Christian Exodus

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Christian Exodus (the brainchild of math teacher Cory Burnell) is a group promoting a mass emigration of Christian fundamentalists to South Carolina in hopes of influencing the governmental process and creating a state wide theocracy in the United States. It has announced intentions to move people to selected cities and counties of South Carolina in stages, with each stage timed to influence a particular election cycle. They hope to eventually move more than 50,000 people. The group is somewhat secretive, as it does not reveal the two counties to which it plans to move 2,500 of its members.

[edit] Beliefs

According to their literature, Christian Exodus believes that the United States has strayed from its founding vision, and they refer to their program as "restoring" and "protecting" the nation and the Constitution. In particular, they focus on the following areas of concern, which would generally be classified as ultraconservative.

To oppose the increasing acceptance of homosexuality, and especially of civil unions or outright gay marriage. The group appears to go as far as seeking to outlaw all sexual conduct outside of a traditional heterosexual marriage.
To restore state-mandated school prayer.
To repeal Federal and State laws that they believe violate the right to keep and bear arms.
To repeal court rulings that they feel abuse the power of eminent domain, and that they fear will lead to arbitrary seizure.
They fear laws will soon be passed defining the practice of Christianity as a hate crime.
They feel the rights of fathers are not upheld in child custody cases.
They argue against the validity of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that states must provide due process of law, and that everybody born in the United States is a citizen.
They advocate repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permits the taxation of all forms of income by the Federal Government.
They advocate repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires popular election of Senators.
They advocate that the states should have power to prohibit the immigration and/or naturalization of such persons as each sees fit to exclude.

Christian Exodus has not ruled out seceding from the United States. South Carolina was picked because they believe that it has a high chance of seceding again due to the fact that it was listed in the Treaty of Paris as a sovereign nation. In this respect, however, South Carolina is not unique: all thirteen colonies were individually named as independent states in Article I of the treaty. (See also Republic of Hawaii, Republic of Texas, Republic of Vermont and Bear Flag Republic (California)).

[edit] History and affiliations

Christian Exodus sprung up after the Free State Project, which is a libertarian group that aims to move many libertarians to a single state, held their state vote in which New Hampshire was chosen. Christian Exodus' founding documents contained language very similar to that in the Free State Project's Statement of Intent and Participation Guidelines, but Burnell has aimed recruiting at an ideologically different segment of the population. The immediate impetus for Christian Exodus was the decision by the League of the South leadership not to pursue an analogous "Confederate state project" for the South, as proposed on the Dixie Daily News website.

The organization also has close links to the Constitution Party. Its website reads, "All of our Board members are Constitution Party members, and approximately 2/3 of our membership. Certainly the Constitution Party shares our beliefs and principles more than any other political party, and Christian Exodus will work diligently to promote and support the Constitution Party." [1].