You've heard the lament by now. Embryonic stem-cell research is the Scientific Thing to do; the religious bio-Luddites standing in its way are so Middle Ages. How can they allow the continued suffering of many with so-far incurable diseases because of a moot religious speculation?

At least that's how some pundits cast the debate, some of them conveniently leaving out key distinctions. But the Devil and God both are in the details.

We see it in the August 24 Pew Research Center survey, which inadvertently reinforces a false dichotomy. Respondents were asked if it's more important to conduct stem-cell research or protect embryos--as if these were mutually exclusive options. Not even a hint that many scientists are already doing both: conducting promising stem-cell research on (adult) stem cells and not destroying embryos in the process.

A review of ten state evaluations of these abstinence-only programs, which teach teens only to "say no," finds no long-term success in delaying sexual initiation or reducing sexual risk-taking behaviors. An independent analysis of recent federal data also shows little reduction in teens’ sexual risk behavior nationwide since the federal abstinence-only initiative began.

Leslee Unruh with the National Abstinence Clearinghouse said that a closer look shows that some of the abstinence programs AFY researched weren't abstinence-until-marriage programs.

"These programs are bogus, fake abstinence programs -- what some people from the left would like to call 'Abstinence Plus,' " Unruh said. "But the funny thing is, there's absolutely no abstinence in these programs."

Separation of powers, of course, is a familiar concept. The basic notion is that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government should not usurp each other's functions.

In the Schiavo case, the state courts had previously ruled that Michael Schiavo, as Terri's guardian, should withdraw the tube that provided food and fluids to Terri. Because Terri's Law "allows the executive branch" -- in this case, Governor Bush -- "to interfere with the final judicial determination," the state supreme court declared the law "without question an invasion of the authority of the judicial branch" and thus unconstitutional.

Nonsense.

Every time a governor pardons someone convicted of a crime, he "overturns" a judicial determination of guilt, and the judicial imposition of a sentence. So what? The courts gave their opinion, but the governor decided, for whatever reason (perhaps new DNA evidence of innocence), to respectfully differ.

Or suppose a court has awarded custody of a child to someone (for example, in divorce proceedings or through adoption). Does "separation of powers" mean the state child-protection agency -- an executive-branch entity -- may not intervene if it has strong evidence that the custodian is abusing the child?

Advocates of same-sex "marriage" are known to reach for one of the oldest arguments in the liberal arsenal -- that a vote in favor of their point of view is a "smart" vote, and a vote against it is the mark of a knuckle-dragging reactionary.

Well, is it?

The question takes on added prominence as the House of Representatives prepares to vote Thursday on a constitutional amendment protect marriage as the institution of one man and one woman. Congress must pass the amendment before it can be considered by the states, where three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures would have to approve it before it became law.

"I would believe in a God who created this world and also some more rational insights to make it better and would indeed give us an afterlife. An afterlife would be a really good deal. Yeah. I would vote in favor of that," he says. "But in the meantime, I urge one and all to live this life as if there is no reward in the afterlife and do it in a moral way that makes it better for you and for those around you and leaves this world a little better place than when you found it."

That last bit sums up Hefner's moral code.

Don't hurt anyone. Try to do the right thing. Make the world a better place.

He believes he has lived up to those morals, although he's keenly aware of the myriad people -- many of them deeply religious -- who would insist he has done the exact opposite by building an empire based on free sexuality and, some say, the objectification of women.

Their image of him is simple: Hugh Hefner, sinner extraordinaire.

"Sin is a religious term for immoral behavior, but it's a religious term," Hefner says, adding that his definition of sin is "things that are hurtful to people."

Has he sinned?

"Oh, sure. But I haven't pursued very much immoral behavior. I'm a pretty moral guy. Now, it's morality as I perceive it. Morality is what is perceived as good for people," he says, smiling widely, but not in a mischievous way. "I try to do what's right....I define it in a way that is truly, what I believe to be truly humanistic and rational and loving.

In the same vein of questioning about the marriage amendment, we might ask if we really needed to amend our Constitution to prohibit slavery. Unfortunately, we did.

Our society and our institutions are already under daily siege by the liberal elites at the helm of our entertainment industry who get rich producing an endless flow of television and movies that appeal to the very worst instincts of our young people. In a way, the federal marriage amendment would act as a counterbalance to our First Amendment, which essentially guarantees that popular culture will be seized by irresponsible and exploitive entertainment industry power brokers.

We should keep in mind that legalization of gay marriage would be a significant formal gesture of our society to reject a basic tenet of Christianity and Judaism. To reject one basic tenet is to reject the legitimacy of the whole package. The Judeo-Christian tradition would become a "lifestyle" rather than a central cultural pillar of our society.

For Kerry, windsurfing is one measure of his spirituality. In a 1998 interview with American Windsurfer, he said windsurfing is more spiritually fulfilling than playing hockey because windsurfing "allows nature to play with you in ways that nature doesn't involve itself with a hockey game."

In that interview, Kerry provided some of his most detailed public comments about his theological ideals:

"I'm a Catholic and I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions....I've spent some time reading and thinking about [religion] and trying to study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences, but a sense of the similarities in so many ways; the value-system roots and linkages between the Torah, the Qur'an, and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs through all of this, that...really connects all of us.

"I've always been fascinated by the transcendentalists and the pantheists and others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature itself."

Nobody should order reporters and editors to "downplay" a gut-wrenching human interest story involving cruelty, violence and death. Nor should the media flinch from covering casualty counts or honoring the fallen. War involves sacrifice.

But responsible journalists should consider the wisdom of allowing media-savvy terrorists to play them like a violin.

Sensationalism sells; on TV, "if it bleeds, it leads." Audiences are surely drawn to tearful interviews with worried spouses and children. Bloggers get "hits" from posting the most gruesome pictures. Cable ratings rise by milking the pathos in the drama created by the Zarqawi network: first comes the kidnapping report; then televised pleas from the kneeling, doomed innocents; then coverage of marches and vigils to plead for the payment of ransom; finally, in one case out of four, the delivery of dismembered bodies and gleeful claim of blame.

Do we have to become conduits for this grisly, real-death kidnap choreography? We are obliged to report it, but we need not go along with the terrorist propagandists in milking the most horror out of it.

"We don't give people syringes to use drugs. We give them syringes to reduce HIV, STDs and STIs [sexually transmitted infections].

The needle exchange work has its roots in the efforts of Jon Parker, a former injection drug user who nearly 18 years ago began distributing (then exchanging) syringes in the streets of New Haven and Boston. Now more than 125 needle exchange programs, privately and/or publicly funded, exist in the United States. Organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, the National Commission on AIDS and the American Public Health Association support exchange programs. Since heroin addicts will shoot anyway, they argue, it's better they do it with clean syringes.