OK, this is complicated:

According to the Houston Chronicle, the Web site for the Religious Right radio show Issues in Education has accused Judge Sam Kent of, to put it succinctly, being responsible for September 11.

How is he responsible? You see, he was hearing a school prayer case back in the 1990s and he said that if he issued an injunction preventing certain prayers at school, he would make sure it was understood that there'd be no defiance of his order. But that was just Judge Kent being a judge. As it turned out, he didn't issue such an order -- he allowed at least some of the prayers.

But the praying folk wanted even more prayer in schools, so they appealed -- and lost. The appeals court said that even the prayers Judge Kent had allowed were not permitted.

But the Issues in Education people don't seem to understand that. They blamed Judge Kent -- and not just for the ruling. They blamed him for September 11.

The Chronicle quotes this page on their Web site:

So when people ask where was God when this tragedy was happening? The answer is, He doesn't come in when He's KICKED OUT! In May of 1995, U.S. District Judge Sam Kent of Texas ruled that any student mentioning the name of Jesus in a graduation prayer would be sentenced to a 6 month jail term. The judge then said, "Anyone who violates this order, no kidding, is going to wish that he or she had died as a child when this Court gets through with them."

This misleading passage was picked up by this guy, a Houston radio host whose primary qualification for broadcasting seems to be that he used to coach college football.

And now people are making angry phone calls to Sam Kent.

Kent, as it turns out, is a Godly Republican. He was picked for the federal bench by former right-wing GOP senator Phil Gramm.

But people who frequently invoke the name of Jesus say he's responsible for three thousand 9/11 deaths, so it must be true, right?