who blogs at Dirigo Blue and Kennebec Blues.
Maine State Representative Mike McClellan (R-Raymond) informs the public in his own words in a letter to the editor published on the Fourth of July in the Kennebec Journal [letter link] on how and why he was sent to Augusta:
As a first-term legislator, I know my God sent me to Augusta to work for the people and state. I did not plan to seek this role. However Jesus has better plans and so here I am. I believe I am in Augusta to speak his name.
Representative McClellan's declarations come in response to an opinion piece written by David Offer in the Kennebec Journal titled: Public statements that favor one religion offend our freedoms.
It would be easy to try to delicately parse phrases to say that Representative McClellan can have his beliefs, should keep such separate from politics, et cetera but he preemptively professes that he basically does not subscribe to the separation of church and state:
In this past five months, I have pointed out during committee work multiple times that not all of us subscribe to the interpretation of separation of church and state. In fact I have never found those words in our Constitution.
In this case Representative McClellan has so entwined in his mind his private faith and public election by his own voluntary statement that he should be firmly rebuked and at any reelection run rejected by those who originally entrusted him with representing them not his self-perceived religious mission. A representative might be motivated by a religion to serve our state but Maine deserves representation that does serve a religion.
And as seen so often on the far right and within the tea party, Representative McClellan provides us with more proof that someone, even an elected official, can actually read the United States Constitution and utterly fail to understand at all.