Nation IN BRIEF : ALABAMA : Lawmaker Says Bible Justifies Slavery

A white Republican state senator running for Congress wrote a speech in which he argued that slavery is justified by the Bible and was good for blacks. Charles Davidson, 61, had prepared the speech for a Senate debate over his proposal to fly the Confederate battle flag over the Capitol. Davidson cited the Book of Leviticus--”You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you”--and quoted 1 Timothy as saying slaves should “regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.” “The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all of time, were servants better treated or better loved than they were in the Old South by white, black, Hispanic and Indian slave owners,” Davidson wrote.