After a conversation with a "transgender therapist," Winfrey then confronted Derek with his refusal to go along with his son's desire for a sex change. Coming out of a commercial break, Oprah told her audience: "And as I--I was saying to Derek during the commercial break, I was saying that this is your holiest hour. This will be your holiest hour as a parent, being able to allow your son to be himself and to love him as he is. Whatever that turns out to be, you know, that's where, where you will be challenged emotionally, spiritually and otherwise, I think."...

After all this, Winfrey celebrated what she called an "evolution" in social tolerance and cultural acceptance of the idea of a sex change, even among children. "I have seen such a change in the way parents parent, you know," Oprah declared, "even in the years that we've been here, 18 years, seeing such a--a difference--this generation, your generation, is so much more open to accepting children as they are instead of trying to--forcing whatever your own idea was."

This isn't "evolution," this is insanity. Oprah and her guests were involved in an absurd and horrific exercise in moral inanity. What culture can survive such a rebellion against the moral order? What devastation and destruction will be brought into the lives of young children before some level of sanity is reestablished?

Oh yes and amen! I have given up hope for the Episcopal Church after 22 years of membership.

The emerging denomination -- which will replace the conservative half of it -- is worthy of a look, but I have come to realize that God isn't impressed with our rituals, only with our hearts focused on Him, and our souls washed clean by His son.

the Republicans faced a daunting challenge. Pro-slavery Democrats condemned them as "fanatics" and "zealots" who sought to impose their religious scruples and moral values on others. Slaveholders demanded that they "mind their own business" and stay out of the "domestic" and "private" affairs of others. Defenders of a "right" to own slaves pointedly invited northern abolitionists to redirect their moral outrage towards the "wage slave" system in the north. "If you are against slavery," they in effect said, "then don't own a slave."

By the mid-1850s, polygamy, which had originally been the largely secret practice of the Mormon elite, had come out of the closet. Polygamists claimed that attacks on "plural marriage" were violations of their right to religious freedom. Later, some would bring lawsuits asking judges to invalidate laws against polygamy as unconstitutional. One of these cases would make it all the way to the Supreme Court. Apologists for polygamy denied that plural marriage was harmful to children, and challenged supporters of the ban on polygamy to prove that the existence of polygamous families in American society harmed their own monogamous marriages. They insisted that they merely wanted the right to be married in their own way and left alone.

But the Republicans stood their ground, refusing to be intimidated by the invective being hurled against them. They knew that polygamy and slavery were morally wrong and socially corrosive. And they were prepared to act on their moral convictions.

Yeah! Go team -- I love it that in the midst of 130,000 condoms, there were hundreds of thousands of virginity pledge cards -- what an awesome testimony!

Nuno Fernandes Thomaz, secretary of state for sea affairs, told Lusa that Portuguese authorities had informed the captain of the boat, the ship's agent and Dutch officials that the boat would not be allowed to enter Portuguese waters, Lusa said.

The boat belonging to the Women on Waves organisation had planned to dock on Saturday at Figuera da Foz, about 200 km (124 miles) north of Lisbon, the group said.

The floating clinic offers the abortion pill in international waters to women in countries where it is illegal or more restricted than the Netherlands.

For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq and Afghanistan have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.

The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a 2004 Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication, says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.

The Canadian organization Project Ploughshares, using broader criteria to define armed conflict, says in its new annual report that the number of conflicts declined to 36 in 2003, from a peak of 44 in 1995.

The Archbishop also admitted to failing to live up to people's expectations, a reference to the disappointment many felt that he had not been more radical over his opposition to the war in Iraq.

He surprised some at the three-day Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham, Glos, by declaring that Muslims can go to heaven.

Dr Williams said that neither he nor any Christian could control access to heaven. "It is possible for God's spirit to cross boundaries," he said.

"I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think."

During a wide-ranging discussion, Dr Williams reflected his disappointment at the tone of the debate on homosexuality, and his dismay at the vitriol of many of the e-mails he had received.

Congress tried several times to enact a partial-birth-abortion ban but repeatedly ran up against the veto pen of President Clinton. The ban finally signed by President Bush sought to prohibit partial-birth abortions in most circumstances, but it was far from the absolute prohibition that many of its opponents have falsely claimed it to be. Instead, it allows partial-birth abortions in the unlikely event that such an abortion method "is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself." But because Congress found that a broader exception for the "health" of the mother was not required in any medical circumstances, the ban does not contain such a health exception.

