I was skimming over the news and started thinking about the legal fight over the Dover, Pennsylvania school board's desire to include “Intelligent Design” in their curriculum as if it's valid science.

According to one nutjob, Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an attorney representing the Dover school district, “This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda. Dover's modest curriculum change embodies the essence of liberal education.”

Bullshit. It's smoke and mirrors. When you go to the Thomas More Law Center's web site, they state that “The Thomas More Law Center is a not-for-profit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians.”

Hmm. Enough said, I believe.

In the final analysis, it seems to me that any religion that has to repackage its message in order to slip it by the general public and get it into the public discourse has essentially invalidated itself. How seriously can you take it when the religion and its precepts and foundation can't speak for itself?

This issue is the educational equivalent of what the the Religous Right did so successfully in 80's and 90's when their operatives would run for school boards as moderates or even liberals, misrepresenting and hiding their political views, in order to be elected. Once they were elected to the school board, the masks came off and Right-Wing Conservatives were suddenly in control, pushing a Religious Right agenda and trying desperately to control the religious and political discourse of the country by indoctrinating the young.

Same deal. Different plan. Same bullshit.