The fact of the matter is that secularism in our day can claim no energizing vision and no revolutionary élan, not as in the past. Instead, it sits passive and inert, heavily dependent upon the missteps and excesses of the Religious Right or some similar foe to make its case, stir up its fading enthusiasm, and rally its remaining troops. Secularism sits uneasy upon its throne, a monarch that dares not speak in its proper name, and dares not openly propound its agenda, if indeed it still has one. For all its gains, it seems peculiarly on the defensive, old and quaint, a tenured radical who has ascended to the endowed chair of culture only to spend its days shoring up the principle of stare decisis.