The advocates of Roe read into the language, and quite reasonably so, that the health of the mother was the critical consideration. If her health were invoked as a reason to proceed with abortion, then that consideration became paramount.

Critics of the decision stayed up late at night, and continue to do so, seeking to find means to keep abortion rights from being categorical, in the sense that the rights to free speech are such. Does the right to abort mean that it is illegal to require a girl to consult with her mother? Do abortion rights specify any limitation on the interval between when an abortion is sought after, and executed? Can modifications be justified when related to the age of the mother? The primary matter that needed thought was the whole business of the health of the mother. When a doctor is asked to cite health as a reason to go forward into the later trimesters, is he actually talking about health defined as survival?

The attempt has been made to modify abortion rights to relate in a substantial way to the "health" of the mother. Is it supposed that, if the abortion were denied, the mother would die? Be crippled?

But formulations so arrant were not acceptable to the totalists. They held, and continue to do so, that the health of the mother is subjectively relevant. A doctor can advise that the health of the mother requires abortion because otherwise the mother would become morose, or disoriented, or demoralized, or whatever.

We're gratified by this sensible ruling, but pro-choice Americans can't rest for even a second. We know that if George Bush is reelected, today's ruling is likely to become just a speed bump on the fast track to eliminating women's right to choose entirely.

Since his first full day in office, Bush has worked to limit women's freedom....

"The abortion ban is a brazen affront to women's health, the right to medical privacy and the U.S. Constitution and was rightfully struck down," PPFA President Gloria Feldt said. "This ruling is a critical step toward ensuring that women and doctors -- not politicians -- can make private, personal health care decisions. Doctors represented in this lawsuit can now provide the best health care to their patients free from the daunting specter of prosecution by the Ashcroft Justice Department."

Such a ban constitutes a grave threat to women's health and a violation of their rights and should be struck down.

When abortion was illegal in America, many women died or suffered serious medical problems from either self-induced or illegal "back-alley" abortions. Women streamed into emergency rooms with punctured wombs, massive bleeding, and rampant infections.

In a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge found the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday because it does not include a health exception.

U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law that prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health.

It seems certain that same-sex marriage and a federal amendment to prohibit it should be front and center in any presidential debate devoted to domestic issues. It seems just as certain that Kerry will intone his "I am opposed to gay marriage, but in favor of civil unions," and that a friendly press corps will leave it at that.

But the marriage issue is a driving force in the election, as the vote in Missouri and future votes in other states, including Ohio, will prove. It is not an answer to say "oppose / favor" referring to gay marriage and civil unions. There needs to be a plan as to how to achieve that end because, unimpeded by legislative action, judges have been pushing decisions that impose same-sex marriage, decisions that will inevitably hop state barriers. Either you are in favor of obstructing the export of same-sex marriage or you are in favor of its inevitable transfer via judicial decree. That's the question that needs to be asked: "John Kerry, since you opposed DOMA, what actions do you support to prevent the courts of one state from imposing their rulings on another state?" Followed by: "If federal courts strike down DOMA, thus providing for the export of same-sex marriage from one state to another, would you then support an amendment to the federal Constitution to prohibit such export?"

The condescension demonstrated so graphically in this project is seen especially in the cultural and scientific put-downs the authors pitch at conservatives. According to The Great Divide, Metro America is filled with sophisticated secular people who have enough common sense to believe in the scientific method and to settle all questions of public policy according to simple "rationality." Meanwhile, we conservatives might as well be sitting on a stump in rural America, picking our teeth while trying to figure out which scientific theory we should oppose now. Who, ask the authors, could ever doubt this? Metro America "almost always excels" in matters of education and science.

Vice President Dick Cheney spelled out Tuesday his differences with President Bush on the volatile issue of gay marriage, while for the first time discussing the sexual orientation of his gay daughter in a public setting.

Asked his position on the subject at a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Cheney replied: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with....With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be able to free -- ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."

Cheney went on to repeat the position he first outlined in the 2000 campaign -- that same-sex marriage should be left to the states to decide. He noted, however, that Bush has endorsed a constitutional amendment preventing the states from recognizing such marriages.

