Why Florida should not elect Katherine Harris for US Senator

If the most recent reports are true concerning a comment made by Republican Florida Congresswoman and Senate hopeful, Katherine Harris, about the election of non-Christians to political office, Florida needs to send a message that religious intolerance is unacceptable.

I should say that I am a staunch believer of Reagan and Lincoln. Both Presidents advocated for common sense approach to critical issues of their days. Reagan believed that tax dollars needed to be spent on legitimate government expenditure, like missile defense, than on pork barrel projects, like the Big Dig in Boston. Lincoln believed in tolerance of all things from race to religion to homosexuality and that intolerance was not to the American way of life.

There are Republicans that deserves re-election no matter what, like Senator Arlen Specter of PA, and than there are Republicans who should be drafted into the military and sent to Iraq for the remainder of their natural lives, like Katherine Harris.

In the 2000 election I believe that Harris had the right stuff to be in national politics. Six years later, Harris proved that she and the current Republican Party is the most dangerous threat to the freedoms and civil liberties that many Americans fought and died for in centuries past. Frankly I am amazed that the six years of this Administration, candidates for Republican Party now openly advocates religious intolerance and a return to 16th and 17th Century Inquisitions. She said that, "If you are not electing Christians, than you are legislating sin." Her words are not just offensive, her words invoke the memory of the Inquisitions and a call for another St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Unfortunately, if Harris is elected to a position of any substantial power, she will make the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 and the Spanish Inquisitions look like a picnic.

In her opinion, electing Christians is not nearly enough, she wants to elect Christians from the religious right and people who are willing to sacrifice civil liberties in the name of Christianity. This is not just Protestants against Catholics. This is about belonging to the right Christian sect that advocates her political beliefs. Anti-abortion. Anti-Darwinism. With politicians like her in office, America will witness the greatest threat in history - the repression of knowledge. Remember the Catholic Church has made this mistake when it denounced the findings of Galileo; I urge all Americans to embrace the belief that knowledge is power and that only knowledge will ensure the freedom of humanity.