This idea that Christians must keep their views to themselves, and that politicians must keep their Christian worldview in a lockbox has caught on even among many Christians. But a Christian inhibits his Christian walk if he places his religion on just one "shelf" of his life. His worldview must inform his politics, just as everyone else's does.

What the secular Left wants to do is marginalize Christian conservatives by suggesting they are hell-bent on reserving religious liberty (and presumably other types of freedom) only for themselves.

But all we have to do to refute that lie is to point to the history of this great nation, which owes its freedom largely to the religious liberties enshrined in the Constitution by Christians. The Left will never tire of castigating Christians, so we might as well get used to that. But in the meantime, it is important that Christians be neither duped nor intimidated from participating aggressively in politics and governance, which is their sacred right and their unquestionable duty.

A Nexis search of the words "abstinence," "pledge" and "STDs" brought up 60 hits for the past 90 days....Most conveyed the lesson in the headline, such as that of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Abstinence-only programs fail and deceive our kids, says Stacey I. Young." There were dozens of stories touting a related finding that those who pledged to abstain from sex were more likely than others to engage in anal or oral sex.

Yet the results of a new study showing that abstinence programs do work to reduce sexual behavior get only two hits on Nexis -- one a UPI story and the other a PR Newswire item. So much for the idea that the media are no longer dominated by liberals.

Now, let's look at substance. Despite the hyperventilating by Bill Smith and others in the condoms on cucumbers school of thought, the study on sexually transmitted diseases actually revealed very little about abstinence-only programs in schools. The report, which looked at data contained in the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, found only that abstinence pledges were of limited (but not zero) utility. A pledge is not an abstinence program. As for data on risky anal and or oral sex by so-called abstainers, those too were self-described pledgers, not participants in an abstinence program.

By contrast, the Journal of Adolescent and Family Health has just published a carefully crafted study of the Best Friends program and found that it does, in fact, deliver on its promise -- to promote abstinence from sex, drugs and alcohol among its school-age participants.

The House passed a bill yesterday that would make it illegal to dodge parental-consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions, the latest effort to chip away at abortion rights after Republican gains in the November elections.

By a vote of 270 to 157, the House sent the bill to the Senate, where the policy has new momentum as an item on the Republicans' top 10 list of legislative priorities.

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, blasted House passage of the "Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act" --a far-reaching and intrusive bill that would impose a complex patchwork of parental involvement laws on women and doctors around the country that even its supporters cannot explain.

"We believe that loving parents should be involved when their daughter faces a crisis pregnancy. Unfortunately, some young women cannot involve their parents because they come from homes where physical and emotional abuse is prevalent or their pregnancies are the result of incest," Keenan said. "In these traumatic cases, young women need confidential access to a doctor. CIANA is a government-run-amok legislative jumble that does nothing to either prevent unintended pregnancies or strengthen troubled families. It is a complex set of inflexible bureaucratic mandates on families that are already under stress."

Last week, Michael Leavitt, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, declared that his agency is going to "aggressively enforce" the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002. The act defines an infant as a "member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development." The act further defines "born alive" to mean any infant who "breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion." When he signed in the legislation in 2002, President George W. Bush declared, "This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive--including an infant who survives an abortion procedure--is considered a person under federal law." The law entitles such newborns to emergency medical care and to protection against child abuse....

Current law effectively leaves the disposition of frozen embryos produced to treat infertility in the hands of would be parents. Parents can decide if embryos will be implanted, donated, or destroyed. Similarly, parents bear the responsibility for deciding what measures should be taken to treat very premature newborns. Frozen embryos, futuristic 12 week gestational fetuses in artificial wombs, and 21 week newborns "born alive" are not "viable" without the application of extraordinary medical ingenuity. No matter what medical miracles become available, the decision of whether or not to apply those technological miracles to help bring a new child into the world should remain in the hands of parents and their physicians, not politicians.

One of the greatest challenges in my life is the struggle to abstain from premarital sex. It is not easy. Nor is it supposed to be. The struggle to abstain from sexual activity until we are married is part of the greater struggle to attain a spirituality that is detached from the selfish desires of our bodies and minds. It is only by purging our ego that we may move away from our own mean personal vanity, and do good to others....In place of the emotionally fruitful kind of relationship that once led to marriage, daddy's little girl is engaging in a series of emotionally detached physical encounters. 41% of the women surveyed admitted to engaging in such encounters regularly and 1 in 10 said they had more than 6 one-night stands.

This is not surprising. Since the sexual revolution, this brand of promiscuity has been glamorized for its symbolic value: women breaking free from gender roles that once enmeshed them, etc. The popular culture is replete with images that equate sexual promiscuity with freedom and liberation. Soap operas, the programs most watched by adolescents, refer to sex outside of marriage 2-3 times an episode. Prime time television depicts premarital sex thirteen times more often than it portrays romance between married couples. Throughout the popular culture, bodies simply collide like runaway railway cars. The not-so-subtle implication: sex is little more than a fun release, an agreeable pastime of sorts.

