Reagan Bumps Off Anti-Slavery Leader

From the religion and politics file: California's lone Unitarian lawmaker - Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), newly elected as secretary of state - has lost her battle to retain a statue of Thomas Starr King in the U.S. Capitol. (Who is that, you say?) The fight over King is a delicious behind-the-scenes battle over who best symbolizes California.

Every state gets to erect two statues of prominent civic, historical or religious leaders who best represent the spirit of the state. California is represented by a religious duo in Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.: King, the Unitarian minister and anti-slavery leader, and Father Junipero Serra.

King is being replaced by former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, thanks to a joint resolution approved last year by the California Legislature. (In 2000, Congress allowed each state to replace the statues in the hall, with veto power given to governors.) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger embraced the change, writing the Architect of the Capitol that Reagan "embodied and captured our nation's unmatched optimism and love of liberty."

Bowen says the whole thing was rushed through the Legislature and wrote Schwarzenegger urging him to block the statue change: "As you know, Rev. Thomas Starr King was an influential Unitarian minister, orator and advocate for preserving the Union and ending slavery during the Civil War. ... Later, President Abraham Lincoln credited Reverend Starr King with keeping California in the Union in the early days of the Civil War."

For my money, I'd replace the Serra statue. The diminutive Franciscan priest - who practiced mortification by whipping and burning his body - established nine California missions that shackled, whipped and essentially treated Indians as slaves after "converting" them at gunpoint.

(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)