To the editor:

Phill Kline may be the most egregious current example, but he is only part of a religio-political coup gradually hatched over the last two decades by demagogic enemies of American democracy, while those who support pluralistic, secular, Jeffersonian government foolishly slept. Well, we seculars are now wide awake and ready to defend our true moral values in the “culture war” Kline and his ilk have declared on freedom.

What we face is a retrogressive lurch toward the pre-Enlightenment view of government that Christianity enforced prior to our American Revolution, where officials firmly asserted their personal religious assumptions, and those of their fellow believers, while pondering the public good. Placing the power of armed government in the hands of those with a religious agenda — one that overrides broad considerations of just pluralism, good science and common human decencies affirmed without supernatural reference — has shown itself repeatedly to be tyrannical, divisive, unaccountable and deadly dangerous. History repeats.

Kline begs us to consider his views on the merits and forget he is a “Religious Right wacko.” We would forget if he would let us. Though I have doubts, perhaps someday Mr. Kline will understand that AG stands only for attorney general, not agent of God. If so, there may be hope for enlightening the other preening Tartuffes who have hijacked the Republican party, and with it the idea of America.

Bruce S. Springsteen,

Lawrence