He was nice. He was competent. I liked him.

But how could I trust my baby's life to a man who thought babies were disposable? How could I trust him to catch my child, knowing he had dropped other children into medical refuse bins?

"Do you mind if I ask what you think of abortion?" I said politely, as if I were asking what he thought about a particular restaurant, or a brand of shoe.

He looked surprised and a bit wary. "Not at all," he said. "My job is to bring babies safely into the world. I don't do abortions. Never have, never will."

"But you're the [local] president of Planned Parenthood?"

"That's right. And there has never been a single abortion here on my watch."

"Shadrach" and "Spitfire Grill" and of course, "Passion of the Christ" is not really a film, but an experience.

Film, therefore, poses a special challenge for the artist who would dramatize the life of Christ. Traditionally, movies about Jesus have respected his divinity by keeping him at a distance; he has typically been portrayed in objective terms that keep him mystical and otherworldly. But in recent years filmmakers eager to explore the humanity of Jesus have tended to portray him in more subjective terms, through the use of voice-overs, dreams, and other techniques that draw us into the minds of a film's characters; however, in doing so, they have often demystified Jesus so thoroughly that he seems to lose his divine authority.

A Manhattan judge declared Friday that the section of state law that forbids same-sex marriage is unconstitutional -- the first ruling of its kind in New York and one that if upheld on appeal would allow gay couples to wed.

State Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan ruled that the words "husband," "wife," "groom" and "bride" in relevant sections of the Domestic Relations Law "shall be construed to mean 'spouse,"' and "all personal pronouns ... shall be construed to apply equally to either men or women." Ling-Cohan ruled on the side of five same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses. She said the New York City clerk could not deny a license to any couple solely on the ground that the two are of the same sex.

The majority of secondary school teachers believe pupils should be told where to obtain an abortion, according to a survey published today.

More than two thirds (69%) of staff who teach 11 to 18-year-olds said pupils should be taught how to arrange termination of an unplanned pregnancy. Some 59% of all the 700 teachers polled by the Times Education Supplement supported practical advice on abortion being included in sex education lessons....According to government guidance on sex education, teaching on abortion is optional and should be sensitive to the religious leanings of pupils and parents. It stresses the need for teaching on contraception and abstinence to reduce pregnancies.

The survey also showed that most teachers (74%) would be happy to tell children it was acceptable to be gay. And more than three-quarters thought parents had a right to be told if their underage daughter became pregnant and opted for an abortion.

The fights in scattered school districts over whether to teach creationism or its rival, called intelligent design, as alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution may be obscuring a deeper problem: the tendency of many districts to duck controversy by avoiding or soft-pedaling any teaching of evolution at all. Nobody knows the extent of the problem, but an article by Cornelia Dean in Science Times on Tuesday cites ample evidence that even when evolution is theoretically part of the curriculum, it is often ignored or played down in the classroom.

Some teachers duck the subject, lest they get into trouble with school administrators or fundamentalist parents. Others assign a chapter on evolution for reading but avoid any discussion in the classroom. Still others discuss evolutionary concepts without ever mentioning "the E word" to avoid arousing controversy....Several surveys have shown that many teachers give at least some instructional time to creationism or intelligent design out of a sense of fairness.

That serves the students and the nation poorly as they enter an age likely to be dominated by biology.

In an hour-long address, the President devoted but two short paragraphs to what we'd broadly call "life issues" (for lack of a better term). The words were good, but they were too few if he is really serious about building a "culture of life." This brevity in the midst of the nation's unfolding moral confusion is unsettling. Why is he bold and visionary on economic issues that may affect our children and grandchildren, but strangely reticent on the very definitions of human life and community? While "values voters" certainly care about Social Security, they didn't return Bush to office on this basis....

