Longtime readers will note that I have no use for Pat Robertson and I’d consider him an embarassment if I somehow felt associated with him. One of the more gratifying things I’ve learned in recent years is that very few even deeply committed evangelicals among our readers want anything to do with him. If I criticize James Dobson, I’ll hear about it from his fans. If I mock Robertson, crickets chirp.

Anyway, I don’t support the Intelligent Design push in public schools. I don’t believe in it myself, even if I think it raises interesting issues and critiques. But if the sincere IDers want to be taken at their word that this is a scientific enterprise rather than a sophisticated form of backdoor creationism, you really should make an effort to tell Robertson to shut up. If ID is science, why should God single out Dover, PA for retribution simply because it rejected a science curriculum? Why is Robertson so invested in this to begin with?

If you’re not up to speed, Robertson proclaimed that Dover residents are on their own because of their decision to vote out the pro-ID school board. “If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God; you just rejected him… you just voted God out of your city.”

And we’ll just leave aside the question of how Robertson knows what cities God is of a mind to save and which He isn’t.