We joke about the “Taliban wing” of the Republican Party, but the truth is there are very few Americans, even within the right wing, who literally want to replace our liberal democracy with a Biblically-based Christian theocracy. They do, however, exist — and they have a plan.
At a time when evangelicals are exerting influence on the national political stage — having helped secure President Bush’s reelection — Christian Exodus believes that people of faith have failed to assert their moral agenda: Abortion is legal. School prayer is banned. There are limits on public displays of the Ten Commandments. Gays and lesbians can marry in Massachusetts.
Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff’s offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.
“We’re going to force a constitutional crisis,” said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.
“If necessary,” he said, “we will secede from the union.”
Now, I realize it may be tempting to tell these folks not to let the door hit them on the arse on the way out of the country, but there’s more to it than that. We’re talking about a group of people who want to turn South Carolina into a mini-Afghanistan.
Still, even if we put aside legal and practical concerns, I can’t help but wonder if these guys are all talk.
Every so often, some fringe group will announce a sweeping initiative whereby like-minded people will migrate to one location and launch a hostile takeover. It’s easier said than done.
A couple of years ago, it was hard-line libertarians who said they’d move to New Hampshire and set up a small-government utopia. The goal was to have 20,000 committed to relocating by 2006. How many have pledged to do so? About 6,600. How many have actually moved so far? About 100. The political establishment of the Granite State is not exactly feeling the effects.
Christian Exodus is poised to follow a similar path. A whopping total of five families have moved to South Carolina as part of this mass migration of fundamentalist theocrats. Burnell, the founder of the movement who’s talking about secession, still lives in Valley Springs, Calif. Hardly a good sign.
It’s not that I question their ability to force a constitutional crisis. If some communities in South Carolina decided stop following American law and start following a narrow interpretation of the Bible, they’d either have to secede or federal marshals would invariably have to go and tell these folks to knock it off.
But I’m pretty confident that they just won’t have the numbers.