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Christian separatist readying move to new homeland

The leader of a small group that ultimately wants to secede from the United States and form a Christian republic is preparing to move to the South Carolina county his organization has picked as a good base of operations.



Cory Burnell, leader of Christian Exodus, said he has found a job and is ready to move his family and operations by July from California to Anderson, in the state's northwest corner.

His family, which includes his wife and three children, will join more than a dozen other like-minded families already living in the Upstate region of South Carolina. Burnell said he expects another two dozen families in his movement to move to the area by 2008.

Christian Exodus aims to claim a voice in the South Carolina state government, and eventually secede from the United States to form its own separate Christian republic.

The group is a political organization, Burnell says, that also seeks to limit the power of the federal government. Burnell claims federal oversight of education, health and human services and housing and urban development violate the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"It's totally illegal for the federal government to do it," said Burnell, a financial adviser. "Authority for those programs is on the state level. It cannot come out of Washington, it has to come out of Columbia."

Burnell's hope in encouraging other families to move to South Carolina is to put up candidates for public office who share his agenda and get them elected.

Burnell has said he picked South Carolina - and the Upstate area in particular - because there already were so many conservative Christians there.