The most basic question in this controversy comes down to this: Has God created human beings as male and female with a revealed intention for how we are to relate to each other? The secular world is now deeply committed to confusion on these matters. Denying the Creator, the secular worldview understands gender to be nothing more than the accidental byproduct of blind evolutionary process. Therefore, gender is reducible to nothing more than biology and, as the feminists famously argued, biology is not destiny.

This radical rebellion against a divinely-designed pattern of gender has now reached the outer limits of imagination. If gender is nothing more than a biological accident, and if human beings are therefore not morally bound to take gender as meaningful, then the radical gender theorists and homosexual rights advocates are correct after all. For, if gender is merely incidental to our basic humanity, then we must be free to make whatever adjustments, alterations, or transformations in gender relationships any generation might desire or demand.

The postmodern worldview embraces the notion of gender as a social construct. That is, postmodernists argue that our notions of what it means to be male and female are entirely due to what society has constructed as its theories of masculinity and femininity. Of course, the social construction of all truth is central to the postmodern mind, but when the issue is gender, the arguments become more volatile. The feminist argument is reducible to the claim that patriarchal forces in society have defined men and women so that all the differences ascribed to women represent efforts by men to protect their position of privilege.

Explain this to me: The Supreme Court of the United States says the First Amendment protects the right of hard-core pornographers to lure children into "adult" Web sites where they will be exposed to every manner of deviant sexual behavior? Yet that same court says the First Amendment restricts the right of groups critical of this decision from airing ads at election time that oppose presidential candidates who might appoint similarly disposed judges. As incomprehensible as it might seem, this is the state of First Amendment jurisprudence as the current term of the Supreme Court comes to a close.

On Tuesday, the court upheld a lower court decision involving the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed in 1998, to penalize commercial Web sites that do not try to block access to sexual material deemed harmful to minors. An appeals court found the law unconstitutional in 2000, and it has been up on review by the Supreme Court twice since. The majority of the court in this latest decision said that COPA probably violates free-speech rights of adults who want access to porn but sent the case back to the 3rd Circuit to see if new technologies might make it possible to restrict children's access while not making it too difficult for pornoholics to get their fix.

Churches must recover the centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching, and refuse to sideline the teaching ministry of the preacher. Pastors and churches too busy--or too distracted--to make biblical knowledge a central aim of ministry will produce believers who simply do not know enough to be faithful disciples.

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.
This generation must get deadly serious about the problem of biblical illiteracy, or a frighteningly large number of Americans--Christians included--will go on thinking that Sodom and Gomorrah lived happily ever after.

Satire in wartime is an ancient art -- Aristophanes made a career of it. One can appreciate the humor in a well-made caricature regardless of one's view of the issues it makes light of. But listening to the banter amongst the Left-wing crowd in the theater, I concluded that this was not simply lampoonery. Moore accurately reflects the beliefs that most Democratic voters hold as true: President Bush was not elected legally; the United States is run by a wealthy white oligarchy (of which Democrats are somehow not a part, but sometimes facilitate); the military is comprised of an underclass that is sent to die in wars to keep the ruling oligarchy in power and make its members even wealthier; and invading Iraq was the idee fixe of the Bush administration from day one, for which the war on terrorism simply provided a convenient pretext.

As a film, Fahrenheit is uneven. A few parts are visually entertaining (e.g., the "Bonanza" parody) and some are very moving. But other segments wander to no particular point (such as a night patrol in Iraq, dimly filmed and inconclusive) or are simply confusing (are there really insufficient numbers of state troopers in Oregon, and if so, isn't that their problem?). Mostly I was interested in how Moore employed the various elements of his shtick, which he has been developing at least since he emerged on the scene with "Roger & Me" in 1989. All the tricks were in evidence.

Some would say...that the minimal interest among homosexuals in getting married is itself another good reason for legalizing gay marriage. After all, if few homosexual couples get married, there's little chance of a Trojan Horse scenario whereby gay married couples could somehow work to undermine heterosexual marriage from within. The positive version of this argument is made by Andrew Sullivan in his so-called conservative case for gay marriage. He claims that allowing gays to marry would not only not undermine marriage, it would also help strengthen an institution under threat of countercultural erosion. It would do so, he says, not just by boosting marriage statistics, but more important by presenting marriage as something to be desired, a special status worth fighting for.