Also, we would like to see President Bush build a culture of life by speaking out more forcefully and frequently on the issue. (He did not even mention the word abortion last night.) He can be eloquent about freedom. We assume he could be equally eloquent about protecting the lives of the most vulnerable in the world: the unborn....Political issues such as reforming Social Security and encouraging democracy overseas are worthy challenges--both of which in broad terms we support. But we dare not neglect the issues that touch upon the foundations of human dignity and the family. What will it profit us if we gain retirement benefits and freedom and lose our national soul?

For Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, there's no mystery about what I.D. proponents believe: "It's another way of saying God did it. It isn't a model of change; it isn't a theory that makes testable claims." A 2002 resolution by the American Association for the Advancement of Science called I.D. "an interesting philosophical or theological concept," but not one that should be taught in science classes. In fact, the Discovery Institute doesn't call for teaching I.D. in school either, only the "controversy" over Darwinism. But most scientists don't believe there is one. The institute's "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," whose operative sentence reads "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life," has been signed by about 350 scientists. (AAAS has 120,000 members.) Scott's organization has circulated a countermanifesto asserting that "there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is [the] major mechanism ... " As a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, they signed up only scientists named Steve. At last count they had 528.

The real stakes, though, go beyond what high-school students are taught about Galapagos finches. To accept I.D. is to admit a supernatural process into the realm of science. In fact, that's just what I.D. proponents want to see happen, a revolution--or counterrevolution--against what Johnson calls "methodological naturalism." "Is it the obligation of the scientist to come up with a materialist explanation of phenomena, choosing among an artificially limited set of options," Meyer asks rhetorically, "or just the best explanation?"

Researchers in Boston have isolated a kind of cell from human bone marrow that they say has all the medical potential of human embryonic stem cells -- a claim that, if verified, could shake up the debate over human embryo research that has divided the country for the past six years.

But not all scientists are convinced the cells are as versatile as they appear to be.

Tufts University researchers used specialized cell-sorting machines to pluck the peculiar cells from samples of bone marrow obtained from three different donors. Tests suggested the cells are capable of morphing into many, and perhaps all, of the various kinds of cells that make up the human body. That is a hallmark of embryonic stem cells, which doctors hope to use to cure a wide variety of diseases but which have stirred controversy because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain them.

Why would a leader brave enough to push a divisive Social Security reform plan and bold enough to pledge an end to tyranny around the world appear to be backing down on the very issues that sealed his reelection? After all, the political winds are blowing in his favor: A 2004 poll from Zogby International found that 56 percent of Americans support more restrictions on abortion and believe that abortion should never be legal or legal only in cases of rape, incest, or a direct threat to the life of the mother. A majority of Americans also oppose same-sex marriage, and overwhelming majorities of red- and blue-state voters approved state bans on same-sex marriage last November. Given such strong support for the president's positions -- not to mention his own campaign promises on these issues, which accounted for much of the support he received from traditionally Democratic Catholic, Hispanic, African-American, and union voters -- Bush's sudden apparent loss of nerve is odd and unsettling....

Despite concerns about the Iraq war, job losses, deficits, and Social Security privatization, values voters backed Bush because he stood with them on their non-negotiable moral issues. They expect more from him than commiseration; they want results. Bush and his staff should keep that in mind as they make their final edits to tonight's speech. A president pushing controversial reforms at home and waging a controversial war abroad cannot afford to ignore the moral issues that defined his campaign, galvanized his base, and delivered his mandate.

Places like the Bowie center are a front line in the struggle over abortion, and the clinic reported to the police that on the eve of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision last month, its windows were smashed and it was spray painted with graffiti saying "Choice."

Such centers, many financed by churches and church groups, try to persuade women through counseling to carry their pregnancies to term, and often provide prenatal care and pregnancy tests and sometimes clothing and supplies.

Supporters of abortion rights say that a large number of the centers lure women by leaving the impression that they do, in fact, perform abortions and subsequently do not give young women a full picture of their choices.

