The real winners in this decades-long battle have been the atheists. They are relatively few in number, but they abound in the elites that dominate our higher courts, and they have done very well indeed by keeping their heads low and letting those courts progressively constrict the areas in which religious concepts can be manifested. The net result has been to eliminate almost all religious references -- not only Christian, but Judaic and you-name-it -- from the public square.
Not surprisingly, their success is now making the atheists a bit bolder. Attacks on the very idea of religion are becoming commoner, and more vicious. A couple of months ago the San Francisco Chronicle published, on its front page no less, a diatribe by one of its columnists that read in part as follows:
"There is this delicious rebellion.... (M)aybe it's just a giant and wise recoil away from bogus notions of a warmongering homophobic paternalistic God.... Millions are doing it, especially the young. They are shucking 'religion' and taking up 'spirituality.'...This is, essentially, the modern rule: If it's cultural and it's individualistic and the pope scolds against it, you know it must be juicy and right."
To be sure, the San Francisco Chronicle, the poor thing, has to pander to its jaded audience. But there are signs that, in less advanced areas of the country, Christians and Jews alike are beginning to notice what is going on around them, and are fighting back.