If true, this would be an important argument in favor of legalizing gay marriage. Unfortunately for Sullivan (and the Netherlands), however, the Dutch experience has shown the exact opposite of what he predicts. The Trojan Horse scenario only existed in the minds of gay-marriage activists looking for a strawman to burn down. After all, no serious opponent of gay marriage has ever argued that the fact that my gay neighbor suddenly has the right to get married would make me, a heterosexual married man, want to file for divorce. But by lobbying so intensively for a change in the law, the gay-marriage campaign did contribute to a change in people's attitude toward marriage. And there is little doubt that it has been a change for the worse.

At this time last year, there were 20 suicide bombings killing 141, while 2002 saw 25 such attacks in which 147 Israelis were killed. So far this year, there have been only two bombings in Israel proper, killing 19.

Israel says its tactics are clearly working, and that life in the Jewish state may gradually be restored to the way it was before the violence started in 2000. The security fence completed in Gaza and the one being constructed in the West Bank are credited with keeping suicide bombers out, and raids in Palestinian areas and targeted killings of top terrorist commanders seem to be putting Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades on the run and unable to orchestrate attacks.

The question is whether the trend marks the end of the intifada, or is merely a lull while the terrorists, temporarily decapitated, regroup and rethink.

The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the "felt needs" and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Focusing on so-called "perceived needs" and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits....Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist's couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation's perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace, and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

The advocates tell us the skies have not fallen in Massachusetts; nothing has changed, they assure us. Romney points out that small things have already begun to change, foretelling the bigger, sadder changes to come. First, the marriage licenses change so they no longer read husband and wife but "Party A" and "Party B." The Department of Health insists that birth certificates also change. The line for mother and father becomes "Parent A" and "Parent B."...

The transformation of mother and father into "Parent A" and "Parent B" is the model of the paradigm shift now underway in Massachusetts. The distinctive features of the union of male and female are going to have to be removed from our notions of marriage and family. The experience of same-sex couples will become the new norm for family life, because the "unisex" idea that gender has no public significance is the only model that can be construed as "inclusive" of both opposite-sex and same-sex unions. The result is not neutrality but the active promotion of a new unisex ideal, in which the distinctive features of opposite-sex relations will be submerged, marginalized, cast to one side, and redefined as discrimination in order to protect the new court-ordered public moral standard of the equality of same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

The idea that John Kerry is running to uphold the Constitution is -- well, interesting. I guess it depends on what your idea of the Constitution is. But it is amazing that liberals like Kerry cling to this superficial notion that our religious liberties are dependent on a radical separation of church and state.

Even if the First Amendment mandated a strict separation of church and state -- as opposed to prohibiting the establishment of a national church -- it is difficult to see how a reasonable person could interpret the separation principle as requiring office holders not to infuse their governance with their worldview.

Indeed it's hard to imagine how anyone with the slightest grip on reality could believe that any human being, politician or not, could separate who he is from what he does. If our religious moorings, or lack thereof, don't largely define who we are, then nothing does.

I'm taking these God's blueprint for government classes and learning about family government, civil government, self government,and church government, and how, without GOD, none of them work. Nor should one solely do the work of another -- they help each other out. That's God's blueprint laid out for us in the Bible. Why does this play a part in abstinence teaching?

This is my view: obviously, because of the failure of self government and the cloaking over of promiscuity, it has failed. should the family gov't fail, the church must take up the slack -- and in America both are failing, so the gov't must then take up the slack and regulate how to teach it. It's a sad cycle. If the family can't teach the self how to do it -- we need to fix the foundational thing!

Trouble with refering to Christian heritage in the EU constitution is that there is also a distinct Islamic heritage and Jewish heritage in Europe.

This is seen for example in Spain (EU, medieval Islamic and Jewish heritage), Albania (non EU and almost entirely Islamic), Bosnia (non EU with mixed Christian, Jewish and Islamic heritage) and Poland and Lithuania (EU with distinct 18th - 20th century Jewish heritage).

In addition to this, in a number of EU countries there are minority (citizen) populations that are Sikh, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The EU includes them also.

