I have a concern that in winning court battles, secularists have been putting themselves at a significant disadvantage.

We have been giving our opponents ammunition that they can use to fund the idea that secular laws are bad laws, and to hate the judges and politicians who defend those laws.

We have been neglecting an important part of that campaign -- the part in which we explain to the people why these laws are good laws, and why they should be defended.

Judge Jones provided an excellent defense of the idea that Intelligent Design should not be taught as science. However, most people will not read that opinion, and will conclude that Judge Jones was just another activist judge defending bad law. That is, unless we go to the effort of explaining to our friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and members of our individual communities why Judge Jones was right.

Last night PBS' NOW aired an in-depth piece about the effort of the Kansas Attorney General  to mandate reporting of any sexual activity of people under the age of 16. This action could have a chilling affect on agencies such as Planned Parenthood, or on school personnel as young people stop seeking help for fear of being reported. Ironically, it would end up increasing teen-age pregnancies, abortions and STDs.

It occurred to me while listening to a Fox News debate on the so-called "War on Christmas" that the Religious Christian Right arguments assume many things that might never occur to us (or most people). Typical of their speeches and messages, they include many ideas and terms that mean very different things within their community, but just fly right by when hurled in public and media debates. It's important to understand these phrases and attitudes, EVEN IF THEY DON'T, so that we can then set them - and the mainstream public - straight.

Hugh Urban in his article "America 'Left Behind,'" and Talk To Action's own Michelle Goldberg in her article "Fundamentally Unsound," provide excellent, must-read examinations of the wildly popular Left Behind series of conservative evangelical Christian fiction, which is also becoming a series of films.

On November 30th Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel published an op-ed in USA Today, under the headline, `Intelligent design': What do scientists fear? Let's have a public debate on the merits.  

Patricia Princehouse, a biology professor at Case Western University in Ohio says, bring it on. But not in the elementary schools: how about between scientists at a major university?

I just opened my end-of-the-year fundraising appeal from Focus on the Family, one of the biggest and best-financed of the Christian right organizations, whose chairman, James Dobson, is widely seen as a major star in the Christian right firmament. The letter says that in September, FOF had to lay off 84 employees and cancel 83 open job postings as a result of a "shortfall in income." According to Dobson, this was "the first time in our history that we have had a 'reduction in force' of that magnitude."

What does this mean? Did Dobson's decision to launch at 501(c)4 political arm to support Bush's reelection bid drain funds from his main operation? Will Focus on the Family soon be applying for grants for Bush's Faith-Based Initiative?

I have previously reported on Talk2Action regarding similarities between dominionist groups practicing "deliverance ministry" and Scientology.  Most of the similarities so far have been with dogma, along with occasional demonisation of critics.

I must now add one more similarity to the list--both groups are now engaged in suing critics and ISPs of critics in order to shut dissent down by specifically abusing trademark and copyright law.

DefCon board member Lawrence Krauss will be the guest on Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson tonight (Dec 21), discussing yesterdays groundbreaking Dover decision.

Krauss, a physics professor at Case Western, was a scientific adviser to the plaintiff team in the Dover trial. Gibson, on the other hand is the author of "The War on Christmas" which has made recent headlines thanks to fellow Fox host Bill O'Reilly' comments.

The interview is scheduled to begin around 8:10 p.m. eastern time.  Hope you can tune in.

Chris Ortiz, communications director of the Chalcedon Foundation would like to have it both ways. He acknowledges that he went too far in posting what I characterized as "eliminationist rhetoric" against liberal Christians in a recent blog post, and he graciously changed some of his more inflammatory rhetoric.  Much less graciously, however, he characterizes my concerns as "deceptive."

Chris says that if he had intended to call for elimination, he would have done so. I'll take him at his word on that. By the same standard, I hope he will accept that if I had intended to deceive anyone I would not have quoted his text in its entirety, linked to it, explained my concerns in some detail and then emailed a note to him about what I had written. I believed that he probably did not mean his words to be as inflammatory -- as they most certainly were.

Recently, I've been posting not just on spiritually abusive tactics used by dominionist groups but--in putting the "action" to the "talk"--I've been posting ways we can fight back in making sure dominionists don't get the money to subvert the government.

Previously I've discussed companies that fund dominionism (and in some cases are dominionists themselves), and the abuse of "charity programs" by dominionist groups.

Today, I'm going to discuss another method of fighting back against the supporters of dominionism in the business community--and in a twist, we'll be using part of the parallel economy to hoist them by their own petard.

I hear the discussion over the public display of the Ten Commandments, a Jewish and Christian religious symbol. I don't understand the issue, either from a religious or a secular point of view.

In a wonderful turn of events Judge John E. Jones has ruled against the teaching of intelligent design. According to Jones, intelligent design is not science and deserves no place in PA science classrooms.

For a more in depth look into the 139 page decision, head to the National Center for Science Education site.

This is a big, big day for our children and our country!

Congrats to all!