We have a right not to be damaged by others' religious tenets

Huh? This is the conclusion of Gerald Plessner - a San Gabriel Valley citizen with whom I regularly disagree. Sound nice, sounds like the tolerance we should all practice, and yet it isn't reality, it isn't mandated as a right in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else, and to enforce it would actually inhibit free expression and therefore is inherently intolerant. Well, he does attempt to start out with basics. Quote: "There is no doubt that it (the First Amendment) prohibits government sponsorship of religious activities or displays of any religious nature that use public money or property belonging to all citizens." I won't belabor the point overmuch but the Amendment does balance a specific prohibition - establishment of a particular religion - against a broad freedom to practice any or no religion. The extension to "sponsorship" has meant not so much misuse of public funds as to avoid the appearance of "establishing" religion. But it cannot be too broadly applied to disallow freedom of expression in the public square as we recently were advised by the wise ones of the Supreme Court in knocking down Newdow's attempt to toss out prayer at inaugurations. If Lieberman or Prager were to become president, I would expect a rabbi there to bless the event for our nation. If Kerry had won and then announced his conversion to Church of Satan, we would all need to be tolerant at his choice of clergy.

He argues against the teaching of Intelligent Design in our schools. Interestingly, he does not define even according to his own bias what Intelligent Design is about, he does not tell us how it would offend his values, and he does not tell you that "teaching the controversy over evolution" is contained in a law of the land, that apparently has not been challenged over its constitutionality, not yet at least. First of all Intelligent Design is not "six day creationism" which arguably could not be taught without presumption of strong specific beliefs. Intelligent Design doesn't even totally oppose the evolution of species, but argues that there is much proof that life could not be established or grow without design. DNA is substance but it is complex information that at its outset must have had a core function of replicating a template (if you don't see the problem, you've never contemplated that eternal question - which came first the chicken or the egg?). Evolution's great foundation of "natural selection" has NO explanation on how organs and wings are functional in one step of random mutation to allow for the survival of the newly evolved creature. Certainly an atheist would be offended by the premise of some sort of Creator, but any other faith that posits something beyond the natural (which definitely includes Judaism that basically initiated monotheism) would not have qualms.

Biology defines evolution with a small e "as the change in the gene pool of a population over time" - that you know from animal breeds and antibiotics resistance. No one can argue with that. However Evolution is according to the National Association of Biology Teachers, an organization of science teachers, " an unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies, and changing environments". This statement clearly implies there is no alternative to the development of species than the undirected process that caused mutation from the primordial soup to the human being.

Now, Plessner considers the "damage" caused ( in a fashion that also resembles random mutation), blurring the difference of at least 3 things that Christians are doing that "hurt" non-Christians. One is prosletyzing, the efforts at persuading or arguing or "sharing" a faith that may not be welcome. The next is expressing of one's faith in public settings. The third is the clear expression that their faith presumes a set of eternal moral values that they would like the culture to share. The first is an offense against manners and an insult to those targeted, even if done with the best of intentions, and is notably ineffective. But even so, it is not illegal unless linked with some form of intimidation, which I would say is quite rare in this country. The second I have spoken to already and argue that freedom of expression trumps limiting public religious activities except again where enthusiasm slips into undue influence. Finally, Christians laugh because it keeps us from crying, that we are marginalized for maintaining that marriage means lifetime heterosexual bonding , life is endowed by a Creator at conception, and that good and evil are defined by God not by man, struck by the realization that not only was America founded on these truths and others, but the great mass of humanity has lived and died by these principles as well.

So yes, tolerance can and must be balanced by free expression. In one way or another, in public or hidden away if we must be, we will share values to our children and whoever wants to listen. This is because we think that telling 3rd graders that they come from amoeba may somehow stunt their desire to find meaning in life and that leads to profound moral and philosophical consequences to them and to all of us.