Where this issue becomes important is the threat from the left to discredit anything proposed from the conservative side because "they're a bunch of knuckle dragging, anti-science, buffoons". It makes it easy to write off anything we say, regardless of the merits.
A particular liberal in my office hates George Bush because he thinks Bush wants to impose religious teaching in schools such as creationism. Pushing ID/creationism is 1) a lost cause, because it will never be adopted by public schools without lawsuits preventing it. 2) Is a distraction away from positive changes that conservatives could be working for. And 3) as described above, is an excuse used by many liberals to reject the logic of anything "conservative".
That's why I spend time on these threads. Hoping to stem the idiocy of this argument before it really gets into the public arena firmly associated with the political philosophy of "conservatism".
Interesting thoughts, narby...I can't refute the lawsuit and public school comment, but I do stipulate that says more about the lunacy of government sponsored education than about the foibles of ID.
Your comment about liberals I find fascinating, albeit utterly puzzling...are you advancing a theory that if we conservatives stand shoulder to shoulder with them on an issue they will see the error of their ways and embrace us with the greatest of celerity? That they will then love us and whisper sweet nothings of agreement with conservative thought in our ears? That if we were to firmly reject any argument that, however meek in its assertions, dares at all to impinge upon the holy writ of evolution, that liberals will respond in kind and admit to the virtue of the war on terror?
As I say, interesting theory...