Finally -- and this is the one the pundits have trouble grasping, given the self-promoting nature of today's culture -- real heroes don't call themselves heroes. Honorable soldiers or sailors don't brag. They let their deeds speak for themselves. Some of the most off-putting words any veteran can utter are "I'm a war hero."

Real heroes (and I've been honored to know some) never portray their service in grandiose terms, telling TV cameras that they're reporting for duty. Real heroes may be proud of the sacrifices they offered, but they don't shout for attention.

This is so profoundly a part of the military code of behavior that it cannot be over-emphasized. The rule is that those who brag about being heroes usually aren't heroes at all. Bragging is for drunks at the end of the bar, not for real vets. And certainly not for anyone who wishes to trade on his service to become our commander-in-chief.

All these revolutions, however, raise the suspicion that deeper forces are at work. Our metaphor may need to shift a bit.

So far we have pictured the cathedral of marriage being hammered by a variety of outside forces. It may be that these revolutions are more effect than cause. The marriage cathedral may have collapsed not from a few generations of external blows, but from the slow rotting of its foundations and support beams by spiritual powers over many generations.

It may be that there are termites in the marriage cathedral, weakening it (and the various cultural values and practices that sustain it) so profoundly from the inside that it took little more than a few pushes from without to make it collapse.

Marriage has faded as a social institution in American life. If marriage is a cathedral, we stand among its partial ruins.

Sam Harris: ...I think it's profoundly ironic that the most sensible statements about Islam to appear in our culture have come from our own religious dogmatists.

Prager: It's not ironic. That's where you and I differ. It is their faith that gives them (their values and) the strength to say it. I think the university is a moral failure because it is radically secular. You think it's a failure because they're just weak-willed and politically correct.

If I lived 200 years ago in Europe, I would have been tempted by the argument that reason alone, without God, religion and sacred texts, can lead us to goodness. After the depredations of the French Revolution; the horrors of two secular doctrines, Nazism and communism; the low moral state of American and European universities; and the moral cowardice and appeasement of evil in contemporary secular Europe, one has to be -- ironically -- a true believer to believe that reason alone will lead us to a more moral world. Of course, we need reason. But we also need God and moral religion.

Gen. Boykin's words do not fall in a gray area. He said in one speech of a Somali warlord that "I knew that my god was bigger than his. I knew that my god was a real god and his was an idol"; he described the war on terrorism as a "spiritual battle," noting that "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army"; and he famously described a dark section of a photograph of the Somali capital as the "evil" that is the real enemy. "It is not Osama bin Laden, it is the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders." Such beliefs are the general's right, but when a senior defense official utters them in public, they undermine just about every value the administration is trying to project in this war.

Of course, the argument arises over the question of just why the human embryo should be regarded as a human being, with the same human standing as those human beings we see all about us. If this were merely a matter of "belief," then for John Kerry the issue could be settled already. For he has already affirmed his belief -- fortified, he claims, by his religion -- that life begins at conception.

But happily there is a truth of this matter that does not hinge merely on "beliefs." What Kerry curiously affirms as a matter of mere personal belief happens to be the plain fact contained in every textbook on embryology and gynecology. Twenty years ago the Senate Committee on the Judiciary undertook a survey of the leading books in the field, and quite remarkably found a thorough consensus on the science of the matter. Twenty years later the consensus remains the same: Human life begins with the union of the male and female gametes to form a unique being, with a genetic definition quite separate from that of the mother and father. When we refer to the "human" embryo, we've already answered most of the question: The organism never undergoes a change in species. The offspring of homo sapiens is homo sapiens, or a human being, from its first moment to its last. And as the late Paul Ramsey once remarked so tellingly, there is nothing you and I have, genetically, that we did not have when we were that zygote, no larger than the period at the end of this sentence.

A discussion of Hayekian philosophy? I'm a big Hayek fan...his explanation of human institutions and societal order is fascinating. "Institutions which are the result of human action, but not of human design." He argues that a free hand must be left for change, but that the cumulative actions of the multitude contain encoded wisdom far greater than a handful of intellectuals could rationally conceive. I agree with Goldberg, this argument supports traditional marriage, not same-sex marriage. Though libertarians would argue it should not be a government matter at all (see my friend Jennie Keenan's article at fee.org). I find this silly because the courts will inevitably be dealing with it. And, of course, I share your belief it is a God-ordained institution. I don't want to see it turned into a meaningless agreement of which any combination of adults can enter into.

