I wrote this back when I worked at NCSE, and it still brings me joy. If you don’t recall the events of the Kitzmiller v. Dover tri­al, there are great resources at TalkO­ri­gins and per­haps the defin­i­tive con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous account in The New York­er (as well as the books ref­er­enced in the poem below).

’Twas the night before Kitz­mas and all through the land,
No cre­ation­ist was stir­ring, not even Ken Ham;
The briefs had been draft­ed and filed with great care,
In hopes that Judge Jones’s decision’d be fair;
The plain­tiffs were nes­tled all snug in their beds,
While Bill of Rights visions ran round in their heads;
And Nick blogged for PT, and Vic played The Boss,
And fret­ted and fussed o’er the chance of a loss,
When over the wires there arose such a clat­ter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the mat­ter.
Away to Net­NewsWire I flew like a flash,
I start­ed my brows­er and cleared out the cache.
The rul­ing I found at the fed­er­al court
Was a ver­dict I knew I would love to report.
For what to my won­der­ing eyes should appear
But a hun­dred-plus pages, all writ­ten so clear,
With lawyer­ly flour­ish like ten score trom­bones,
I knew in a moment it must be Judge Jones.
More sharp­er than razors the experts they came,
Whom he cit­ed, and mar­shaled, and quot­ed by name:
“Now, Miller! now, Alters! now, Padi­an—why not—
On, Robert T. Pen­nock! on, For­rest and Haught!
The Estab­lish­ment Clause says that Pan­das must go,
ID isn’t sci­ence; heck, Fuller says so!”
The case had been brought in a fed­er­al court
When the Dover school board thought it wise to con­sort
With Dis­co. ’tute shys­ters who sold them a line:
“Don’t call it cre­ation, but ID should be fine.”
As rats that behind the Pied Piper did flow,
The school board had tak­en the DI’s say-so;
The teach­ers they ordered to point to ID,
“Evolution’s a the­o­ry, with gaps, don’t you see!”
A book had been bought to be put on their shelves;
Who pur­chased the book? No one knew, maybe elves.
More like­ly, a church group had ponied the dough,
But when pressed on the point Buck­ing­ham had said “no.”
His lies how they win­kled! His obstruc­tion so crude!
In the face of such efforts, eleven folks sued.
Tam­my and friends brought the ACLU,
Steve Har­vey and Roth­schild joined pro bono too,
The quar­tet was fin­ished by Richard B. Katskee,
With sci­encey back­ing from Nicholas Matzke.
(The oppo­site side was in sad dis­ar­ray:
For Dem­b­s­ki and Mey­er had scut­tled away,
While Min­nich and Fuller and Michael J. Behe
Gave tragi­comedic per­for­mances, e.g.
Com­par­ing ID to a view like astrol­o­gy—
I think that Jeane Dixon is owed an apol­o­gy.
The More Center’s Thomp­son was no Machi­avel­li;
His case was as firm as a bowl full of jel­ly.)
To the court came reporters, in need of news hooks,
And Lau­ri and Gordy and Edward wrote books.
And Matthew wrote also, of Darwin’s own breed,
Each one of their books is a crack­ing good read.
Jones heard the case fair­ly, not tip­ping his hand,
Though the case it moved slow­ly, and forty days spanned.
His rul­ing was thor­ough, at times it waxed furi­ous,
That board mem­bers lied he con­sid­ered per­ju­ri­ous.
By then an elec­tion had sort­ed their hash,
Still Jones fined the board around two mil­lion cash.
In read­ing the rul­ing I filled up with glee,
The flaws of ID for the whole world to see!
In schools ’cross the nation I knew folks would say—
“Hap­py Kitz­mas to all, and to all a good day!”

By Josh Rose­nau and Glenn Branch, with apolo­gies to Clement Clark Moore.