While this may make for engaging television, the reality is that young children often lack the emotional component to understand sex. Children who engage in sex with other children are not engaging in a mutual interaction, but rather treating each other as objects to be prodded. Such inglorious and awkward interactions can lead to a lifelong confusion between sex and love.

Scientists have high hopes that research with those all-purpose cells, which develop into all the various tissues of the adult body, will lead to treatments for a wide variety of diseases by enabling them to grow new organs to replace damaged ones.

But because of religious objections -- human embryos shortly after fertilization are destroyed to derive the cells - Congress has long restricted federal financing of such research; President Bush has allowed it to proceed, but only with designated cells. As a result, the government has not played its usual role of promoting novel research and devising regulations accepted by all players....

The academy's guidelines would impose limits on three kinds of experiment that involve incorporating human embryonic stem cells into animals...like many previous committees, the academy says human embryos should not be grown in culture for more than 14 days, the time when the first hints of a nervous system appear.

Hundreds of people, most of them supporters of the proposal, packed the board meeting Tuesday night. More than 6,000 area residents had signed a petition supporting the class.

Some residents, however, said the school board acted too quickly. Others said they feared a national constitutional fight.

Barring any hurdles, the class should be added to the curriculum in fall 2006 and taught as a history or literature course. The school board still must develop a curriculum, which board member Floy Hinson said should be open for public review.

To the dismay of many mainstream religious leaders, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, participated in a weekend telecast organized by conservative Christian groups to smear Democrats as enemies of "people of faith." Besides listening to Senator Frist's videotaped speech, viewers heard a speaker call the Supreme Court a despotic oligarchy. Meanwhile, the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, has threatened the judiciary for not following the regressive social agenda he shares with the far-right fundamentalists controlling his party.

Apart from confirming an unwholesome disrespect for traditional American values like checks and balances, the assault on judges is part of a wide-ranging and successful Republican campaign to breach the wall between church and state to advance a particular brand of religion. No theoretical exercise, the program is having a corrosive effect on policymaking and the lives of Americans.

The centerpiece is President Bush's so-called faith-based initiative, which disregards decades of First Amendment law and civil rights protections. Mr. Bush promised that federal money would not be used to support religious activities directly, but it is. The program has channeled billions of taxpayers' dollars to churches and other religion-based providers of social services under legally questionable rules that allow plenty of room for proselytizing and imposing religious tests on hiring. The initiative even provides taxpayers' money to build and renovate houses of worship that are also used to offer social services.

These are scary times. The nation is in the control of extremists who want to merge church and state. A line is crossed when religion demonizes politicians of certain religion--or no religion--and when the church-state separation is breached by people believing that their God is better than another God.

Extremists are attacking an independent judiciary and checks and balances, both fundamental elements of a democracy. Earlier this month, as Max Blumenthal reported for The Nation online, conservative activists and top GOP staffers are likening judges to communists, terrorists, and murderers. One so-called scholar invoked one of Stalin's favorite sayings, "No person, no problem," suggesting this was the preferred way of dealing with out-of-control courts. (By the way, according to the Alliance for Justice, 55 percent of the Circuit Court judges are GOP appointees. Republicans advocating killing Republicans?)

Jim Wallis, a liberal evangelical who edits the magazine Sojourners, said that the religious conservatives' stance favoring one party and one position on judges "borders on idolatry."

"When they say that people who disagree with their views and their strategy are not people of faith, they've crossed a line," Wallis said. "When they use faith as a weapon, as a wedge, it feels like instigation of a religious war. And the creation of a Republican theocracy."

In the hub-bub over judicial nominations, news reports have overlooked conservative Christians' main complaint: that a judge's conservative religious beliefs should not make her "outside the judicial mainstream" and disqualify her from the bench.

That is why the FRC Justice Sunday flier shows a man holding a gavel in one hand and the Bible in the other and says "he should not have to chose" between faith in Christ and public service. Should disagreeing with abortion on demand automatically disqualify a judge from the Supreme Court? Such disqualification is similar to those who say anyone opposed to the morning-after pill shouldn't become a pharmacist.

Consider just the damaging fallout from an event that is meant as a strenuous effort to identify religion with one political party. The sponsors invited individual churches to show the telecast to their congregations, a big mistake. Churches should not be directly involved in politics. As a purely practical matter, churches that endorse a clearly political event (this one was to feature Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist) play into the hands of those who like to toss around the word theocrats and who would like to change the subject from filibusters to issues of church and state.

Accusing the Democrats of running a jihad against believers clearly implies that people who vote Democratic are either terribly ignorant or simply not good Christians, Jews, or Muslims. This is a surefire recipe for increasing polarization within the churches. One Baptist website complained caustically about "Injustice Sunday," quoting one minister who said: "There are people of faith on both sides; neither has God in their hip pocket on this issue."...

Given enough publicity, Justice Sunday seems guaranteed to frighten away secular and non-Christian religious voters who think the courts have gone too far or that simple fairness requires a Senate vote on the judges in question. The argument should be based on these grounds not on antifaith prejudice. Framing political issues in purely religious terms is always a big mistake.