Abstinence-only education is often "fear-based," reliant on outdated or untrue facts about sexuality, and disallows discussion of contraception, Ms. Kreinin said.

States would benefit youths if they offered "medically accurate" sex education that would delay the onset of sexual activity and increase condom use, she said.

"We know what works," she said.

The 450-page document, which took two years to research, tracks three federal abstinence-funding streams for fiscal year 2003. It details the amount of abstinence funds given to each state and the District, as well as local grantees, sex-education laws and statistics on pregnancy and teen sexual behavior.

In keeping with the times, translator Henson deftly translates "demon possession" as "mental illness" and "Son of Man," the expression Jesus frequently used to describe himself, as "the Complete Person." In addition, parables are rendered as "riddles," baptize is to "dip" in water, salvation becomes "healing" or "completeness" and Heaven becomes "the world beyond time and space."

Here's how Williams, the top Anglican archbishop, describes the new Bible: "Instead of being taken into a specialized religious frame of reference -- as happens even with the most conscientious of formal modern translations -- and being given a gospel addressed to specialized concerns...we have here a vehicle for thinking and worshipping that is fully earthed, recognizably about our humanity."

In the UK abstinence only programmes are non-existent and seen as a very American cultural phenomenen. Hence I suppose, making the documentary in the first place.

There are real issues to consider in the funding of faith based groups in a constitution that requires the separation of church and state. (This is as opposed to funding non-faith based groups advocating the same position). This point is often raised by the ACLU. As this is different to the position in Britain (which does not have separation of Church and state) british viwers may not have been aware of this potential objection. That is a good reason in itself for the BBC including this point in its website and documentary on The Silver Ring Thing which is faith based.

The debate around abstinence only programmes exists in the USA and it would be pretty biased of the BBC not to include this in a documentary.

A radical translation of the New Testament released with the personal backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and aimed at the those disillusioned with institutional religion, has been met by the mainstream media with a focus on a small number of biblical passages that relate to sexual ethics.

The ONE translation aims at a "new, fresh and adventurous" translation of the early Christian scriptures. It is designed both for mature Christians and for those who have limited experience of traditional Christianity or "may have found it a barrier to an appreciation of Jesus."

Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia promised Wednesday that terrorists in the kingdom will be safe if they surrender within a month -- but after that they will face forceful consequences.

"We are announcing for the last time that we are opening the door to repentance and for those to return to righteousness," said Crown Prince Abdullah in a televised address.

The move comes days after U.S. engineer Paul Johnson Jr., who was working in the kingdom, was kidnapped and beheaded -- and after months of battles between Saudi forces and al Qaeda terrorists.

Walt Disney Pictures is giving away free Bible study guides as a way to promote a new documentary that tells heartrending stories of several Americans across the nation -- a movie one noted entertainment critic says could spark a new era of films honoring traditional values.

"America's Heart & Soul" presents portraits of people from many walks of life, all of whom have lead uniquely American lives and whose stories together weave what promises to be an uplifting cinematic experience. The film opens nationwide on July 2.

Two recent surveys (by Glasgow University and the University of London) show that far too many -- up to a third -- of those who have sex young regret it soon afterwards.

This is the point that liberals miss. The debate over sex education has become so polarised that it is hard for people on the left to say that education about the advantages of abstinence is important for teenagers. And feminism has become so associated with the right of young women to be sexual that it is often hard for feminists to say that it is vital for girls to remember that they do not need to be having sex to be valued. This does not mean, as in the US abstinence movement, replacing frank sex education with pledges and prayers. But it does mean that the frank sex education which grown-ups give to teenagers has to include talking to them about why they can and should resist the social consensus that only sex will give them status.

If liberals and feminists refuse to see why abstinence movements are appealing, we run the risk of allowing the religious right to hijack the debate....Those US movements encourage teenagers to pledge chastity because they are told they owe it to God. But, in fact, teenagers owe it to themselves not to have sex too early. There is a fatalistic acceptance in our culture that having bad sex is an inevitable part of teenage experience; but there is nothing inevitable about such regret. Even first experiences, especially first experiences, can be full of pleasure and wonder, and are worth waiting for.

