Grassroots anti-creationists
We really need more of this:
A grassroots group troubled by recent Republican triumphs and the influence of the Christian right is fighting back in suburban Virginia by defending the teaching of Darwinian evolution, a battleground in the national culture war.
An e-mail last month seeking support from more than 300 local Democratic campaign volunteers and other potential supporters described efforts nationwide to challenge evolutionary theory. It warned against "politically infused theological pseudo-science" and said silence risks undermining Virginia schools and weakening the state's economy.
The e-mail was the first shot from an unlikely group led mostly by Vietnam-era protesters who describe their aim as beating Republicans who oppose teaching evolution at their own organizational game. Based in suburban northern Virginia, the group says its immediate goal is a Fairfax County School Board endorsement of modern Darwinian theory, which faces attacks in many states by Christian groups and education activists.
The group's bigger dream is a statewide repudiation of intelligent design, a movement positing that life is too complex to spring from chemistry and biology alone. Followers, often asserting that a creator must have guided the origins of Earth and man, believe public schools should teach unresolved aspects of evolutionary theory.
It's so refreshing to see sensible people speaking out against the nutcases who usually get all the attention.
(via Atheist Revolution)
I've been thinking that one good place to start would be to get local boards of education to endorse the Project Steve statement:
That, and also circulate a petition asking people to endorse that statement. For extra credit, separate the petition signatories into Steves and non-Steves.