Today there was an article in the paper about laws that went into effect today, and one of them immediately drew my attention.  This new law prohibits school boards, administrators and teachers from taking action (such as entering an agreement) "that interferes with the First Amendment rights of school staff and students".  According to the paper article ( http://www.theledger.com/article/20100630/NEWS/6305035/1374?p=2&a mp;tc=pg ) the law resulted from an agreement between Santa Rosa county and the ACLU regarding teacher-led prayers.  I looked into this law a bit more, and although the state was warned that it was unconstitutional and that the "prayers" being protected were coercive, they passed this law anyway.  So I looked into the law a bit, and found this about it ( http://www.au.org/what-we-do/legislative/legislative-blog/archive s/2010/03/hb-31-school-prayer-strikes-back-in-florida.html ).  In a nutshell, it prohibits administrators and teachers from trying to stop the coercive student-requested prayers (of which there are copious stories about how coercive they can be and how they often lead to conflict).

What gets me is that I keep hearing people saying that the Religious Right is dying or going downhill.  All they have to do is move to Florida and experience the atmosphere here- where if you leave your home, you have at least a 50/50 chance of having someone proselytize or preach at you, and where you will almost always encounter hateful anti-liberal/anti-(non-Christian)/anti-(minority/immigrant) messages and diatribes.  Even the local stores sell overt dominionist-message t-shirts and allow their employees to promote dominionist causes through wearing dominionist symbols.

I foresee an expensive lawsuit in the works for this state, and fear the repercussions.  This is only going to encourage the dominionists to become more aggressive and in-your-face, and I expect that things will escalate (including dominionist violence against those they don't like).