The Rev. Barry W. Lynn is the pastor the Religious Right loves to hate.

TV preacher Pat Robertson once called Lynn “lower than a child molester.” Jerry Falwell once told Lynn he wouldn't let him preach anywhere near his church. One right-wing group was so worked up about Lynn that it launched a special project urging a conservative to adopt him.

That's well and good. Less charming are the two Religious Right activists who have publicly announced that they are praying for Lynn to die.

Why does Barry Lynn get so many people so worked up? Since 1992, Lynn has led Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a national watchdog group that defends freedom of conscience by supporting what Thomas Jefferson called “the wall of separation between church and state.” That alone would be enough for some people.

But that's only part of Lynn's resume. Prior to his work at Americans United, Lynn worked in the legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, and before that he led efforts to get President Jimmy Carter to grant amnesty to Vietnam War resisters.

All of this may explain why the far right isn't exactly Lynn's biggest fan.

Add to this the fact that Lynn regularly bests Religious Right representatives on cable news shows—he's tangled with Bill O'Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and Laura Ingraham, to name just a few—and that just adds to the right wing's rage.

Lynn has led an interesting life. He may be the only American ever to win both a Freedom of Worship Award from the Roosevelt Institute and a Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award from the founder of Playboy. (No, he didn't get it at the Playboy Mansion.) A polished public speaker, he's likely to be found addressing a gathering of LGBT Christians one day and a confab of atheists the next.

And about that “reverend” business: It's real. Over the years, various leaders of the Religious Right have insisted that there's no way Lynn could actually be a minister. Well, this “fake” clergyman earned a master's in theology from Boston University School of Theology and is ordained by the United Church of Christ. Every year, he presides at weddings and funerals and preaches guest sermons in houses of worship of assorted denominations.

Lynn's also a lawyer, and he's no slouch in that department either. His degree is from Georgetown University Law Center, and he's admitted to the US Supreme Court bar. As Lynn like to remind critics, “I can forgive you this afternoon, but still go on to sue you in the morning.”

A film buff and folk music fan, Lynn is a far cry from the radical the Religious Right makes him out to be. He and his wife have been married for forty-five years and have two children. It's hard to get more “traditional” than that.

For a quarter of a century, Lynn's life work has been to annoy the would-be theocrats and busybodies among us who would run our lives along the lines of their religion. He'd say that's not a bad way to make a living.