Trailing by 35 points and running one of the more embarrassing Senate campaigns in recent memory, Rep. [tag]Katherine Harris[/tag] (R-Fla.) is bound to get on track one of these days, right? Perhaps, but that day does not appear to near.
In a lengthy interview with Florida Baptist Witness, struggling U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris asserts, among other things, that the separation of church and state is a fallacy.
“We have to have the faithful in government and over time,” the Witness quotes Harris as saying, “that lie we have been told, the [tag]separation of church and state[/tag], people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because [tag]God[/tag] is the one who chooses our rulers.”
Asked to explain why Baptists in Florida should care about the election, Harris said the fate of Western civilization depends on it, telling the religious publication, “If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin…. 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.”
Now, I can appreciate that Florida, while still competitive, may be leaning a bit into the “red” column, but if Harris is under the impression that the way to beat Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is to run as a female Jerry Falwell, it may help explain the position she’s in.
As it turns out, this is part of a pattern.
In March, for example, Harris told a radical TV preacher that she had studied under Francis Schaeffer, who is best known for calling on Christian activists to demand “biblical morality” in government affairs. She also explained that she “redirected my life to the Lord when I was only in the third grade,” and that God wanted her to enter politics.
Around the same time, as Harris campaign aides began feeling anxious about the future, the would-be senator took on spiritual adviser Dale Burroughs, founder of the Biblical Heritage Institute in Bradenton, as her closest confidante.
“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.
Burroughs has been advising Harris for years, but lately has had a more prominent role as Harris stopped listening to other campaign advisers…. Campaign staffers warily describe Harris as leading a “Christian crusade.”
And who can forget Harris’ interest in “celestial drops“?
Four years ago, as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees, officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying unproven methods would waste precious time and resources.
But for more than six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method — a very alternative method.
Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test “Celestial Drops,” promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its “improved fractal design,” “infinite levels of order” and “high energy and low entropy.” But the cure proved useless against canker. That’s because it was water — possibly, mystically blessed water.
Harris not only believed the mystically-blessed water could treat citrus canker, she used her office to repeatedly pressure state officials to work with “celestial drop” advocates.
One hesitates to casually throw around words like “nutjob,” but….