Did you notice this part?

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

The judge is pretty clearly denouncing these people as religious hypocrites.

I liked the anticipation, in the end, that he'd be called activist and how he dealt with it:

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."


Ann Althouse

On Dec 20, 2005, at 10:33 AM, Paul Finkelman wrote:

Perhaps it is a holiday gift for those who celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the son of the intelligent designer but don't think that the intelligent design plan was really a science project?

Which leads me to the quesiton, isn't the whole concept of "intelligent design" ultimately blasphemous, and shouldn't people who are biblical literalists be more offended by "intelligent design" than evolution? After all, evolution simply says ignore (or believe in) scripture as you choose, but here is the "science."  But, advocates of "intelligent design" argue for a religious basis for change and the development of the earth that is clearly at odds with scripture.

Is the push for "intelligent design" sort of like the outcome in Lynch v,. Donnelly -- that in order to get religion on the public square you have to mock it by cluttering the nativity scene with clowns candy canes and Santa Claus?  Thus, in oder to get religion into the science class you hae to reject the scriptural account of creation and offer some sort of faux theory of religion that is neither religious nor scientific.

Paul Finkelman

Ed Brayton wrote:
If you can't get the decision from the court's website, it is available at:
It's a big, big win for the plaintiffs. A very broad ruling, exactly what the plaintiffs wanted.
Ed Brayton
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-- 
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499

918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)


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