Why have the Jews -- always among the weakest and smallest of peoples -- attracted the hatred of the most evil people? Because of what the Jews represented. The civility of the Jews' lives and the values the Jews brought into the world -- especially ethical monotheism, i.e., a standard of right and wrong based on a moral and judging God -- made them loathsome in the eyes of those who led particularly uncivil lives and who celebrated moral chaos and cruelty.

Turning to hatred of America, the same questions and answers apply.

Either America is evil, and hatred of it is merited, or America is a decent country and the haters are evil.

The correct explanation is so obvious that only one who already hates America or who is simply morally confused would choose the first.

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something -- I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now -- has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

The truth is that the fate of the phrase "under God" is a symbolic issue. The real issue is the continuing and relentless effort to banish every trace of religion from the public square. "Under God" is in line with "In God We Trust" on our currency and "God save the United States and this honorable court" at the Supreme Court and a similar blessing in the president's annual Thanksgiving message. To defenders of the "under God" phrase, this is the key point: that the reflexive hostility to religion that now guides much of American liberalism will result in the step-by-step elimination of all these references, most of which, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and others have argued, are harmless expressions of "ceremonial deism."

The antireligious campaign presents itself, of course, as a high-minded concern about church-state separation. But that self-flattering view breaks down quickly under the most casual analysis. The American Civil Liberties Union hilariously argued that a moment of silence in Virginia schools equals "establishment of religion." Recently, under threat of expensive litigation, the ACLU forced the removal of a tiny cross on a tiny building on the seal of Los Angeles County. The cross was included in a welter of symbols and referred to the Spanish missions that founded modern California. Even a semirational analysis might have concluded that this was a straightforward, unthreatening historical reference. But it was enough to send the ACLU into a spasm of church-state concern.

Pundits mocked George W. Bush when, during the 2000 campaign, he told an interviewer that Jesus Christ was the most influential philosopher in his life, though this was not so remarkable to anyone actually conversant with our nation's history.

Time magazine notes in its current cover story, "Faith, God and the Oval Office," that Thomas Jefferson said the same thing 200 years ago. Spirituality and adherence to certain religions (like "sophistication" and "education") can be faked by artists, politicians and the rest of us for all kinds of reasons, but public religious expression seems to make those without faith particularly uncomfortable.

As this election season unfolds, it behooves all of us to be particularly judicious and discriminating in the ways we interpret what a person says about his faith. Those who criticize George W.'s religious talk fear that his faith determines policy. But a person's faith (or lack of it) is inevitably a factor in making important decisions, personal and political.

Stem-cell research and abortion are issues that atheists as well as the faithful can question because profound and complex issues determine how we value life. Not even a saint has all the answers to every question.

The long historical truth is that God, whether He exists or not, is good for summoning national pride, communal bonds and the martial spirit--the qualities most necessary to ensuring the survival of the United States at its current level of pre-eminence. (If the U.S.'s current level of pre-eminence is what galls you most, stop reading.)

When in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance schoolchildren stand and say together that their one, indivisible, just and liberty-loving nation exists under God, they are admitting an organizing force in life other than their cute, little selves.

Arguably, the role of God or religion in the nation's life wouldn't matter very much if the relations among all nations resembled the Garden of Eden. Since that famous, unfortunate Fall, however, men and women have been called upon to die defending their country. That is asking a lot. The willingness to fight for one's nation has been a function of the patriotic impulse, and we summon that impulse, in part, with appeals to a higher purpose.

Isn't it kind of unbelieveable how little he has to say to make news? Like if he said 'we don't want to kill all the Jews' it would make front page news with the headline reading 'Arafat a man of peace.'

While no one was looking, something historic has happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.

For Israel, the victory is bitter. The last four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.

As in so many other aspects of his presidency, Bush's faith played different roles before and after 9/11. The original promise to empower faith-based social-service groups, a core piece of Bush's domestic policy, was very much in keeping with the self-help trajectory of his spiritual journey and that of millions of others as well. In a country in which Christian authors write diet books (to help you get Slim for Him) and addiction books (Holy Smokes! Inspirational Help for Kicking the Habit), Bush won broad support when he argued--to the dismay of church/state watchdogs--that drug-treatment and prison-fellowship programs that have good track records should not be denied federal funds simply because their methods are faith-based.

