http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-04T191725Z_01_N04247382_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-POLITICS-EVOLUTION-DC.XML

And in case the Reuters link goes down:

http://scienceg8.com/a-blatant-flip-flop-by-senator-rick/
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/santorum_vs_san.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4784905 (audio link)

Apparently Rick Santorum (yes, of the vociferous gay-baiting, quoting of Family Research Institute blather about gay/les/bi/trans folks being equal to sheepbuggerers, he who *because* of this ended up with his name becoming an eponym for an, ahem, rather icky byproduct of "rear entry") is now standing up and claiming intelligent design ain't...

I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science
classroom. What we should be teaching are the problems and holes, and I
think there are legitimate problems and holes, in the theory of
evolution. And what we need to do is present those fairly from a
scientific point of view. We should lay out areas in which the evidence
supports evolution and areas in the evidence that does not. And as far
as intelligent design is concerned, I really don't believe it's risen
to the level of a scientific theory at this point that we would want to
teach it alongside of evolution.--Rick Santorum, NPR's Morning Edition

It is going to be interesting to see the reaction in the dominionist community (especially since Santorum has been on record before in attempting to push bills for promoting "alternatives to the theory of evolution" being taught in public schools and was possibly one of the most vocal of supporters of "intelligent design" in Congress)--seeing as another dominionist pander-bear, Bill Frist, has been disinvited to attend Justice Sunday II and is being condemned rather broadly in the dominionist community for daring to go against the party line, I expect the reaction probably won't be gentle or welcoming.

It is also very interesting to me that no less than two of the more notorious dominionist-friendly congresscritters are now standing up and saying "No" to the dominionists (and both on matters of science, at that--Frist on the subject of stem cell research, and Santorum on whether "intelligent design" qualifies as a hypothesis (much less a formal theory) in scientific terms--and both after being explicitly friendly to dominionists in *very* related fields beforehand).

One wonders seriously if either they are beginning to feel pressure from the "reality based" community to the effect that they will lose their offices if they give the dominionists one inch more (and are thus now starting to play "pander bear" to the rest of us) or if they are genuinely starting to feel uncomfortable with the dominionist agenda as a whole. It's really hard to know at this point, but the fact that more of the *major* supporters of dominionist legislation are starting to stand up and say "no" (for whatever reason) shows that it *IS* possible to keep the dominionists from winning--either they will start to hit personal comfort levels of politicians (who are not raised in dominionist cults), or the politicians will realise if they keep supporting the dominionists that the rest of us *WILL* vote them out into the street.

Whether it's honest problems of conscience or a matter of rats jumping a sinking ship, it's encouraging. It's not victory (far from it--we still have many dominionist-friendly politicians in office, there are now a generation especially in state and local offices who have literally been raised from birth in dominionist/Christian Reconstructionist cults who are now running for political office, and we still have an executive branch that is for all intents and purposes run by a large dominionist denomination who has had plans for upwards of fifty years or more of dominionist takeover in the name of "delivering the country from Satan") but it does show victory *is* possible if we persevere.