The first announced Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state. According to the Associated Press, former state representative Dan Severson will announce later today that he is challenging Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in the state Capitol after running unsuccessfully for Secretary of State in 2010. During his race for Secretary of State, Severson told religious broadcaster Brad Brandon of Word of Truth Radio that the separation of church and state “just does not exist.”

Andy Birkey of The Minnesota Independent reports:

“Quite often you hear people say, ‘What about separation of church and state?’ There is no such thing,” Severson told Brandon. “I mean it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation.”

He continued, “We are a nation based on Christian principles and ideals, and those are the things that guarantee our liberties. It is one of those things that is so fundamental to the freedoms that we have that when you begin to restrict our belief and our attestation to our Christian values you begin to restrict our liberties.”

He added, “You simply cannot continue a nation as America without that Christian base of liberty.”

Severson says voters must know his position on the matter.

“Look, this is what I stand for. If you don’t like that, don’t vote for me, and then the majority of the people will have their voice heard,” he said. “It’s wrong for politicians to do one thing on the campaign trail to get the vote and do exactly the opposite once they get to office. To me that is an impeachable offense.”