"Generally, their treatment of women who come in is coercive," said Susanne Martinez, vice president of public policy at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "From the time they walk in to these centers, they are inundated with information that is propaganda and that has one goal in mind. And that is to have women continue with their pregnancies."

Like you, my family has long been a "Groundhog Day" fan. It was one of our original movies to start quoting from. We have quite a collection by now, with the motto that there is a movie line for every real life situation.

My favorite movies are the ones that make me think or makes me cheer for the hero (or heroine)... Searching for Bobby Fischer, Chariots of Fire, Brokedown Palace, and Life is Beautiful are all ones that I would say do a fair job of both.

Movies have a great potential for making visible the battles, heartbreak, victories, and struggle that exists in the unseen realm of every life.

Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act, now contains a long preamble -- several preliminary clauses that amount to an interpretive guide for courts -- and just a few actual legislative provisions.

"Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others," it reads.

It includes in the preamble and the body of the act a declaration that "it is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs."

We came to define these norms under the heading of marriage, by which we meant the pairing of opposite sexes, of man and woman, and according such a relationship a somewhat special place in our social arrangements.

Now, as part of nature, we may refrain from passing any judgment on other forms of mating.

But we will be right to insist marriage is the form of mating consistent with natural law, and any dilution of this definition will be inconsistent with and subversive of natural law, generating inevitable consequences whose life-retarding effects future generations will fully perceive and experience only over time.

From this nature-as-god perspective, we need to let our political leaders know their effort to redefine marriage from its accepted norm is wrong-headed and contrary to nature.

The secularist sincerely believes it is both possible and important to keep the idea of God out of public-policy discussions. A biblical worldview affirms that it is both possible and important to include the idea of God in any and all public-policy discussions. (The same secularist/biblical worldview split applies in discussions of science, economics, aesthetics, medicine--and every other field of human endeavor)....

So just how much God language is right? If it's sincere, it won't take much to make the point. If it's just window dressing, any at all is way too much. But it's impropriety--not insincerity--that Mr. Bush is being charged with. The record's pretty clear that his biblically literate speech writers, like Michael Gerson and Pete Wehner, are precisely on their boss's wavelength. They're not filling the president's mouth with words and phrases he finds to be awkward, but with concepts reflective of and intrinsic to his value system.

All that deserves to be part of the public discussion. Whether God has a place in public life, and in the values debate, is a key part of what some people call the "culture wars." Indeed, it may be what the whole argument's about. Don't rule it out just because somebody gets embarrassed.

Here's a line you'll either recognize or you won't: "This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather." If you don't recognize this little gem, you've either never seen Groundhog Day or you're not a fan of what is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the last 40 years. As the day of the groundhog again approaches, it seems only fitting to celebrate what will almost undoubtedly join It's a Wonderful Life in the pantheon of America's most uplifting, morally serious, enjoyable, and timeless movies....In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film's clown makeup. On National Review Online's group blog, The Corner, I asked readers to send in their views on the film. Over 200 e-mails later I had learned that countless professors use it to teach ethics and a host of philosophical approaches. Several pastors sent me excerpts from sermons in which Groundhog Day was the central metaphor. And dozens of committed Christians of all denominations related that it was one of their most cherished movies.

Speaking objectively as a Muslim scholar, and not inciting such acts, jihad can be effected outside the battlefield—it is not restricted by time, place, building, event, people, transport food, water (both of which may be legitimately poisoned in jihad), or by clothing--there is no need to wear a uniform.

Any weapons are legitimate in jihad. Even animals may be used as "suicide bombers"! It is not restricted by target--even Muslims or children, if used by the enemy as human shields, can be killed. Only one thing can restrict jihad--a Covenant of Security [Treaty]. Non-combatant women, children, elders, clergy, insane, disabled are restricted, and non-Muslim children go to Paradise. However, if such are killed in crossfire or if used as human shields, they become collateral damage....9/11 was justifiable because America had no Covenant of Security with the Muslims, although Muslims in the U.S. are under a Covenant of Security whereby they may not act militarily against America. Only qualified scholars in fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] could have planned this--because the 19 used non-Muslim aliases to enter the country (which legally allowed them to act in jihad).

