For more than two centuries, Americans have been called to defend the founding ideals of our democracy. On Memorial Day, a grateful Nation remembers the proud patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of liberty's blessings.

From the opening battles of the American Revolution through the turmoil of the Civil War, to World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, to the Persian Gulf and today's operations in the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, the members of our military have built a tradition of honorable and faithful service. As we observe Memorial Day, we remember the more than one million Americans who have died to preserve our freedom, the more than 140,000 citizens who were prisoners of war, and all those who were declared missing in action. We also honor our veterans for their dedication to America and their sacrifice.

This year, we honor many heroes by observing the 60th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy, and by dedicating the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. In a radio address on June 6, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt described these service members as the 'pride of our Nation,' who struggled to preserve our civilization. The fallen from that fateful day and that war will always be remembered. They hold a cherished place in the history of the United States and in the memories of the people they liberated.

Today, all who wear the uniform of the United States are serving at a crucial hour in history, and each has answered a great call to serve our Nation on the front lines of freedom. As we continue to fight terrorism and promote peace and freedom, let us pray for the safety and strength of our troops, for God's blessing on them and their families, and for those who have lost loved ones.

On this Memorial Day, we honor all of our fallen soldiers, their commitment to our country, and their legacy of patriotism and sacrifice. By giving their lives in the cause of freedom, these heroes have protected and inspired all Americans.

There were more than 35,000 pictures of FDR taken. Two show him in a wheelchair. Why? Because the press almost unanimously agreed that -- despite the huge news value -- depicting FDR as a cripple would be bad for the war effort. The few dissenting photographers from that consensus were routinely blocked or deliberately jostled by the senior photographers so as to shield FDR from embarrassment and the public from its "right to know...."

Fox News offers a lesson here. I know the network's detractors think it's a rightwing propaganda factory. And, I certainly agree that much of Fox's programming is conservative (though liberals' sudden concern with ideologically loaded coverage is ironic). But at least one of the things that has made Fox News successful isn't that it's rightwing, it is that it's populist.

This is an important distinction. From the beginning, Fox anchors weren't ashamed to wear American flags on their lapels. They aren't afraid to refer to American troops as "our brave fighting men and women" or some such. They aren't terrified that they will lose their objectivity merit badges if they sound like they hope America wins.

The very prospect of homosexuality disgusts Mary's closed-minded classmates -- "What if you had married him [her boyfriend]?" one asks. "The gayness would be passed on to your children!" -- but after receiving a vision from Jesus, Mary realizes she must do whatever it takes to, um, straighten him out, and ends up pregnant.

As word spreads throughout her judgmental, insular world, she finds out who her true friends are: the outcasts, including Hilary Faye's brother, Roland, who's in a wheelchair; Cassandra, a chain-smoking rebel and the school's only Jewish student; and skateboarder Patrick, who wants to be more than just friends, even though she's with child.

Mary's mother isn't much help, either. When she isn't obsessing over her figure, she's flirting with too-hip Pastor Skip, who gets the American Eagle students psyched up at pep rallies by asking, "Who's down with G.O.D.?" and urging, "Let's get our Christ on!"

The film may stir up controversy and incite the ire of some Christians. But inspiring teens to discuss religion and ethics seems a mission worth having. And real faith is never mocked -- Pastor Skip's son embodies a more centrist and reasonable Christian position. Rather, it exposes the abuse of religion to control others and the hypocrisy among apparent devotees.

Saved's irreverent take on phony reverence is refreshing, particularly during times like these, when the political and cultural climate is steeped in religious moralizing.

Instead of becoming more moral, we are just redefining terms and standards to accommodate our addiction to licentiousness and our shameful repudiation of personal responsibility and accountability. If we don't like to live within certain standards we instinctively know are beneficial, healthy and morally sound, fine, we'll just change the standards....

But speaking of slippery slopes, let's not fall into the slippery slope of non-thinking to the point that we treat social issues as just one cog in the wheel of political conservatism. Our approach to these moral issues -- our worldview -- is foundational to all other issues.

So those who think that the erosion of traditional marriage is just one little setback in the overall societal struggle are sorely underestimating its substantive significance as well as the rationale upon which it has occurred. Gay marriage is a blow to traditional morality no matter how you cut it. But the wholesale abandonment of moral standards leading us to legitimize it is even more troublesome.

The central premise of the federal partial-birth statute is the defense of the border against the encroachment of abortion into infanticide. What matters most to this specific defense is the protection of all children who, while still alive and therefore capable of being protected, break the plane that currently marks the dividing line between non-personhood and personhood, between abortion and infanticide. The label the abortionist uses for his lethal procedure is irrelevant. The reason for using this macabre method of killing is irrelevant. What is crucial is maintenance of the bulwark against infanticide....

