Just days after the prison abuse story surfaced, a terror cell associated with Al Qaeda brutally executed American businessman Nicholas Berg -- supposedly in response to the prison abuse.

We must resist the temptation to moral equivalence here. The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners is indeed a crime--but it is not tantamount to beheading an innocent civilian. The Al Qaeda thugs who killed Nicholas Berg and then sent the video around the world at least reminded us of what is at stake.

We are fighting for the survival of civilization itself. The Al Qaeda warriors who displayed Nicholas Berg's severed head as a trophy sent the world an urgent reminder of why terror must be opposed. The tragic photos from Abu Ghraib prison remind us that even a war with noble goals can bring out the very worst in those who fight. This lesson is too expensive to waste.

"War on Terror" is our government's top rhetorical catch-phrase. It is the way we define for the American people and the world -- especially the Islamic world -- what we are doing, and what we are about. It is the way we explain the nature of the menace that we are striving to defeat.

But is it accurate? Does it make sense? More importantly, does it serve our purposes? Does it make victory more identifiable, and hence more attainable? I humbly suggest that it fails on all these scores. This, furthermore, is no mere matter of rhetoric or semantics. It is all about substance, and it goes to the very core of our struggle.

Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified -- and identifiable -- enemy.

In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam -- a very particular practice and interpretation of a very particular set of religious, political and social principles.

Getting too close to partisan politics risks undercutting Dr. Dobson's spiritual and psychological authority, just as evangelical conservative leaders like the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have lost some of their influence, political scientists and other influential Christian conservatives say....

"There are dangers, and that is why I have never done it before," he said, speaking on the phone from Washington, where he was lobbying for an amendment banning same-sex marriage. "But the attack and assault on marriage is so distressing that I just feel like I can't remain silent."

In truth, Dr. Dobson has never kept his views on what he calls moral issues to himself. He has worried aloud for 30 years about abortion, divorce, gay rights and contraception. Every few years, he has publicly warned Republicans not to take conservative Christian votes for granted, and two decades ago he set up a separate organization, the Family Research Council, to press social conservative causes in Washington.

The left's heroes, it seems, always denigrate American society. From college professors to politicians, they bite the hand that feeds them...and wonder why they are unloved by the nation. From the dining halls of VMI to the prisons of Iraq, God has been forcibly removed. What remains is affirmative action, politically correct promotions, incompetence, the blame game and the talk-show circuit.

Don't ask, don't tell. The left, you see, is at war with the Judeo-Christian God. He is -- in their upside-down, topsy-turvy world -- the enemy. Despite His gifts of life and liberty to America, He has failed to meet the left's utopian expectations. For this, He must be "brought to the left's justice," to paraphrase one Democratic senator on the chain of command in Iraq. The drawstrings on the curtain of human history are being pulled taut, however slowly. The curtain is drawing closed on the last remaining act. Those who wish to confront God face to face will finally have their opportunity.

Mainline church leaders are urging the U.S. to stop the "cycle of violence" in Iraq by turning over authority of the postwar transition and reconstruction to the United Nations.

The National Council of Churches, an umbrella group to which 36 denominations and communions belong, issued its call in an "ecumenical pastoral" letter which stated its goal is peace and a renunciation of violence as contrary to the will of God.

A University of California study says a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry in California would be good for the state's bottom line.

The study estimates the state of California stands to gain up to $25 million in additional sales tax revenue each year if AB 1967 becomes law.

This May 17 marks two important events in our American life: the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, and the introduction of court-imposed same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

This surely is not a coincidence. The Massachusetts court, in so timing its decision, was giving a moral lecture, a judicial parable, a little self-important sermon to the American people. Moral progress demands expanding our definition of marriage to include same-sex couples because separate is not equal.

Brown v. Board of Education marked the end of the doctrine of "separate but equal" when it comes to race. Goodridge v. Massachusetts, by contrast, marks the end of the marriage idea as we have known it.

"That demeaning photo of a female soldier with an Iraqi man on a leash -- a woman had to have taken that picture," Donnelly said. "And I understand the other woman soldier has admitted that she did."

Donnelly believes the majority of American women reject what she calls the "attitude of hostility," toward men but she warns the feminist message has a powerful influence on young women.

"In this case, these women may not have been aware of it. But if they've been raised in a culture that you have a lack of respect between men and women, it becomes a little bit more understandable even though it's not excusable," Donnelly added.

You may recall that after President Bush signed the partial-birth abortion ban into law, pro-abortion groups immediately challenged it in court. Those cases are now being tried in New York , California, and Nebraska. But abortion advocates may have gone too far this time, because in those courtrooms the ugly truth about partial-birth abortion is coming out for everyone to hear.

We ordained therein for them: "Life for life, eye for eye, nose or nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal." But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what God hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers.

The hand-wringing about these abusive incidents not reflecting 'who we are' is the stuff of touchy-feely television shows. Who are we? We are a free people who send their sons and daughters to other nations in order to lift the yoke of oppression and allow others to be free, which we view as their inalienable right. There can be no higher earthly good than to lay down one's life for one's fellow man.

The pictures we are seeing, and the ones to come, are being used in an election year (would they be treated as seriously if it were not an election year?) to weaken us and to destroy our resolve. We are being held to a higher standard than most of the world -- certainly the Middle Eastern world -- holds itself. It is good and right to have such a high standard, but not good if that standard is one-sided and undermines what we are trying to achieve in Iraq.

If Rumsfeld resigned immediately and if President Bush followed Friedman's advice, nothing would change. The insurgents would not stop shooting Americans. The mullahs would not stop preaching hate and eternal damnation for all things American. The Arab press would not begin editorializing in favor of democracy. Dictatorial regimes would not suddenly see the light and stop abusing wrongly imprisoned people. All that matters is victory. Anything less is defeat -- for the United States and for those in Iraq and elsewhere who yearn to breathe free.

While we fight a courageous and just cause on foreign soil against a tyrannical ideology that threatens the entire world, Americans are losing the ability to govern themselves at home.

We have forgotten what made us great.

We have forgotten how special American institutions are.

We have forgotten the principles set forth by our founding fathers that were so revolutionary.

We have forgotten what unified us as a people....

Worst of all, we allowed the notion that faith in a transcendent God was superfluous to the way we governed ourselves and our affairs.

After unsuccessful attempts to overturn the case in state court, this marks the first time the Massachusetts gay marriage case has been brought into federal court.

The motion argues that the court usurped the constitutional powers of the legislature and the governor when it changed the state's marriage laws. This, in turn, violated the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees a uniform separation of power in all of the states, the motion argues.

Some Christians and conservatives are waffling about whether to support the reelection of President Bush. He is not conservative enough, they say. He is running a deficit. He advocates too much big government. Even some conservatives are thinking the war in Iraq might have been a mistake, that we are getting bogged down in a quagmire, with some thinking we should be even more forceful in dealing with terrorists, while others think our current measures are endangering civil liberties.

But such concerns, though often legitimate, pale before the cultural stakes in this next election.

Who do you want to select federal and Supreme Court judges? The Republicans, in the courtly spirit of compromise that is so frustrating to many conservatives, favor strict constructionists who tend to be pro-life, but they say they will not impose any pro-life litmus test. John Kerry, on the other hand, says that he will impose a litmus test, that he will appoint no judges who are pro-life.