, view marriage as a joining together done by God, we are hopelessly confusing religion and government by having government involved in marriage at all.
What if government restricted itself to domestic legal partnerships, giving all the benefits presently given to married people, that could be entered into by any two people whether involved in a sexual relationship or not? For example, two single friends each with children, or an elderly brother and sister, would be able to support and help each other in one household through such a domestic partnership with the benefits of what is now called government sanctioned "marriage." Perhaps there are problems with this partnership concept that I'm not seeing, but I do wonder if marriage itself, as presently set up, isn't a breach of that wall of separation of church and state.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | August 28, 2006 9:16 AM
"She should do porn"
She does do porn. It's religio-political porn, a twisted overblown plunge into the steamy innards of her soul.
Posted by: Steve Watson | August 28, 2006 9:22 AM
And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and...
No we don't, Kathy.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 28, 2006 9:22 AM
I always wish that. It was a great historical mistake for the state to take over the church's role of "blessing" marriages. Civil unions should be all that anybody gets from the civil authorities, and whatever (fairly minimalist) requirements are set for them should not include any mention of gender. The churches would then be free to define "marriage" in any way that suits them, with no need for the rest of us to take any notice.Posted by: Adam Ierymenko | August 28, 2006 9:28 AM
Go back to Iran, theocrat!
America, love it or leave it!
Posted by: Matt M | August 28, 2006 9:42 AM
I heard a new (to me) phrase on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, on Saturday.
"Katherine Harris crazy." It is a special kind of public nuttiness, by a public figure.
Posted by: Aaron Whitby | August 28, 2006 9:52 AM
"..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.."
If God picks the winner anyway why does she need to get involved? I guess God paged her a text message that this was her calling, or more likely her destiny, one of my least favourite words and one that crops up all the time in mainstream culture as an excuse for over-rewarded vacuity or as a salve for tragedy (and an excuse for the avoidance of action).
Posted by: rrt | August 28, 2006 10:11 AM
Did anyone else notice that her first sentence seems to mean that the Bible wants us to be sodium vapor lamps? And there are two bonuses: One, we'll all be the same, walking the straight-and-narrow in our lockstep, flickering-sickly-orange-detail-obscuring glory, just as God wanted! And two, it's proof of the infallibility of the Bible--God predicted modern electrical lighting methods!
Posted by: nerf | August 28, 2006 10:12 AM
"She does do porn. It's religio-political porn, a twisted overblown plunge into the steamy innards of her soul."
I see what you mean, but I mean the good porn. You know, Tupperware Party Dirty Snachez Cleveland Steamer type hardcore action. Get her begging for votes with every hole...
Posted by: Barry Leiba | August 28, 2006 10:42 AM
Kind of? Nay, very. Here's what I said about it on Saturday. The summary?: "We have got to get these nutjobs out of office!"Posted by: Rienk | August 28, 2006 10:47 AM
Yes, "they" will pass the mandatory gay sex friday bill, the you evolved from a monkey law and the abort your first conceived amendment... "vote for Fundamentalist Christianityâ„¢ so you can remain as ignorant as you want!"
Does anyone get sick, physically ill, when hearing these fundamentalists speak? I got a severe case of Stupidity Overdose Syndrome yesterday evening when I actually watched "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" and now Katherine "integrity to unlawfully hijack elections" Harris is at it. I need some ibuprofen, stat.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 28, 2006 10:55 AM
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Einstein
Posted by: Steve_C | August 28, 2006 11:19 AM
I heard that on Wait wait too...
Katie Holmes has gone Katherine Harris crazy and married Tom Cruise! hehehe
Harris is a nutjob. She will not win. Nelson has it in the bag.
Posted by: Daniel DiRito | August 28, 2006 11:51 AM
See a tongue-in-cheek visual of two of Florida's finest...Katherine Harris & Anita Bryant...here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Posted by: False Prophet | August 28, 2006 12:18 PM
Actually, we do, and it shares the shit out of us.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 28, 2006 12:24 PM
Scares alot of americans too.
Posted by: everstar | August 28, 2006 12:57 PM
Why, why, why does this woman have my name?!
