South Carolina is separatists' promised land? I imagine they are big Chimpy McFlightsuit supporters? COLUMBIA, S.C. - A Texas group wants conservative Christians to move to South Carolina - 12,000 at a time - to form a biblically inspired government and secede from the United States. Decrying a national tolerance of abortion and gay marriage as well as the teaching of evolution, ChristianExodus.org hopes to achieve a majority of like-minded Christians in the state by 2016, the planned year of secession. Scholars say the group is symptomatic of a rise of separatist sentiment that is particularly strong in the South. But local government and Christian leaders are less worried about the group's achieving its goal of independence than by the movement's impact on South Carolina's image. ... And who are they? ... ChristianExodus.org's leader is Cory Burnell, a 28-year-old who lives in Tyler, Texas, where he teaches at a local Christian school and runs a coffee shop and mobile-phone store. Previously, Burnell directed a Texas regional branch of the League of the South, the country's largest secessionist organization. Burnell says ChristianExodus.org, founded in November, has 600 members nationwide, connected through the group's Web sites (www.christianexodus.com and www.christian exodus.org). The group is basically unknown to South Carolina's government and religious leaders. And it is not being officially tracked by such watchdog groups as the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist activity in the country.