If you speak up you can make a change. You didn't just think of all those schoolchildren that won't hear how God made the world and everything in it because of a dam (sic) dumb fool like you. God says the sins of the parents are passed down to the children. When God decides to strike you or your children down, look out. The ACLU is working all these years to get God out of American and a dumb fool got them to help her. I sure would not want to be in your shoes of your daughters (sic) shoes. God hates sin, all these young people being killed in auto wrecks, but when your day comes you think you are smart for what you did, but you are just a damn dumb fool so ignorant to know what God can do to you and your children. I will be watching in the years to come how God punishes you or your daughters. Madelyn (sic) Murray (a famous atheist) was found murdered for taking prayer and bible reading out of the schools, so watch out for a bullet.

The police never found out who sent the letter, one of two that they believe were sent by the same person. Here's the text of the other one:

When you open your eyes in hell you will think about the time you went against God. The ACLU is trying to wreck our country by getting rid of God and to think that some of the heathen parents are helping them. Does God have to send more tornadoes to wake up our country for trying to get rid of God. How can you be so dam (sic) dumb to think that God did not create this world and the people in it. People like you should get out of the country instead of helping to destroy it. I would be ashamed to walk the street after doing such a wicked thing. Who would ever have thought that the time would come that in America tehy would fight to get/keep God out of school all because of heathen dummies like you, you and your group who live here. God will punish you for doing such a (sic) evil thing. I would hate to be in your shoes. I will be praying that God will make you miserable until you accept him as your Lord and Savior. First you must confess your sins and repent.

I dare say the writer of this letter is the one who needs to repent. Kitzmiller was not alone; several of the plaintiffs in the case received threatening letters. But as i said, this is absolutely predictable. There are some seriously unhinged people in this world. One of them, by the way, is DaveScot, Dembski's faithful boy wonder. Here's what he said in a comment at Fafarman's blog (it's been removed since, but I recorded it at the time on my blog):

I hope someone keeps track of the 11 parents and their children. Everyone in Dover knows damn well that no children were forced to listen to the 60 second announcement regarding evolution and intelligent design. So what you have is 11 parents whose religious hostility extended to such a trivial matter they were willing to make the tiny school district pay a million dollars.

I grew up in a small town and when a few people pull crap like that that hurts everyone there will be payback. I won't be at all surprised if the children of these parents are so badly ostracized and abused by other students that they're forced to find another school and the parents will be snubbed and insulted and their cars keyed and their coworkers and supervisors making their lives miserable that they'll all end up moving away.

I hope that's all tracked so that the next group of parents that gets their panties in a bunch and volunteers to the be the designated shitheads know what it's going to cost them.

Nor is he alone. Nedd Kareiva of the Stop the ACLU coalition actually began something called the "Expose the ACLU Plaintiff" project, beginning with the Dobrich family in Delaware. This Jewish family was hounded out of their homes by locals after challenging the school there for endorsing Christianity in a number of ways. Echoing the theme of the Kitzmiller letter writer, one school board member there suggested that the Dobrich family might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair did. Callers to a local radio show reminded them that there was still a KKK chapter active in the area, and the family received numerous threats that eventually drove them out of the community. This is the sort of thing that plaintiffs in these cases face all the time.