How does a godly woman keep her way? She takes her feelings to Scripture to have them named. She finds there a framework for her experience: Some yearnings are blessed and others censured. She encounters the ancient phenomenon of Covenant, an insight as deep as the dawn of creation and in accord with reality. It takes into account a fact of human existence that fools ignore to their peril--that life is lived out in the matrix of time, in a succession of moments. And therefore, living is marked by inconstancy of feelings, feelings that would threaten to pull asunder by centrifugal force if not brought into submission to a higher rule. The woman now sees her impulses in the light of new possibilities: Not all feelings are friends.

In the same Scriptures she finds remedies. What do you do to rob the oxygen of an illicit ardor? You pray for the man (let's say it is a man) you are attracted to. You pray for his sanctification. You pray for his wife! (This, friends, is a real non-starter for romantic adventurism.) Rather than stoking ungodly feelings till they crescendo to a convincing claim of defining your essence, the tempted woman "sues for grace" (as the Puritans used to say), until the impulses threatening her very soul abate.

The only way to make the implementation of homosexual marriage un-radical is to persuade people that such a move isn't radical. And such persuasion is less dependent on reason than it is on time. Let's put it this way: Imagine that it's 1904 instead of 2004. Now, let's suppose that the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. Imagine the social and political upheaval that would ensue. Now, according to its advocates, gay marriage is a matter of justice, so presumably legalization in 1904 would have been as warranted as in 2004. But since virtually no one was asking for gay marriage in 1904, the move would have seemed needlessly or even insanely radical, and no amount of reasonable argument would change that perception.

[Jonathan] Rauch's version of Hayekianism says that change is necessary whenever the injustice is great. What if, instead, change is necessary when the injustice is obvious? For Rauch, of course, the injustice is already obvious. But obviousness for any individual is never the right criteria. The benefits of socialism or economic planning -- which Hayek dubbed "the fatal conceit" -- were obvious to a great mass of intellectuals and workers. No, the standard must be obviousness for the society generally.

Well, there's a difference between evangelical and being a part of the Religious Right. A significant proportion of the evangelical community is part of the Religious Right. My purpose in writing the book was to communicate loud and clear that I felt that evangelical Christianity had been hijacked.

When did it become anti-feminist? ["Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."] When did evangelical Christianity become anti-gay? ["Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?...Neither fornicators...nor homosexuals."] When did it become supportive of capital punishment? Pro-war? [Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?...for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.] When did it become so negative towards other religious groups? ["Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees."]...

In short, I think that evangelicals are so concerned with the unborn--as we should be--that we have failed to pay enough attention to the born--to those children who do live and who are being left behind by a system that has gone in favor of corporate interests and big money.

In a striking admission, George W. Bush said the other day: "We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be [called] the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

This important concession follows growing criticism of the misleading term "war on terror" (how can one fight a tactic?) and replaces it with the more accurate "war on ideological extremists." With this change, the battle of ideas can begin.

But who exactly are those ideological extremists? The next step is for Mr. Bush to give them a name.

In fact, he on occasion since September 11 has spoken candidly about their identity. As early as September 2001, he referred to the enemy being "a fringe form of Islamic extremism" which seeks "to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children."

A British woman who had an abortion later discovered that the unborn child's head had been left inside her, a mistake that could have taken her life...."We just broke down and cried at what we were seeing. We couldn't believe it," said Chambers, sobbing.

It's not just a cliche: Sex and drugs often do go together, says a survey of U.S. teenagers.

Teens who say at least half their friends are having sex are more likely to report having tried marijuana, alcohol and cigarettes.

The annual survey, released Thursday, asked teens aged 12-17 about their use of illegal substances. Researchers then looked for other activities of daily life that were associated with such use.

It seems the seeds of divorce are sown long before a couple recites their wedding vows.

New research shows certain relationship skills -- or the lack of them -- can predict whether two people are headed for marital bliss or a painful breakup.

The skills that predicted success will come as no surprise to marriage therapists or happily married couples.

