Activist Judge, Not!

No matter what your politics, you gotta love U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III's attitude. He ruled today against intelligent design being taught in a Pennsylvania school district.

While very patient for many weeks listening to both scientific and emotional testimony, he got to act out in his decision. It is 139 pages long. You can get excerpts on the wires, news sites and papers.

Be sure you check out his conclusions, beginning on page 136. It includes the not too subtle:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board'’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

I like this guy.