The U.S. Supreme Court in Roe held that human children prior to birth are not "persons" for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This ruling is itself unconstitutional, as well as violative of fundamental human rights, because it drives a wedge between biological humanity (which prenatal human offspring undeniably have) and legal personhood (i.e., the right to the equal protection of the law). The repellant notion underlying Roe -- that there are "subhuman" members of the human species -- conflicts directly with the very purposes of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which undid the great injustice of treating black Americans as slaves and property instead of as human beings entitled at law to full respect.

What strikes me most about the president's speech is the truth he did not speak:
Three years after 9/11, there has been not a single major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Who would have dared to predict such a victory that dark day in September 2001? Terrorists still want to sow death and destruction in America, but they have not succeeded. One measure of our new sense of security: Ralph Nader can seek votes by claiming President Bush 'exaggerated the threat of al-Qaida.'

Why doesn't President Bush try to take more public (and political) credit for three years without a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil? Iraq is now the front line of the war on terror: Some of our soldiers are still dying, but our citizens here at home are not....

Our current sense of relative safety is, in fact, an illusion, a precious, unexpected and ultimately fragile gift, for which many of us thank God, of course, but also President George W. Bush. Enjoy it while we can.

It is almost like a witnessing the incitement of a lynch mob -- except that the ones inciting the mob are the ones who will eventually be the guests of honor at the necktie party. It isn't like al-Qaida's operatives are planning to separate Republicans from Democrats in their next attack.

There are two Americas right now, at a time when America desperately needs to stand united against a common foe. As in Vietnam, America can only be defeated from within. And our enemy knows that. That is what he is counting on. It isn't a new tactic. 'Divide and conquer' has been in the military handbook since the first soldiers picked up their first spears and faced each other across the battlefield.

As the Europeans haggle over the final wording of their first constitution, they are bedeviled by a three-letter word: God.

Mind-numbing arguments over budget rules and weighted voting have been more time consuming, but can be delegated to technocrats. The issue of whether the most ambitious document in European Union history should include a reference to the continent's Christian heritage is different, an emotional, theological wrangle over the meaning of culture, history and faith.

"Embryonic stem-cell studies are controversial because they involve the destruction of human embryos," the New York Times explained in a May 6 article reporting on the shifting politics of stem-cell research. (For example, Nancy Reagan, whose husband has Alzheimer's, has gone public with her opposition to the Bush restrictions.) But that can't be right. Fertility clinics destroy far more human embryos than stem-cell research ever would, yet they are not controversial. Death or deep freeze is the fate of any embryo spared by the Bush policy from the indignity of contributing to medical progress....

It's not complicated. An embryo used in stem-cell research (and fertility treatments) is three to five days past conception. It consists of a few dozen cells that together are too small to be seen without a microscope. It has no consciousness, no self-awareness, no ability to feel love or pain. The smallest insect is far more human in every respect except potential.

Some bishops don't want to use Communion as a threat when dealing with prochoice Catholic politicians. But it is certainly appropriate. Communion is the moment in church life at which we most deeply realize our connectedness, both to Jesus and to all his followers.

Our age idolizes personal autonomy. Both sexuality and Communion, by their very nature, create and foster interdependence. Our culture fights sexual interdependence by promoting abortion-on-demand and the misuse of contraception to help people bypass normal family and reproductive life. Sexual liberalism fosters the philosophy of personal autonomy -- and that is in direct conflict with the interdependence created by both biblical sexuality and participation in Communion.

The religious schizophrenia of some politicians reveals the unintended fruit of hypermodern individualism. In many churches, this same spirit causes members to forget who they are: members, in the antique sense of "body parts."

Advocates of traditional marriage who once relied on dictionary definitions to bolster their case for the preservation of "one man-one woman" marriage might have to cite another authority.

Boston-based Houghton Mifflin, publisher of the American Heritage Dictionary, added a "same sex" clause to its definition of marriage in 2000.

"A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage," the addition -- or "sub sense" -- states.

"But we'll be altering that in the future to reflect the Massachusetts decision," editor Joe Pickett said.

Some young women keep it in their head, others in a drawer of their bedside table. One even preserves it on a spreadsheet in her laptop.

We're talking about "the number," that sum of sex partners that college women either have had or hope to goodness they can avoid reaching. In the highly sexualized atmosphere of campus, a number gives them something to compare and dish about with their close girlfriends.

A bizarre new kids' sex craze is sweeping the city's elementary schools.
Girls as young as 11 are stacking colorful rubber "sex bracelets" up their arms while their parents are unaware that each piece of the cheap jewelry represents a different sex act, according to a secret-code the kids share.

Some symbolize an invitation to kinky get-togethers, several kids told The Post.

These women analyze their numbers as if they were comparison shopping for the right size and color of shoes. They tell each other that sex is separate from love. And few adults tell them any different. Sex education teachers lecture on body parts and disease, and we know that parents would rather throw themselves in front of a truck than talk in depth about sex and romance.

From a Christian perspective, the economic issues are important, but not paramount. Phillip Longman's new book is a prophetic warning about falling birthrates and a population implosion. He makes his case with skill and authority, and his book serves an important purpose in punching holes through the arguments put forward by 'population explosion' theorists.

