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You may remember the Undiscovery Institute's attempt to trade on the name of the Smithsonian Institute (once again) by screening its propaganda piece, Darwin's Dilemma, at the California Science Center, which has the nifty sounding position as a "Smithsonian Institution Affiliated Science Center" that is, in fact, less exalted than it sounds. Then the Science Center canceled. Now the group that sponsored the DI's dogma and pony show, the American Freedom Alliance, has announced (in no coincidence at all, at the Christian News Wire) that it is suing.

The lawsuit is believed to be the first since the 2005 case of Kitzmiller v. Dover to consider the public's right to learn about Intelligent Design. While that case focused on whether a public school violated the First Amendment "No Establishment Clause" by instructing students about the theory, AFA's lawsuit alleges that the museum violated its First Amendment rights by caving in to demands within the scientific and academic communities to deny Intelligent Design a public forum for discussion.

"The Center is a public institution and our event was planned as a debate with both sides of the controversy represented," said Avi Davis, AFA's president. "It is Orwellian when a public institution tries to suppress particular ideas it deems unsavory. It can be likened to a public library removing certain books from its shelves because the librarian disagrees with the viewpoints expressed in them."

According to the AFA's announcement:

The museum was selected for the event because one of the two films scheduled to be shown required a 3D IMAX projection system. The pro-evolution film, "We Are Born of the Stars," was meant to provide balance to a discussion about life's origin.

Strangely, there was no mention of this other film in the original PR release by the DI. Does anyone else smell a rat?

All I can find out about We Are Born of the Stars is that it is a 1985 Japanese animated film that is all of 11 minutes long. Darwin's Dilemma, on the other hand, is 71 minutes long. In addition, according to the Dishonesty Institute's press release, there was also to be a "post-film discussion featuring Darwin skeptic Dr. David Berlinski, author of The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, and leading intelligent design scientist Dr. Jonathan Wells, biologist and author of Icons of Evolution." The only other "balance" mentioned is that real scientists, Simon Conway Morris and James Valentine, appear in Darwin's Dilemma but, unsurprisingly, under the same sort of cloud of suspicion that always accompanies appearances by scientists in creationist endeavors.

So there was to be hours of creationist bafflegab, including live presentations, with the other side of the "controversy" represented solely by an 11 minute, 20⁺ year old, animated film. That's what passes for a balanced "debate" in the opinion of creationists.

But to see how this lawsuit is going to go, there is this:

"Certain museum officials and their cronies in academia and throughout the scientific community are part of a subtle but effective movement to marginalize a scientific theory that challenges their world view," said AFA's attorney, William J. Becker, Jr. ...

Whew! That's a beauty! An accusation of "cronyism" and the elevation of ID to the status of a scientific theory, while simultaneously ID opponents are reduced to "world view" peddlers, all in one sentence!

It's utter bollocks ... but as a fellow lawyer, I have to admire the technique displayed.
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