Administration critics see a religious agenda that extends beyond compassionate-conservative outreach in the judges Bush has appointed and in his decisions to limit federal funding of stem-cell research, promote abstinence education over condom distribution and deny funds to international family-planning groups. But many of these were disputes that any Republican President could have had with his Democratic opponents. It was only after Sept. 11, when Bush found himself leading a shaken country through a dark valley, that the old left-right debates gave way to something altogether different. Now the debate was less about personal faith changing lives. It was about America's destiny and Bush's view of God's plan for him and for the U.S.

Yasser Arafat "definitely" understands that Israel must preserve its character as a Jewish state, the Palestinian Authority chairman told Haaretz in an interview this week.

This is the first time Arafat has said he recognizes the state's Jewish character -- he had previously refrained from doing so, to avoid offending Israel's Arab citizens.

My study, published in the journal Gender & Psychoanalysis in 2002, found that the sons of lesbian couples are thriving. Boys raised in two-mother families are vibrant, courageous individuals, effectively constructing their sense of self amid ordinary family love and extraordinary social change. These boys are articulate and thoughtful and deeply aware of their own emotional lives -- including the pain that comes from discrimination against their families. They exhibit all the usual traits of manliness, including athletic interests and skills. Significantly, they also demonstrate the openness and ease with feelings usually attributed to women....

As the sons of lesbians tell us, boys have an innate ability to become men, a capacity that good parenting by males or females can nurture. They do not need a single male role model in-house to teach them how to hit a ball or become men. Nor do girls need a female on the premises to show them how to be women. So-called masculine and feminine qualities are in fact human qualities and can be nurtured by either moms or dads. In fact, research specializing in adolescence and the sex lives of teenagers has found that girls' self-esteem often plummets with the imposition of rigidly defined gender roles, more likely causing some to become teenage mothers and high-school dropouts.

It's certainly understandable that Nancy Reagan, after the terrible ordeal she's been through, might look with favor on any possibility of defeating Alzheimer's. It's even understandable that others, misled by extravagant promises and blind to what's really going on, are grasping at the same straw. But they ought to argue their case on its merits -- what few merits it has -- and not enlist in their cause the name of Ronald Reagan, who stood foursquare against the exploitation and destruction of human life in any stage. That is one legacy he would have never wanted to leave.

Although the Supreme Court did not address the question directly, Mr. Newdow got it right: Atheists are "outsiders" in the American community. Americans are one of the most religious people in the world, particularly compared with the peoples of other highly industrialized democracies. But they nonetheless tolerate and respect the rights of atheists and nonbelievers. Unbelievers do not have to recite the pledge, or engage in any religiously tainted practice of which they disapprove. They also, however, do not have the right to impose their atheism on all those Americans whose beliefs now and historically have defined America as a religious nation....

Americans have always been extremely religious and overwhelmingly Christian. The 17th-century settlers founded their communities in America in large part for religious reasons. Eighteenth-century Americans saw their Revolution in religious and largely biblical terms. The Revolution reflected their "covenant with God" and was a war between "God's elect" and the British "Antichrist." Jefferson, Paine and other deists and nonbelievers felt it necessary to invoke religion to justify the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence appealed to "Nature's God," the "Creator," "the Supreme Judge of the World," and "divine Providence" for approval, legitimacy and protection.

The Constitution includes no such references. Yet its framers firmly believed that the republican government they were creating could last only if it was rooted in morality and religion. "A Republic can only be supported by pure religion or austere morals," John Adams said. Washington agreed: "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." Fifty years after the Constitution was adopted, Tocqueville reported that all Americans held religion "to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions."

In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush maintained a studiously moderate stance on social issues. Once he assumed office in January 2001, he betrayed that position and delighted his right-wing base by attaching antiabortion conditions to foreign assistance. These conditions laid down that family planning groups accepting federal money must not perform abortions, or even provide information about them to their patients. As we said at the time, forcing an organization to censor its views as a condition of receiving government money would be unconstitutional on free-speech grounds in this country. Mr. Bush's calculation, we supposed, was that Americans would overlook his contempt for free speech if the consequences were limited to far-off poor countries.

