THE CAROLINERS

When I first heard about the Christian Exodus movement last year, my reaction ranged from incredulity to the mandatory few laughs (it is funny, in a perverse manner). And I promptly forgot about it. Unfortunately, they have not forgotten about their quest for a pure, sanctified, Christian fundamentalist version of the United States in... South Carolina (yes, the same Carolina where until not long ago the Bob Jones University administration shamelessly prohibited interracial dating; which in turn leaves me frantically wondering, why would anyone think of attending such a school? Especially anyone non-WASPy?).

This past Sunday, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece on a family of five who recently relocated to South Carolina from Pennsylvania, and during the interview they and Cory Burnell (the founder of Christian Exodus) again talked about the possibility of secession - from the Union. According to them, two counties in the southern state have been identified by the movement as being prime candidates for their Christian takeover.

And now, the inevitable association (and again quoting my work colleague and political alter-ego): the last time something remotely similar came out of South Carolina, it wasn't really that successful...

Upon reading the piece, I decided to browse the Christian Exodus website and Cory Burnell's blog, and both confirmed that these people take themselves extremely seriously. Some of their favorite words are sodomites/sodomy, Satan (and proper derivations), sinfulness, and so forth. They also seem to dislike everybody outside of their movement (and that includes El Presidente, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts etc), and apparently no one is as righteous and as Christian as they should be. And on they rant.

In the end, they come across as a group of disgruntled fanatics whose leader lives with his family in California, of all places (who knows, maybe South Carolina is nothing but a diversion)... And interestingly enough, Christian Exodus is a non-profit organization incorporated in Texas.

In a non-Bush world, their talk of secession and Christian fundamentalism would hardly make the news. Under El Presidente, however, anything and everything is possible. In truth, his tenure is proving to be a case for the survival of free speech. If it is able to endure trials and tribulations of such "biblical" proportions, then those religious, xenophobic and conservative rantings will be all well worth it. If not, we'll have to find a way to shut these lunatics up because they are all undeniably mad, free speech aside. Actually, in the worst case scenario, they can have South Carolina. And we'll throw away the key.