I did talk about reading an emergency responders training exorcise for a city here in Massachusetts. I happen to know a lot of fire and police folks and one of them gave it to me to read. In the one I read it is true that they used a Christian terrorist group as the attackers.

The important thing to know about that in terms of what that article you posted is saying is that what was in the exorcise was not written by any of the local officials involved. Towns and cities buy those training exorcises and they are written in most cases by private companies. I believe even Homeland Security contracts that work out for the most part. So you can't hold them accountable for what was in the exorcise. I think that article you posted is twisted by the fact that nobody in it understands what exactly was going on. They are just focusing on the fact that Christians were used as the example.

These exorcises are being done all over the country and it's my guess that most of them are pretty much the same and they were all written around the same time and likely by a handful of people. So there are probably not a lot of options available to the cities and towns participating as to what they buy for an exorcise. You also should consider that this stuff really is not meant to be seen by the general public, not because they use Christians but to protect the integrity of the exorcise.

As an example, it was a big joke nationwide when the light bright things appeared under bridges and near commuter stations here in Boston. The thing is the guys responding to that do not know if they are facing something real or a training exorcise. If it's real then it's pretty easy to understand the danger but there is a danger if it's a training exorcise too. If one of these first responders does not perform according to protocol that person is going to be in hot water. Training exorcises are monitored and failing to perform is a big issue.

The light bright thing played out just like a training exorcise in that there were multiple events across the city at the same time. That is how these drills work. So how they responded was very important.

So, I'd say this article is not really important. I will agree that within our government there is a feeling that religious folks are potentially dangerous but I'm not sure I would say these training exorcises go a long way toward playing that up.

I think guys like Fred Phelps, anti-abortion groups, and the Bush Administration do far more to smear Christians than these training exorcises ever could. What you have to keep in mind too is they do it intentionally but these training exorcises are just local officials going along with what they think they are supposed to be doing. I don't think there's any malice toward Christians in it at all.