HARRISBURG - At the end of six weeks of testimony covering the bacterial flagellum, whale ancestry and purported conspiracies to return science to the Dark Ages, Eric Rothschild summed up Dover's intelligent design battle with the words of a once-reluctant plaintiff.

In his closing arguments, the plaintiffs' lead attorney read a statement by Fred Callahan, who testified he joined the First Amendment lawsuit mostly at the behest of his wife. People called him intolerant.

"What am I supposed to tolerate?" he asked. "A small encroachment of my First Amendment rights? Well, I'm not going to."

With those words displayed to the U.S. Middle District courtroom, Rothschild described Callahan as a man willing to stand up to the wedge driven into his community and his daughter's high school by Dover Area School District's "anti-evolution, pro-intelligent-design policy."

Throughout the trial, Dover's defense presented Bill Buckingham, a former board member who has twice sought treatment for OxyContin addiction, as the chief architect for the policy. But in his remarks, Rothschild portrayed Alan Bonsell as the driving force behind a plan to insert his religious creationist views into science class. Bonsell began the plan, Rothschild said, soon after being elected to the school board in 2001.

In his closing arguments, Dover attorney Patrick Gillen said Bonsell was a man motivated solely by a desire to improve the education of his daughter

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and other students. Bonsell, he said, never feared the teaching of evolutionary theory.

"He's afraid of what we have seen here," Gillen said. "Science taught as dogma."

At issue is a four-paragraph statement read to ninth-grade biology students referring to intelligent design - the idea that the complexity of life reveals a designer. Dover was thrust into the national and international spotlight a year ago when it became the first district in the country to include the concept in its biology curriculum.

The federal trial is being touted as the first test case on religious issues in public school science class since 1987 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the teaching of creation science.

Judge John E. Jones III said he hopes to reach a decision by the end of the year.

Lawyers spent much of the trial arguing whether intelligent design is, as Gillen called it, legitimate science or, as Rothschild described it, the latest incarnation of creation science based on "a meager little analogy that collapses immediately upon inspection."

Gillen also argued that religious beliefs shouldn't hamper the pursuit of science. And while it is true Bonsell embraces the biblical account of Genesis, he should not be judged for his beliefs, Gillen said.

He said the lawsuit filed by 11 parents was "built on a molehill of statements by one board member (Buckingham) fighting OxyContin addiction."

Gillen was referring to whether board members discussed creationism and religious views during talks about a biology textbook at two June 2004 public meetings. Plaintiffs have argued that the statements reveal board members' religious motivation.

Remarks about creationism - and other remarks such as Buckingham's "Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?" - were reported by Joe Maldonado in the York Daily Record/Sunday News and Heidi Bernhard-Bubb in The York Dispatch. But board members testified the reporters made up the quotations.

Numerous witnesses, including defense witness Asst. Supt. Michael Baksa and both reporters, backed up the reported accounts. Also, in a taped interview with a Fox News reporter at the time, Buckingham talked about looking for a textbook that balances evolution with another theory, "such as creationism."

"What I am about to say is not easy to say, and there is no way to say it subtly," Rothschild said. "Many of the witnesses for the defendants did not tell the truth."

Consequently, "two hard-working freelance reporters had their integrity impugned and were dragged into a legal case solely because the board members would not own up to what they had said," Rothschild said.

But Gillen said board members shouldn't be held responsible for things written about them by third parties.

The story of Kitzmiller v. Dover played out, ironically, in a state founded on the principles of religious liberty, Rothschild said, and was brought by a plaintiff named Kitzmiller, "a good Pennsylvania Dutch name."

Rothschild spoke of the amount of love and respect the plaintiffs have for their children, so much that "it spilled out of that witness stand and filled this courtroom."

And he spoke of Cyndi Sneath's son Griffin, who loves science and who deserves an inspiring education, one not stifled by another's religious views.

"He might even figure out something that changes the whole world," Rothschild said. "Like Charles Darwin."