Tony Zirkle says we should talk about segregating the United States by race.

So then you work out the percent of white people and give them a certain number of states. Same for blacks. Same for Asians and other hues of humanity.

Zirkle, who’s seeking the Republican nomination for Congress’ 2nd District, believes it’s worth debating.

“I’m not going to say which side of the debate I fall on,” Zirkle told The Tribune on Monday. But he did say the idea is worth looking into - that segregation could create a new sense of community.

Zirkle is known for suggesting controversial ideas, as in 2006 when he said there should be a debate over using the guillotine to punish "porn pimps" who prey on children.

The whole issue of segregation came up in a recent interview with the Kokomo Perspective, a weekly paper.

He and the reporter were talking about Zirkle’s position that a permanent military base should be established in Southern Lebanon and that that part of the country should be made a Christian state.

The reporter said that “obviously desegregation has worked in countries like the United States.” And Zirkle interrupted.

“Well, has it?” Zirkle asked. “African-Americans in Indiana have 80 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate. Fifty percent of all African-Americans between 18 and 25 are in the criminal justice system. Is it working? I don’t know. You can’t say there is no argument to the contrary. Yes, there have been many advances, but there are still many problems.”

He went on to tell the Kokomo Perspective, “While we are brainwashed with respect to integration and forcing everyone to be together and basically all arguments to the contrary are silenced, historically it’s very often been the case that you have to segregate and apartheid people to stop the continual war.”

Both of Zirkle’s opponents denounced his statements.

Rep. Joe Donnelly is the Democrat against whom Zirkle would run.

Donnelly responded: "These comments are divisive, hateful and uninformed. They have no place in this campaign and I trust will be rejected by the voters.”

Luke Puckett, who faces Zirkle in the primary, also expressed opposition.

Trina Robinson, president of the South Bend branch of the NAACP responded: “Segregation has absolutely nothing to do with prison rates or unwed mothers.”

And it’s not just black women who are having kids out of wedlock, she said.

Rather, she said, the government has failed to provide opportunities for people to move beyond public-aid programs. And there aren’t the kind of jobs that provide an income so folks can rise out of poverty, she said.

“Until we end the disparities, we cannot consider being separate and expect to be equal,” she said.

“I don’t have enough facts to support it,” Zirkle said of his proposal, speaking with The Tribune. “I think it would need a congressional study to see if I support it. It may mean the cost of transferring people is too high.”

On the other hand, he said, maybe it could also save the costs of the crime rate - and reduce claims of racial profiling. Granted, he said, it could take a century for the move to really fall in place.

So how would you divvy up Hispanics?

You can pretty much lump them in with whites, he says.

What about black Latinos whose black roots go back several generations in Latin America? And what about the ever-growing number of mixed races?

“You’d have to let people declare what culture they want to be living in,” Zirkle said.

He pointed to Indian reservations as an example of segregation. But didn’t those work out poorly? Zirkle answered: “There are plenty of Indians living on the reservations today by their own choice. There’s a communal trend.”

Zirkle cited a Bible verse, Daniel 2:43, which states: “And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”

Zirkle said it’s easy to misinterpret the Bible, especially for use in public policy.

But he added, “I think it’s just as dangerous to misinterpret it as to ignore it.”

Puckett agreed with the Kokomo area’s Republican chairman, who said Zirkle’s comments had racist overtones.

“I think any lucid Hoosier would see that these comments are fringe lunatic comments,” said Bob Hayes, president of the Indiana Black Expo’s Kokomo Chapter, who spoke with the Kokomo paper. “I think there are people that have given their lives up, i.e. Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and many other people that fought for desegregation.”