I think you're on to him, Catherine. According to my finely honed internet stalking skills (Google), there's a DC-area Austin Porter who heads up a local group of "The Brights," which appears to be an organization devoted to "a naturalistic worldview" "free of supernatural and mystical elements."

So yeah. The City Paper either got suckered or want us to be suckered!

i saw that meet up thing, too, when i did my professional googling - but i have to admit, i tore the letter out of the city paper to transcribe it, and in doing so, tore off part of his last name. i just have "Austin Porte"...but i think i remember it as being austin porter. oh well. let's indict him anyway!

Ah yes, the "Brights". Really, that name is all you need to know. I guess "secular humanist" wasn't condescending enough.

I do not head up The Brights. I find militant atheists as annoying as militant theists. The CityPaper letter was, as you surmised, satire. That it wasn't immediately recognized as such distressed me as much as the outcome of the recent election. The anonymous phone calls that threatened me and called me a fascist were less than pleasant, but I guess I had it coming. In some ways the letter was frighteningly accurate. In response to the recent disaster in the far east,Tom DeLay read a section of biblical verse (see below) that suggested the death and destruction occurred because the victims were not believers (but Muslims I guess he meant). I somehow suspect that at least a few dead and injured, tourists perhaps, were Christian. I wonder how he explains the three hurricanes that devastated Florida this past year. I do apologize for writing a foolish letter. Like most humans, I often do very silly things.

This (Tuesday) morning at 9am, C-SPAN had a live telecast of the 109th Congressional Prayer Service from a church on Capitol Hill. There were a few Congressmen about the Christian foundation of our government. Others spoke of the Asian tsunami tragedy.

Then Tom DeLay went up to the pulpit, and -- striking a beautiful note in light of the 150,000 dead from the floods referenced by his colleagues -- let loose with some Matthew 7, beginning at verse 21.

"A reading of the Gospel, in Matthew 7:21 through 27.

Not every one who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?

"Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you: depart from me, you evil doers.'"

Everyone who listens to these words of mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man, who built his house on a rock:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, but it did not collapse; it has been set solidly on rock.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined."

He finishes reading, say nothing more, and sat back down.