I think that it has become a common rhetorical ploy to paint atheists as "intolerant" of the religious, while in reality it is the other way around (as it always has been). It's the same tactic as creating boogeymen such as "political correctness," "guilt-tripping" of whites by blacks, "Marxist takeovers of academia," etc. Conservatives thrive on the rhetoric of marginalization, persecution, etc., in patent contradiction to American reality. A sad thing is that not just the Right but even some self-identified leftists have begun to accept this fantastic rhetoric ("the marginalization of religion in the American public life" -- as if!) as reality. Maybe a year or two ago, the Nation magazine ran a series of articles advocating that leftists should be more accepting of "religious values" or something to that effect. That's just one symptom among many others. I'm afraid that the conservative reaction for the last couple of dacades have got to not just the proverbial general public but also a significant number of self-identified leftists. _No wonder_ non-leftist Americans are in favor of the tolerance of and inclusion of creationism as science; leftists have failed to counter the tide of reaction, not just materially but also culturally, and in fact some are ready to hop on the bandwagon to capture the again proverbial center! (Tragically for the estimable Max and Nathan, this is a truly self-defeating gesture, unless they are prepared to go the whole hog and Clintonize themselves, which they aren't.) Can we ever hold ground and fight back on _any_ issue? Do we ever get up and say, "No Pasaran!"
Yoshie