by Leslie Robinson
Do you remember an organization called "Christian Exodus?"
Sounds like something Charlton Heston should lead, doesn't it? I can see him in a TV ad demanding, "Pharaoh, let my people have guns!"
Heston isn't connected with Christian Exodus. Not many people are connected with it. But it turns out this organization, which I hadn't heard anything about for more than a year, still plans to take over the state of South Carolina and, among other things, rid it of gay people.
That is a plan so grandiose it makes Moses look like an underachiever.
According to its Web site, Christian Exodus, founded in 2003, "seeks a return to constitutionally limited government founded upon Christian principles."
All together now: "Danger, Will Robinson!"
Christian Exodus believes local politics is the way to achieve this goal, so it's aiming to move thousands of Christian constitutionalists from around the country to one state and flood the ballot box.
The board of directors chose South Carolina because South Carolinians and Exodus's membership possess similar values, and the Palmetto State "possesses a rich history of standing up for her rights."
Presumably that's a salute to South Carolina for being the first to secede from the Union, and firing on those pesky Ft. Sumter Yankees.
The first phase of the plan, now underway, is to move 100 activists into a selected county. These 100 "pioneers," plus local Christians, will enable constitutionalists to capture the city council, county council, law enforcement positions and judgeships by 2009.
In Phase Two members do the same in another county, and so on until momentum puts the state legislature in their hands. By 2018 the federal government's "tyranny" is rejected, the state reclaims its "proper autonomy," and "God-honoring governance" returns to America.
Sign me up. For a boat to Singapore.
Finally, if the greedy, grabby U.S. government still insists on control over areas the 10th Amendment so transparently gives to the states, then South Carolina will secede. Again.
I kept Christian Exodus info from a couple of years ago, and it's clear these folks have adjusted their expected numbers a few times, suggesting they haven't found as many migratory lemmings as they'd hoped. Still, Columbia City Paper noted the group claims to have 1,400 members with almost 200 activists now treading the sacred South Carolina soil.
Christian Exodus knows that potential emigres need employment, so the group woos employers. No matter how ferocious a person's longing to convert South Carolina into a theocracy, zealotry just doesn't pay the bills.
Disciples needn't worry about their leader on that score. Cory Burnell reported in the latest newsletter that he has begun a new job. Now his family will find a home in Anderson County, leaving unredeemable California behind.
What would South Carolina look like as Eden? Christian Exodus would ban abortion, divorce and pornography. Schools couldn't teach "the discredited theory of Darwinian evolution." And because Christian Exodus believes Americans are denied the right to be sufficiently armed to restrain tyranny, fully automatic weapons would grow on palmetto trees.
As to homosexuality, well, I think you can guess. Banned!
On its homepage, Christian Exodus decries that, "Sodomy is now legal and celebrated as 'diversity' by order of the U.S. Supreme Court rather than condemned as perversion."
Burnell told City Paper he would ignore Lawrence v. Texas–guilty as it is of violating the 10th Amendment–and instead observe the South Carolina law against "buggery," which Lawrence had overruled.
As if LGBT South Carolinians didn't have it tough already. Now they have to face cavemen on a mission from God to take over their state. Me, I'd like to see Jesus return now–and give those Christian Exodus carpetbaggers a piece of his mind.
