Ben Bridges Sr. is a Republican in the Georgia House of Representatives who introduced HB 179 in January 2005; it would require the teaching of critiques of and alternatives to evolution wherever evolution is taught.

Richard Thompson is president and chief counsel of The Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which defended the Dover, Pa., district in a lawsuit that challenged its rules requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.

L. Martin Nussbaum is a partner at Rothgerber, Johnson & Lyons, where he represents religious institutions and schools in legal cases, including First Amendment cases. He works in Colorado Springs, Colo.

W. Cole Durham Jr. is a law professor and director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He has worked on religious freedom issues around the world.

Frank Ravitch is chair of law and religion at Michigan State University and a scholar of constitutional religious freedom protections. He is author of  several books on the Constitution’s religion clauses, including Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America and Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses.

Carl Esbeck is a professor of law at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he specializes in First Amendment issues, especially the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.

John Tuskey is a lawyer in Indiana and formerly taught at Regent University’s School of Law in Virginia Beach, Va., where he specialized in constitutional law.

Howard Friedman is a professor of law emeritus at the University of Toledo in Ohio. He maintains a blog called Religion Clause, which tracks religious freedom-related lawsuits in the U.S. and around the world.

In 2011, Susan McPherson rejoined Wallace, Jordan, Ratliff and Brandt as an associate in Birmingham, Ala., where she specializes in appellate litigation. She is also a member of the Birmingham chapter of the Christian Legal Society.