The lawsuits attacking public acknowledgment of the religious heritage of this country in recent years are too numerous to list. Ultimately, there must be a ruling on the merits of the issue, and in that case we urge the court to preserve the traditions developed to honor this country's commitment to religious freedom.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the leading Democratic supporter of the bill, said hate crimes amount to "domestic terrorism plain and simple, and it's unacceptable." He urged the administration to swing behind the proposal.

Current law permits the federal government to assist local and state authorities prosecuting limited types of crimes committed on the basis of the victim's race, religion or ethnic background. The legislation approved in the Senate would broaden it on two counts, allowing federal involvement in many more types of crimes, and adding sexual orientation, gender and disability to the list of covered categories.

The Pledge, Rehnquist argued, "is a patriotic exercise, not a religious one; participants promise fidelity to our flag and our Nation, not to any particular God, faith, or church."

The pre-Christian Cicero believed in one God whose laws were eternal and unchanging. Rehnquist's Pledge declines to subordinate America to "any particular God." Why not Zeus or Apollo?

O'Connor dismissed the words "under God," along with the Supreme Court's own invocation ("God save the United States and this honorable Court"), as examples of what she calls "ceremonial deism." "Such references," she says, "can serve to solemnize an occasion instead of to invoke divine provenance."

It is constitutional, in other words, to take the Lord's name in our public institutions as long as we take it in vain. Students reciting the Pledge who don't want to violate the First Amendment must violate the Second Commandment.

Why has God's name been driven to the brink of expulsion from American public life and law?

For decades, liberal judges have advanced their agenda by arbitrarily declaring "rights" that defy the Western legal tradition, articulated so well by Cicero, Aquinas and Martin Luther King Jr., that just laws comport with God's laws. They have declared that peddling pornography, killing unborn babies and even same-sex marriage are "rights."

These are not rights, they are wrongs. For judges to enshrine them permanently in our law, they must first unthrone God -- and put themselves in His place.

The need for a Christian worldview reset underlines the necessity of knowing God--the one true God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. A recovery of this knowledge is the starting point for both theological reformation and worldview realignment. The fact that so many modern people believe in "just an ordinary God" indicates the true nature of our challenge. This "god" of popular American spirituality is nothing like the God of the Bible--not even close....

There will be no recovery of the Christian worldview until this God--the self-revealing God of the Bible--stands once again at the center of our knowledge and wisdom. Belief in a sub-biblical God will result in a sub-Christian worldview. Just ask Nebuchadnezzar.

The right to abortion is as legally secure as ever, but its advocates have never been so apparently ashamed of the practice itself. If pro-choice advocates believe in the necessity and goodness of their position, one would expect them to say something like, "We support abortion -- that's A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N -- so women can eliminate unwanted children." Instead, they take refuge in the foggiest corners of obfuscation.

In April, supporters of Roe v. Wade held a rally in Washington in support of the right to abortion. But you would hardly know it. The rally was called the "March for Women's Lives" -- well, for the lives of women who aren't very, very young. The word "abortion" was almost verboten among people who support the right to it.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing the words 'under God' to remain in the Pledge of Allegiance wasn't just a victory for those who believe that recognizing the divine is an integral part of American culture. The 8-0 ruling also finally drew the line against a decades-long trend of allowing people to bring lawsuits challenging federal laws just because they don't like those laws, without having to prove actual injury from the laws as the Constitution requires. This was a victory for those, like me, who think that litigation has run amok in our country, and that the courts, which by their nature are not democratic, are not the proper place to try to change public policies with which one disagrees.

There is certainly an important argument to be made about the impoverished rights granted by courts to noncustodial parents, many of whom are fathers who pay significant child support in exchange for the fundamental right to be vetoed at will. That's a thorny and important problem, but it's a problem to be solved in state courts, by judges who must try to split children in two without breaking skin. It's not a question to be decided by the Supreme Court and certainly not an issue to be decided in a sidebar on a case about the First Amendment.

The court's decision this morning does not reflect judicial gutlessness. It would have been more gutless to throw millions of custody arrangements into question, turning what were once considered final divorce decrees across the country into open-ended suggestions. Safeguarding the idea that custody decrees are final may not be a sexy constitutional issue. But I'd wager that it'll be better for the health and sanity of more American children than cajoling them into saying good morning to God every day.