Matthew Yglesias links to a New Republic essay on the "new atheism," and agrees that it is self-defeating:

This is essentially a version of the backlash argument that "serious" liberals have used to undermine their "fringe" compatriots for the past several decades. It derives, I suspect, from the fruits of the Nixon era, and all the Brokaw-ian beliefs that certain liberals hold about 1968. As the story goes, the country turned to the right as a result of all those dirty fucking hippies that behaved so horribly at the Democratic National Convention, among other places. Since then, leftist "extremism" has been the boogeyman that has scared the Democratic Party toward the center and allowed the Republicans to push ever rightward in response. Thus, countenancing the idea that secular society ought to be, in practice, secular, is seen as the kind of thing likely to destroy the liberal consensus and take tolerance of atheism with it. This is sort of ridiculous on its face, as atheism has simply never had a seat at the liberal consensus table in the United States -- this was, for decades if not centuries, a passively Christian society until very recently. When people began to suggest that the First Amendment had something to say about that, things moved toward secularism for the most part, and the Christianists dug in their heels. This is a lot like what happened leading up to 1968, when blacks, women and other political minorities stood up and demanded to be given their due. What people tend to forget about 1968 and how horrible it all was for the Left, is that a lot of what was sought was achieved back then. The way it was achieved was by fighting for it. Similarly, respect for secularism won't be achieved by people who pretend that secularism doesn't matter or who are afraid to acknowledge their own beliefs, as well as the logic behind them. And if you don't like the tone being taken by activists without much to lose individually, maybe you should hook up with the national political leaders who actively support secularism, particularly when it comes to issues like the Pledge of Allegiance court case. Actually, there aren't any of those, but thank God for that liberal consensus, eh?