Fallout over the Dover monkey trial

I usually stay away from writing about the culture wars as I believe there are uncompromising hard cores on both sides and the rest of us have more important things to concern ourselves with. But something like this makes the people of Pennsylvania look like a bunch of bible thumping uneducated hicks. No wonder some people refer to us as the Alabama of the North. Last year the school board in the small town of Dover, Pa. voted to teach Intelligent Design theory in science classes. A group of parents sued and the trial has received worldwide attention, not so much in the US as no blondes went missing in the controversy. Fortunately the people of Dover showed some common sense in Tuesday's election and booted out the entire board.

One of the winners, Bernadette Reinking, told the New York Times: "I think voters were tired of the trial, they were tired of intelligent design, they were tired of everything that this school board brought about."
During the trial it emerged that one of the main proponents of the intelligent design policy, Mr. Bonsell, has previously tried to get creationism on to the local curriculum. Of all the candidates up for re-election, Mr. Bonsell recorded the fewest votes, the NYT reports.

Now Simply Left Behind has the story of Pat Robertson threatening God's wrath on the little town because they "voted God out of your city." So now another one of God's self appointed spokesman has threatened death and destruction on his behalf because people did something he doesn't like. Does the almighty actually interview for press secretaries? There sure are a lot of people who claim to speak for him. As for Pat Robertson, this is a guy who claims credit for redirecting hurricanes, wants the President of Venezuela murdered and claims Bush told him that there would not be any casualties in Iraq.

Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse also has a good discussion of the whole issue.