Classroom Evolution's Grass-Roots Defender

Wainer said wryly: "We've got a lot of work to do. The masses are not going to rise up."

The Message Group went back to work. The members decided they needed publicity and a new approach. Lawrence drafted the letter that went to 300-plus campaign workers and others. Announcing a strategy session this month, he wrote that the organization was trying to learn whether "regular citizens could take effective action to counter the Cultural War initiated by the leaders of the Religious Right."

"Could creationism be taught under the guise of science in Virginia, you ask? . . . It took several years, but the newly installed, right-wing Kansas state school board is expected soon to require that students be taught that evolution is to be doubted."

One Message Group plan is to hold a mock Scopes trial this fall, with the anti-Darwinian cause in the dock, the reverse of the 1925 Tennessee case that challenged the teaching of evolution. The group then hopes to persuade the Fairfax School Board to endorse the continued teaching of evolution, perhaps with a nod to Roanoke authorities, who recently chastised a high school biology teacher for distributing a 500-page homemade text arguing that God created the universe.

If the issue takes off, the group believes, it could be raised during next year's race for governor of Virginia. And Wainer expects a fight in a state in which Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, is co-sponsoring the Creation Mega-Conference this month.

"If we poke a stick at them, they'll come. If the Fairfax County School Board gets out there, there isn't any way they can't counterattack," Wainer said. "We may lose. These guys are well-funded. They have better connections."

Conservative Fairfax School Board member Stephen M. Hunt (At Large), who favors teaching the missing pieces in evolutionary theory, said the Message Group, by making an issue of something that has not been important in Virginia, might inspire voters "to come out and defend their beliefs and vote Republican."

"I think it's a great idea," he said with a laugh, "because they'll expend a lot of energy and really not accomplish much."

The new activists describe the effort as a catharsis, no matter the outcome.

Wainer, who once led sit-ins against the Vietnam War and helped start a civil rights group in Philadelphia, found himself griping about the Bush years but doing little. His wife challenged him: "You used to be so active. You used to be so smart. Why don't you get off your butt and do something?"

Patty Zubeck, 48, sees herself atoning for her Vietnam-era youth, when "by being naive, I didn't do enough."

Lawrence was on the other side, a soldier who "believed I had to go save the world from communism." He traces his current advocacy to anguish over his upbringing in southern Virginia, where he watched in church on Sundays as white friends and relatives spoke of tolerance, yet fostered racism.

"All these respectable people around me said nothing," Lawrence said. "That mass silence. That's what got me after 30 years, waving those Kerry signs. I felt I couldn't be silent anymore."

Detweiler believes too many skeptics were too quiet about Vietnam for too long. "We don't want to wait that long, until we get to a crisis," said Detweiler, who said she sees the religious right as a pernicious foe.

"I don't feel the depression I felt a year ago," she said. "My hope is, we are going to be coming to our senses as a country."