When I heard about it, I prayed to God that no Muslims in America did it because such is haram [forbidden in Islam]. After Al Qaeda admitted responsibility, it was obvious that qualified ulema [Islamic scholars] were behind it. Thus, Al-Qaeda has revived the culture of terrorism in Islam after 200 years.

The 89-page report deals with more than 200 pieces of religious literature promoting Saudi Arabia's extremist Wahhabi ideology, produced or provided by various government ministries and other bodies and disseminated to mosques in the U.S.

It concludes that the writings reflect a "totalitarian ideology of hatred that can incite to violence."...

Among other things, the documents teach:

- that Muslims who convert to Christianity or Judaism are apostates who "should be killed" because they have denied the Koran;

- that in the case of a Muslim who fails to uphold Wahhabi sexual mores on adultery or homosexuality, "it would be lawful for Muslims to spill his blood and to take his money";

- that Muslims have a religious obligation to hate Christians and Jews, and should not help, befriend or imitate them, or take part in their festivals and celebrations.

[T]he insidious Saudi assault on America must be made central to the (misnamed) war on terror. The Bush administration needs to confront the domestic menace that the Wahhabi kingdom presents to America. That means junking the fantasy of Saudi friendship and seeing the country, like China, as a formidable rival whose ambitions for a very different world order must be repulsed and contained.

The latest allegation of prisoner abuse by the US military comes from Erik Saar, a former Army sergeant and translator at the American naval base at Guantanamo. In a forthcoming book, Saar describes the use of female sexuality as a tactic against Muslim detainees, for many of whom modesty between the sexes is a deeply ingrained religious requirement.

According to the Associated Press, Saar writes of one female interrogator who attempted to ''break" a devout Saudi prisoner. She removed her top to reveal a tight T-shirt [...] Writes Saar: ''The concept was to make the detainee feel that...he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength."

Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?

How about religious torture?

In Abu Ghraib, the cruelties inflicted on prisoners by Specialist Charles Graner and his little band of sadists weren't limited to the sexual. Inmates told investigators they were forced to swallow pork and liquor -- both are forbidden to Muslims -- and to denounce Islam.

But the mosaic that emerges from these 25 tiles is worthy of note. This is the evangelical movement understood in its historical context. Some of these names would like to pull the movement back into places evangelicalism has expressly rejected in the past: either into a cultural disengagement that "circles the wagons" or into a cultural embrace that compromises the gospel (and no, I'm not naming names; interpret as you will). But evangelicalism as a movement has largely succeeded because it includes both of these voices correcting each other's overstatements. Once we stop having the debate over how to be "in but not of the world," we're in trouble.

For months, news from Iraq has told the story of the extremists, those who destroy themselves to murder others and to proclaim the cause of a religious or Baathist dictatorship. Yesterday the world saw and heard, at last, another Iraq, one in which millions of people from all over the country turned out to vote -- even in places where their nominal leaders had proclaimed a boycott, even at polling stations where mortar rounds fell or gunfire rang out. Some danced or distributed chocolates, some wept with joy, others grimly pressed forward as if their lives literally depended on it. A 32-year-old man who lost his leg in a suicide bombing arrived at the polls in Baghdad and told a Reuters reporter, "I would have crawled here if I had to." There were nine suicide bombings, and at least 44 people died, including one U.S. soldier. But the day's message was unmistakable: The majority of Iraqis support the emerging democratic order in their country, and many are willing to risk their lives for it....

Yesterday, however, Americans finally got a good look at who they are fighting for: millions of average people who have suffered for years under dictatorship and who now desperately want to live in a free and peaceful country. Their votes were an act of courage and faith -- and an answer to the question of whether the mission in Iraq remains a just cause.