Frontline -- The Religious right and the keys to the White House: I detest Pat Robertson and his ilk so much that I think I may not be able to watch Bill Moyers this Friday night as he examines the influence of the religious right in the White House and beyond. I felt the same way about watching its segment on Mormonism. I watched part of it in increments.

The threat of the subrogation of the state to religion -- any religion -- is, to me, like returning to the Dark and Middle Ages. Mankind has fought long and hard to plow its way from the torturous path of kingly and papal tyranny through to the Magna Carta, on to the Renaissance, to the Reformation, Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment only to have all those centuries hard-fought-for rights, cultural and scientific advancement rendered worthless by the institution of a George Bush presidency. Bush, a cerebrally inept and incurious man with many psychological debilitations, has with much help, attempted to return humanity to its most repressive and intellectually bankrupt past. I can barely watch it happen. Pat Robertson's flock literally taking up residence in the White House is a sort of blasphemy to me except not of the religious kind but of an intellectual variety. It is almost more than I can endure.

Of course, to close ones eyes to its occurrence is to remove oneself from perhaps having some influence to prevent the backward motion of history. When three of nearly a dozen Republican candidates actually raise their hands to indicate they do not believe in evolution reflects the catastrophic danger these people present. Perhaps the law of historical gravity will prevail and present culture will not fall on the sword of the ignorance of drunken religious bliss. Perhaps, we will be saved this time by an intellectual messiah of reason rather than be sacrificed at the alter of stupidity.