Posted by: Max Udargo | August 28, 2006 1:01 PM
I've wondered why this person stubbornly persists when she's obviously not going to win and she's lost the support of her party and can't keep a campaign staff for more than a month. The answer, I think, is that she believes God has promised her a victory. She thinks she can ignore all the empirical evidence and just keep going and in the end God's going to provide a miracle.
I'd sure like to see her concession speech, but I don't think she's ever going to give one. What is she going to do when God fails to provide? I wonder if she'll ever be able to admit it to herself.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 28, 2006 1:04 PM
God obviously doesn't think she's ready. hehe.
I'm sure Nelson will thank god when he wins.
Posted by: Greco | August 28, 2006 2:35 PM
And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God
Steve Watson already said it, but I feel I should repeat it: no, we don't.
Posted by: Chris | August 28, 2006 2:50 PM
Given our current rulers, the idea that God chose them is a potent argument for Satanism.
Posted by: Greco | August 28, 2006 2:50 PM
Just to clarify: in my comment above I interpreted Harris's sentence to mean that "shining city on a hill" nonsense. If, as I believe was the case of False Prophet, you take it to mean "crap, how long till these nuts start a crusade against us?", then oh, yeah.
Posted by: George Cauldron
|
August 28, 2006 2:53 PM
I'd sure like to see her concession speech, but I don't think she's ever going to give one. What is she going to do when God fails to provide?
Simple: if she loses, Satan is responsible. If she wins, God did that.
Ta-dah!
Posted by: Max Udargo | August 28, 2006 3:03 PM
Ta-dah!
Yep. If our prayers are answered, God is great. If our prayers are not answered, God is great.
It's good to be God.
Posted by: Davis | August 28, 2006 4:45 PM
Lindsay Beyerstein's comment on that speech:
"If Katherine Harris believes that God picks our leaders, she's going to take her crushing defeat pretty hard."
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 29, 2006 12:57 AM
"The Bible says we are to be salt and light."
You lost me in 10 words, Kathy.
"And that's why I've gone to churches and I've spoken in four churches, five churches a day on Sunday and people line up afterwards because it's so important that they know."
Important enough to...break the Sabbath?
I do have to wonder what her speeches to more moderate voters sound like. Does she turn down the crazy? Does she have to?
Posted by: Loren Petrich | August 29, 2006 2:02 AM
Is she claiming that God fixes elections?
Becuase if it isn't the electorate but God choosing leaders, that's what God would have to be doing.
If that isn't off-the-wall, I don't know what is.
Posted by: Joshua | August 29, 2006 6:56 AM
Divine Right of Presidents! Woo!
Posted by: lurker333 | August 29, 2006 10:04 AM
"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's certainly isn't what God intended."
OK, so all-knowing all-powerful god uses his infinite knowledge and infinite power of convoluted planning to get whoever he wants in to office whenever he wants for any reason he wants, even though no reasonable person would understand those "reasons". ...unless we tricky atheists are too smart and powerful for him.
That's some good sound logic there, miss demented fuckwit.
It's a good thing that god didn't know I'd notice this obvious flaw in their view of reality. What? Unable to connect to server? It's a miracle!
Posted by: nashtbrutusandshort | August 29, 2006 1:55 PM
I don't believe for a moment that Katherine Harris even believes in God. She's just a politically desperate narcissist -- and, with her campaign crashing and burning, she's taken a page from the Karl Rove playbook and started pandering to the fundies. Hey, they're most of the 1/3 or so of the people in polls who still support President Bystander; maybe they'll fall for her hokum, too.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | August 30, 2006 6:41 PM
Rienk: I don't get ill, but I do get unusually angry ... which is bad enough for me ...
"God is the one who chooses our rulers"? Even Bill Clinton?? :)
Posted by: arensb | September 2, 2006 10:40 PM
Max Udargo:
In Ellis Weiner's Doon, the hero, Paul Agamemnides, decides to go into religion because "what could be better than a business in which the customer blames himself for product failure?"
Posted by: arensb | September 2, 2006 10:44 PM
Whom do you see as her running-mate? I suggest Alan Keyes.Failing that, there's John Ashcroft, who has a proven track record, in that he lost an election to a dead guy.
Posted by: Steve_C | September 7, 2006 11:31 AM
Yeah!!!! She won the primary!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPxAMd3fJzY
Looks like Nelson is a shoe-in.