Fast on the heels of a recent Washington State court decision holding that homosexuals had a right to marry under Washington state law, a federal judge in the same state ruled this week that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage under federal law in light of the traditional opposite-sex definition of the term, is constitutional. The decision in In re Kandu was the first legal challenge to DOMA to be decided by a U.S. court. While it is only round one in a series of legal challenges to DOMA beginning to percolate around the country, the decision represents a significant victory for the majority of Americans who believe in the rule of law and the rule of representative democracy.

With Americans spending so much time on the job, some of them are finding ways to bring spirituality to the office, rather than relegating it to weekend religious services. This can mean simply trying to treat others well, saying a prayer to start the day or thinking about the sermon heard on Sunday.

This phenomenon is virtually impossible to quantify, but studies by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, as well as the Harris Poll and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, suggest that religion is increasingly important to Americans, both in private life and in public.

Hell House, the controversial morality play first staged at a suburban church for Halloween, is set to be spoofed in a new stage production in Los Angeles starting Aug. 28.

With Bill Maher playing Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus, the play will use the original play's script and special effects "to lampoon (Christian) fundamentalist beliefs about hell", producer Maggie Rowe said Monday.

"It will be a parody of itself. It will be very funny. We're having a hoot," said Rowe, who represents the Center for Inquiry-West, a group which says it promotes and defends reason and science.

Activists on both sides of the gay marriage debate "have begun to speak of the issue as 'the new abortion'," The Washington Post reports. But what ever happened to the old abortion? As it turns out, the past few months have seen extraordinary progress for the unborn, with abortion supporters looking more desperate than ever.

The reason Missouri was jostled to the forefront of the traditional-marriage battle had to do with Democratic politics being too clever by half. Amendment 2 was originally slated for the November ballot along with Amendment 1, which would open up the Branson area to casino gambling. But the governor and attorney general, both Democrats, overrode the Republican secretary of state to place both amendments on the primary ballot scheduled for Aug. 3.

The governor's official explanation was that the gravity of the issues made a swift vote imperative. Clearly, though, party politics weighed just as heavily on his mind. According to at least one Missouri family advocate, those most likely to vote in non-general elections are people associated with liberal advocacy groups. Facing a tough reelection battle this year, Gov. Bob Holden was beholden to many of those groups. Anticipating the usual low turnout of primary voters--less than one-third of a general election turnout--he challenged the secretary of state in court, and won placement on the primary ballot.

Kerry spins the stem cell issue by saying, "Here in America, we don't sacrifice science for ideology." This is a line he has been using for weeks. It delivers two messages, both false: (1) there is no legitimate moral issue here (though plenty of bioethicists and plenty of Kerry supporters think there is); and therefore (2) this is a one-sided issue, pitting enlightened people against backward ideological types....

But Bush did not impose ideology; he came out with a compromise that gave each side of the stem cell debate half a loaf, allowing federal funding and research, but not federal support for work on new stem cell lines. Politicians almost always seek compromises, and here Bush was trying to accommodate people who see no moral problem in working with microscopic embryos, and those (count me in) who don't want to pay scientists to create human beings so they can dismember them for research.

The gay-marriage debate is often conducted as if the whole issue were providing spousal health insurance and Social Security survivors' benefits for existing same-sex couples. All of that matters, but more important, and often overlooked, is the way in which alienation from marriage twists and damages gay souls. In my own case, I did not understand and acknowledge my homosexuality until well into adulthood, but I somehow understood even as a young boy that I would probably never marry. (Children understand marriage long before they understand sex or sexuality.) I coped by struggling for years to suppress every sexual and romantic urge. I convinced myself that I could never love anybody, until the strain of denial became too much to bear.

Others coped differently. Some threw themselves into rebellion against marriage and the bourgeois norms it seemed to represent. Some, to their credit, built firmly coupled gay lives without the social support and investment that marriage brings. And some, determined to lead "normal" lives (meaning, largely, married lives), married.

At what point Mr. McGreevey realized and acknowledged he was gay I don't know. I do know that many gay husbands begin by denying and end by deceiving. Perhaps that was so in his case.

Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes insist that gays can marry. Marriage, they say, isn't all about sex. It can be about an abstinent, selfless love. Well, as Benjamin Franklin said, where there is marriage without love there will be love without marriage. I'm always startled when some of the same people who say that gays are too promiscuous and irresponsible to marry turn around and urge us into marriages that practically beg to end in adultery and recklessness.

