Former Governor of Vermont and Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean has found Jesus. Or rather, rediscovered Him when the polls showed it expedient to discuss for the sake of Southern voters. So Dean has trotted out a bizarre journey that has him brought up Catholic, marrying a Jewish woman, converting to Episcopalian and then finally resting on the sinking ground of Congregationalism. The reason he left the Episcopalians? They opposed a bike path around Lake Champlain. The compromise he considered in marriage? For both to convert to Unitarians. In fact, his recent support for homosexual unions comes from his theology. Maybe he should have stayed with the Episcopalians a while longer.

Dr. Dean also has political baggage concerning abortion and, after serving as a Board member, was named Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger award winner. Ms. Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, believed in purifying the race through eugenics and advocated birth control and forced sterilization to balance the "fit" from the "unfit." The people Sanger considered unfit were "all non-aryan people." She wrote "Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race" and that inferior races were "human weeds."

Time will tell how palatable this is to Southern Christian voters.