MIAMI (AP) – U.S. Congressmember Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is “a lie” and God and America’s founding fathers did not intend the country to be “a nation of secular laws.”

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will “legislate sin,” including abortion and same-sex marriage.

Harris made the comments – which she clarified Aug. 26 – in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.

Separation of church and state is “a lie we have been told,” Harris said in the interview, saying separating religion and politics is “wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”

“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,” Harris said.

Her comments drew criticism, including some from fellow Republicans who called them offensive and not representative of the party.

Congressmember Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who is Jewish, told the Orlando Sentinel that she was “disgusted” by the comments.

Harris’ campaign released a statement on Aug. 26 saying she had been “speaking to a Christian audience, addressing a common misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government.”

The comments reflected “her deep grounding in Judeo-Christian values,” the statement said, adding that Harris had previously supported pro-Israel legislation and legislation recognizing the Holocaust.

Harris, 49, faced widespread criticism for her role overseeing the 2000 presidential recount as Florida’s secretary of state.

State Republican leaders – including Gov. Jeb Bush – do not think she can win against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in November. Fund-raising has lagged, frustrated campaign workers have defected in droves and the issues have been overshadowed by news of her dealings with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

NEW YORK (AP) – John Wilson, a founding member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association who held editing positions at several newspapers, including The New York Times, has died at age 56.

Wilson collapsed and died in his Manhattan apartment on Aug. 25. His partner, Richard Poirier, told the Times the cause may have been heart attack or stroke.

Wilson was a West Virginia native and a graduate of Marshall University.

He worked as an editor at The Detroit News; The Rockford Register News, in Ill.; The Washington Times; The Miami Herald; and The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

In 1998, he joined The New York Times as an editor in the science section. His official title there was “assistant to the science editor.”

Wilson’s membership card in the gay and lesbian journalists association bore the number “four,” and he was considered a leader, though he never held a formal office.

CRANSTON (AP) – U.S. Senate candidate Stephen Laffey said he regrets that he wrote columns denigrating gays when he was a college student.

Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, R.I., acknowledged writing the columns in a story published Aug. 26 in the Providence Journal. The paper reported that it received copies of the columns anonymously in the mail earlier in the week.

Laffey, 44, running a closely watched race against moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, said whoever sent the articles wanted to smear him before the Sept. 12 primary. He called the writings “sophomoric political satire” and said they do not represent his views.

“Do I regret some of these things? Sure,” he said. “But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”

The Republican candidate wrote them in 1983 and 1984 while studying at Bowdoin College in Maine. The articles appeared in a paper published by campus Republicans.

In one column, Laffey said he has never seen a happy homosexual.

“This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet,” he wrote. “All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.”

In another column he wrote that pop music was turning the children of America into sissies, and criticized the singer Boy George, referring to him as “it.”

“It wears girl’s clothes and puts on makeup,” he wrote. “When I hear it sing, ‘Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,’ I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs.”

KNOXVILLE (AP) – A former Roane County judge who pleaded guilty to extortion charges says his wife’s affair with a woman made him distraught and led him to take kickbacks from two driving schools where he sent traffic offenders.

Thomas Austin, 58, a general sessions judge since 1978, who pleaded guilty in March to three counts of extortion, claims his second wife’s affair drove him to force the kickbacks from men he helped pick to head up a traffic school and probation office.

Austin’s wife acknowledged during marital counseling last year to having a year-long involvement with the woman, according to a memorandum filed by Austin’s attorney Greg Isaacs.

Isaacs said Austin sought medical help for depression and he began drinking heavily despite earlier struggles with alcohol: “All of the charges that are included in this indictment occurred after this difficult and tumultuous period in Mr. Austin’s personal life.”

Austin, who resigned after his arrest in January, faces up to 20 years in prison on the three federal charges and is set to be sentenced Sept. 7. Prosecutors say about four years behind bars is most likely.

Isaacs and Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Atchley have both filed memorandums with U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips prior to the sentencing hearing.

Isaacs says Austin’s admitted extortion was a temporary lapse of judgment in an otherwise stellar career of public service.

Atchley counters, however, that an FBI probe shows Austin used his power to line his own pockets for nearly a decade.

Austin has admitted taking roughly $14,000 in kickbacks in a six-month period in 2005. He was accused of using his position as judge to extort a portion of proceeds from two driving schools in Roane County and a private probation firm.

An affidavit alleges that Austin had been extorting kickbacks for a decade and collected as much as $100,000.

FORT WORTH (AP) – A Texas pastor accused of raping a church member at his house last year after telling her she was possessed by a lesbian demon has been indicted. Leonard Ray Owens, 63, who is free on $25,000 bail, is now awaiting trial on a charge of sexual assault, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. He was arrested in November.

Police began investigating Owens last year after a 22-year-old woman reported that Owens raped her twice at his Fort Worth home. The woman told police that in July, several months after she began attending the Prayer House of Faith, she went to Owens’ home for counseling following a miscarriage.

Owens told her that a sex spirit and lesbian demon were inside her and needed to be cast out, police said. The pastor then asked her to lie on the floor and began yelling at her as if she were a demon, saying, “Loose her in the name of Jesus,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The woman told police that Owens pulled down her pants as he called for the demons to come out. When she tried to get up, he pushed her down, the affidavit said. The pastor then began to fight with her as if she were a demon before climbing on top of her, pinning her down, and raping her, police said.

Then Owens, a self-proclaimed prophet, ordered her to wash her face in the name of Jesus and to read Psalm 105:15, which says to do no harm to prophets, the woman told police. The woman told officers that Owens raped her again a month later, after he asked her to go to his house to pray for another woman.

Owens has denied having sexual contact with the woman, police said.

Olympia (AP) – Gay and lesbian couples on Aug. 29 asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider its endorsement of Washington’s same-sex marriage ban, saying the court’s flawed reasoning ignored legal protections against sex discrimination.

Such requests to the high court rarely are granted, but attorneys in the case said the stakes were too high to let the opportunity pass.

“We felt that we had to use every option available to us to show the justices the logic behind our arguments and how their decision, as it is currently reasoned, falls short,” said Nancy Sapiro of the Northwest Women’s Law Center, a plaintiffs’ attorney.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, issued in July, held that state lawmakers were justified in restricting marriage to unions between a man and woman.

That decision overruled two lower courts, which had found the state’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

Because there were no federal legal issues raised in the case, an appeal beyond the state Supreme Court is not an option – likely making its motion the last stand for same-sex marriage advocates in state court.