The Christian conscience should be primarily directed at the consequences of an anti-natalist worldview that sees children as economic liabilities, rather than as gifts to be received with joy. The prejudice against babies and children is evident in America's public life, especially among the elites.

Falling birthrates point to spiritual, as well as economic causes. The population implosion the world seems soon to experience will be due to the confluence of materialism, human ambition, self-interests, and secular ideologies.

On the first day of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, two-thirds of the couples who applied for licenses were female, according to a Boston Globe survey.

No one can say why, exactly. No studies have been done on the phenomenon.

Christmas Leubrie, 54, a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital who wed Alice Heimsoth, 52, a health care worker in the city AIDS office, after 19 years together, speculated that many men who would otherwise have partners have lost their longtime companions to AIDS....

But they and other female couples who have wed recently guess there are other reasons for the women's marriage march. "Everyone wants to be a bride," Heimsoth said with a wide grin.

Or, as Chun put it, "women are socialized to be married."

Jacoby departs from earlier liberal counterattacks against the religious right by faulting liberals nearly as much as conservatives for riding roughshod over our secular heritage. She is incensed that President Bush strode into Washington's National Cathedral after 9/11 and asked God to "always guide our country." When addressing the whole nation, presidents should avoid sectarian pulpits or religious language that inevitably excludes nonbelievers like her. But the Democrats, far from mounting effective resistance to President Bush's official piety, have in Jacoby's view climbed on the holy bandwagon, too. She winces at Al Gore's comment in 2000 that he frequently asks himself, "What would Jesus do?" She fumes at Joe Lieberman's support for faith-based initiatives, accusing him of forgetting his European Jewish ancestors. Jacoby thinks they would have cared more than Lieberman does "about what erosion of the church-state barrier might do to Jews."

Many readers across the political spectrum will applaud Jacoby's call for defending scientific literacy in the face of the Evangelicals' "intelligent design" theory, which rules out "evolution across species." But does reason as such need shoring up against the power of religion, and does the separation of church and state require keeping religion out of politics? Many liberals will contend that secularists such as Jacoby are wrong to ask religious Americans to keep their beliefs "private." Religious commitment does not automatically entail reduced devotion to reason or to pluralism. And even liberals who share Jacoby's sense that religiosity and rationality are fundamentally at odds may balk at her claim that freethinking is the right way to promote the primacy of reason. Jacoby has greatly overstated the influence of free thought in the American past, and hence overestimated the prospects for getting it back as a vibrant social force.

We in the Western press often praise "moderate Islam." But in practice, "moderate Islam" often turns out to be moderate in its actions only. As decent human beings, moderate Muslims will of course refrain from committing acts of oppression, cruelty, and terrorism. But intellectually, moderate Muslims have a difficult time explaining why these acts are "un-Islamic...."

What Westerners are really yearning for is not a "moderate" Islam, but a "liberal" Islam -- one that accepts peace and tolerance on principle, and not just as unfortunate necessities.

Yet such a "liberal" Islam, if it ever came to be, would pose a very serious challenge to the whole elaborate structure of Islamic thought and practice.

Socrates once posed a brain-twister to his disciples. "Is a good action good because it is approved by the gods? Or is it approved by the gods because it is good." In other words -- do the categories of right and wrong have an existence apart from divine will?

Islam's answer to Socrates' puzzle has been emphatic: An action is good because it is approved by Allah. There is no independent criterion of morality outside of the will of God. And since the Koran is an absolutely literal and accurate account of that will -- since indeed in a deep sense the Koran itself actually incarnates that will -- there is no independent criterion of morality outside the text of the Koran.

In other words: If the Koran says or teaches something that seems morally offensive, it is morality that is mistaken, not the Koran.

Weeks before The Post published its photographs, the public was well aware that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were mistreated. So, given the fact that pictures had been published and the legal process against the abusers was already going forward, what did the newspaper hope to achieve by running a new set of graphic, degrading photos of Iraqi prisoners?

Three objectionable possibilities come to mind: 1) to sell newspapers; 2) to damage President Bush politically; or 3) appallingly, to undermine the war effort in Iraq.

Whether the motivation was meretricious, partisan or antiwar, it was meant to excite rather than to elucidate -- and thus was journalistic pornography.

Without a set of beliefs that guide behavior, religion means nothing. These Catholic politicians are essentially asking that the Church debase itself so that they can get re-elected on a platform contradictory to Catholicism. They are asking the Church to discard its right of free speech and to subvert its own values for sake of personal political gain. This makes me wonder: Do these Democrats care about religion at all, or is that just another political weapon in their arsenal? If so, it's about time the Church disarmed them.

I was particularly comforted by the Psalm you had at the heading. I am sick with sorrow for my country that cannot see the devastating effects of killing babies in the womb and abolishing the sanctity of holy matrimony for the immorality of homosexual lifestyles.

Thanks for being one more voice speaking on the side of holiness and hope.