Michael.
Congratulations on an excellent article. Your exposure of the use of the theory of evolution for ideological purposes is trenchant.
Peter Sellick

The "struggle" is nothing other than an ongoing history of the religious right attempting to hijack proper education and science to peddle their own agendas.

Over in the US, cosseted by a history of tax exemptions and a higher penetration of fundamentalist and extremist religious groups, the religious right has formed multi-billion dollar lobbies that rival industry lobbies and even outgun "l"iberals and the ACLU.

Evolution is taught as a theory when its taught. The trouble with ID and other religious agendas, is they're taught as having the same validity with not a scrap of proper evidence. Same as the abstinence lobby, despite thousands of peer-reviewed papers attesting to the reduction in sexual diseases due to distribution of condoms in Australia and Europe, still thousands needlessly die in Latin America, Africa and Asia due to religious groups having successfully hijacked the agendas for family planning and AIDS prevention.

When holy rollers quit attempting to impose irrational belief on the rest of us, then we can rest.

The ID v Darwin argument can go on forever. What counts is this:

In the absence of a belief in evolution, all biology [including medicine and agriculture] makes no sense.

"...materialistic humanism, something that promotes abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, feminism and much more. It is something that pits itself against the family, and proper standards and honour and respect, and all of the other supposed Christian virtues."

No. Materialistic humanism simply says that if you advocate something you are obliged to supply evidence for it. If you disagree with homosexuality, abortion or premarital sex for yourself, then don't do it. If you disagree with it for others -- and plenty of materialistic humanists do -- then please explain why and allow people to make their own decisions on that basis. Asserting "I believe God doesn't like it!" is no longer adequate. Prove that God doesn't like it, by all means, if you can, and then explain why that should make a difference. Or come up with some genuine empirical arguments. But don't expect a free ride for your moral beliefs just because you think they've been whispered to you by your invisible friend.

Well Michael,I reckon it persists because ID / Creationism is desperately attempting to recover lost ground in the continuing advancement of Scientific knowledge which is the antithesis of attempts to describe Intelligent Design as Scientific.
Why in America ?

I have no doubt it has it's roots in the emigration to America of British and other European religious sects to escape persecution because of their religious beliefs or political affiliations and allegiances.
And in Australia ?

I am aware that the "struggle" has spread to Australia where imported evangelicals and other religious zealots seek to spread their gospel and further the fight against Atheism.

This "struggle" is not confined to Christian religion but has similar goals as Islamic fundamentalists; that is to preserve their use of superstition , myth and ignorance to perpetuate thought control on those moral issues such as Homosexuality, Birth Control,Abortion,the Rights of women,Rights of the terminally ill, etc.

The debate is proving lucrative for authors of both camps; Richard Dawkins is paving the way for others who are prepared to have the courage of Charles Darwin and challenge what has been until now, the majority view. I am looking forward to Bob Avakian's "Away with All Gods: 'unchaining the mind and radically changing the World.'

Evolution is a theory of biology, not theology. If people want to read more into it than that, that's their business.

Some people - both religious and atheists alike - attribute to evolutionary theory a whole host of theological, material or moral implications that simply aren't a part of the theory. They want to make the theory fit with their view of the world, which is a completely arse-about way to think about science.

Much fruitless discussion and anxiety ensues, for no useful purpose.

As for intelligent design, well, it doesn't fulfill the tenets of a scientific theory - it seems to be more a stalking-horse for debate. So any discussion of it probably falls under the rubric of literary criticism.