Conservative columnist and former Reagan administration aide Douglas MacKinnon is out with a new book calling for Southern states to secede…again.

While speaking yesterday with Janet Mefferd about his book, “The Secessionist States of America: The Blueprint for Creating a Traditional Values Country…Now,” MacKinnon called for a movement of states, starting with South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, to establish a new country that will adhere to the Religious Right’s political agenda.

Texas, MacKinnon explained, was not included in his secessionist blueprint because “there have been a number of incursions into Texas and other places from some of the folks in Mexico.”

He added that the South had “seceded legally” and “peacefully” during the Civil War, but greedy Northerners like President Lincoln “waged an illegal war that was in fact not declared against the South after the South basically did what we’re talking about in this book now in terms of peacefully, legally and constitutionally leaving the union.”

After lamenting that “for whatever reason the leaders that we’re picking are deciding not to stand firmly for traditional values,” MacKinnon repeated his view that a new country should be formed, and even proposed an “interim name” for the ultraconservative breakaway nation: “Reagan.”

MacKinnon specifically cited advances in gay rights as a reason for Southern states to leave the U.S. and create a new country.

MacKinnon strongly defended the South for its role in what he called “The War Between The States,” saying that Religious Right activists should endorse the secessionist movement as a way to “protect our faith.”