The Democrats clearly think they hold a winning card in stem cell research because of its potential, eventually, to yield treatments for diabetes, heart disease, neurological ailments and a host of other illnesses. Although religious conservatives consider such research immoral because it requires the destruction of very early stage embryos in the laboratory, polls show that most Americans back the research for its medical potential....

The president's policy limits federal funding to research on some 20 stem cell lines that existed three years ago. That makes it harder for scientists to do research on dozens of other stem cell lines that have since been created with private funds, including new lines that reflect genetic diseases not present in the Bush-approved lines. The Bush policy also rules out research on stem cells that are genetically matched to a patient, the avenue that will now be explored by the British while American researchers' hands are tied.

Carl Kallsen of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has two granddaughters with Type I diabetes: Kendall, 6, and Kelsea, 13. After they were diagnosed, he got involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In the campaign for expanded federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, few organizations have been more active in public than the JDRF. Earlier this year, Kallsen told the JDRF that he was taking his family to Washington, D.C....

[Congressman Mark] Souder was "very, very gracious," says Kallsen. But he said that he supported adult-stem-cell research, not research that killed human embryos. The fact that embryonic-stem-cell research involved destroying human embryos came as news to Kallsen and his family. "Basically, it was a learning experience for us. We were not well informed about all of the issues. We're all pro-life and...we had not done enough research on our own to understand that if we were promoting embryonic stem-cell research that's the opposite of pro-life. We were so interested in finding a cure that we weren't looking at how it's done." Kallsen also now believes that adult-stem-cell research is more promising than he had thought at the time of the meeting.

At a time when more than 40 million worldwide are infected, nearly 50 percent of them women, the religious roots of this disease must be examined to determine how the theological thinking of some has caused widespread harm to many.

These theological taboos include not talking openly about sex, preventing people from understanding how to prevent the disease. Second, moralistic judgments toward infected persons and their families have added to society's stigmatization. Third, religious prejudice toward sex workers, injection-drug users, gay men and others has contributed to discrimination. Silence, stigma and discrimination keep people from getting tested and treated.

"The theology of a few" has unfortunately long influenced many religious responses to the world's worst health crisis. Patriarchal religious assumptions have made women especially vulnerable. Endless controversies over the efficacy of condoms have helped deny people the least expensive "weapon of mass protection" available. In many countries, married women and young girls are endangered because they lack education and control of their own sex lives.

For the Left, Mr. Bush is automatically under a cloud of suspicion; he is an unapologetic twanger who likes guns, barbeques, NASCAR, "the ranch," and pick-up trucks. It matters little that George Bush's record on classical civil-rights issues is impeccable, without a hint of the deplorable racism of a younger Senator Byrd, a Lyndon Johnson, or an Al Gore Sr. Every statement Bush drawls out about religion, affirmative action, or abortion is forever suspect -- sort of what would happen should a Germanic-sounding Arnold Schwarzenegger quite rightly lecture Californians about the need for greater order, efficiency, cohesiveness, and the willpower to regain pride and purpose. Necessary, yes -- but for some, given his accent, Wagnerian and spooky all the same.

Similarly, Bush's Christianity seems evangelical and literal. It comes across as disturbing to liberals of the country who see religion as a mere social formality at best, useful for weddings and funerals, perhaps comforting at Christmas and Easter of course, but otherwise a potential threat to the full expression of lifestyle "choices."

American politicos like their candidates to be Episcopalian, Unitarian, or Congregationalist, perhaps even mainstream but quiet Methodists or Presbyterians. Baptists of the southern flavor, or anything not found in a New England township, reflect a real belief in the literalness of the Bible -- primordial ideas that religion is not a social necessity but a fire-and-brimstone path to eternal salvation.

Jimmy Carter came closest to the edge with his talk of being born again. Yet his liberalism, his close friendship with Walter Mondale, and his talk of American pathology convinced the Left that he was just a southern version of a Daniel Berrigan or William Sloan Coffin -- a little weird, perhaps, but useful all the same in drawing the powers of Christianity into the liberal crusade. In contrast, if Bush evokes the name of God one one-thousandth as often as did Abraham Lincoln or Reverend Jackson, he is dismissed as an unhinged zealot eager to incite a Hundred Years' War with the Muslims.