Math panel won't go into the background

[Alex Casti]

My system:    Lyx 1.3.4, QT front end, Redhat 9 Linux

For some reason that I can't quite figure out, when I open the math panel
it always wants to sit in the foreground in front of the lyx document 
window.
When I click the lyx document lying behind it, the document window doesn't
come to the foreground as with other GUIs -- the math panel always remains
in front.  I find this rather annoying.  I can't seem to find anything 
in the preferences
to control this feature.  Is there anything I can do about it?

Much thanks for the help.