The fraudulence of "Justice Sunday" begins but does not end with its sham claims to solidarity with the civil rights movement of that era....The "Justice Sunday" mob is also lying when it claims to despise activist judges as a matter of principle. Only weeks ago it was desperately seeking activist judges who might intervene in the Terri Schiavo case as boldly as Scalia & Co. had in Bush v. Gore. The real "Justice Sunday" agenda lies elsewhere. As Bill Maher summed it up for Jay Leno on the "Tonight" show last week: " 'Activist judges' is a code word for gay." The judges being verbally tarred and feathered are those who have decriminalized gay sex (in a Supreme Court decision written by Justice Kennedy) as they once did abortion and who countenance marriage rights for same-sex couples. This is the animus that dares not speak its name tonight. To paraphrase the "Justice Sunday" flier, now it's the anti-filibuster campaign that is being abused to protect bias, this time against gay people....Anyone who doesn't get with this program, starting with all Democrats, is damned as a bigoted enemy of "people of faith." But "people of faith," as used by the event's organizers, is another duplicitous locution; it's a code word for only one specific and exclusionary brand of Christianity.

Given the almost universal popularity of abstinence education, it seems strange that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) soon will introduce legislation that would effectively abolish federal abstinence education programs. These programs supply nearly all the governmental support for teaching abstinence in U.S. schools.

The Baucus anti-abstinence plan would take federal funds that are devoted to teaching abstinence and turn them over to state public health bureaucracies to spend as they will. Since these bureaucracies have been wedded for decades to "safe sex" and fiercely opposed to teaching abstinence, the implications of this change are obvious.

"If the goal is to remove abstinence from classrooms across the country, the Baucus plan will do it," says Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, an umbrella group that includes nearly all abstinence educators in the U.S.

Government officials now spend at least $12 promoting contraception for each $1 they spend teaching abstinence. Virtually every teen in the U.S. receives classroom instruction about contraception. But programs that seriously urge youth to delay sexual activity are rare. And even students who are taught about abstinence almost always are taught about contraception as well, through a biology or health class.

If contraception is already taught in nearly every school, and condom promotion gets nearly all the government funds, why the push to kill the limited funds for abstinence?

"I think that the way Focus on the Family and the conservative right wing is attempting to take the country will threaten the basic cornerstone of our freedom," Salazar said in an interview....

Salazar, a Democrat and lifelong Catholic, blasted the ads on Wednesday, saying Focus on the Family was "hijacking" Christianity and becoming an appendage of the Republican Party. The ministry reaches millions of evangelical Christians through the leadership of its founder, James Dobson.

"I think the kind of attack that is being used against (Democratic senators) and against me has the potential of moving our country to abandoning the freedom of worship which we enjoy in this country, and moving toward the creation of a theocracy," Salazar said.

Our opponents like far-right Bill Frist are using shameless tactics to try and turn the American people against the use of the filibuster. Frist himself is headlining "Justice Sunday," a national telecast to churches across the country to paint the filibuster as somehow anti-Christian. His claim couldn't be further from the truth -- and it's simply unethical for him to manipulate religion for his own political gain.

The God I know does not ask the government to impose one person or group's moral beliefs on all others. The God I know would not have us pit believers against one another in the service of a purely political agenda.

The God I know is less concerned with our bedrooms than with seeing our faithfulness and love reflected in our budget, our foreign policy, our social and economic policies.

Thirty-two years after representing Norma McCorvey, aka "Jane Roe," before the U.S. Supreme Court, Sarah Weddington still argues for abortion rights.

Before speaking to University of La Verne School of Law students Tuesday in Ontario, Weddington said those rights continue to be threatened.

"Roe v. Wade is like a space shield protecting women from legislative restrictions," she said, referring to the precedent-setting court decision that secured a woman's right to abortions. "If that space shield melted down, then the states could pretty much do whatever they want to."

The election of an unstintingly conservative pope could inject a powerful new force into the intense conflicts in American politics over abortion and other social issues, which put many Catholic elected officials at odds with their church.

Pope Benedict XVI ascends to power at a tumultuous time for his church in American politics: Catholic voters, long overwhelmingly Democratic, have become a critical swing vote. Republicans have become increasingly successful at winning the support of more traditional Catholics by appealing to what President Bush calls the "culture of life" issues, including abortion, euthanasia and research on embryonic stem cells. Mr. Bush carried 56 percent of the white Catholic vote in 2004, up from 51 percent in 2000 -- a formidable part of his conservative coalition....Many Catholic voters, they say, dislike the idea of having their clerics weigh in too heavily on how they should vote, particularly since polls indicate that many American Catholics disagree with church teaching on a range of issues, including birth control and the legality of abortion.

For now, though, liberal Catholics say they are hoping for the best.

When Blackmun wrote the Roe decision, it took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts. If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate.

Instead, Blackmun and his concurring colleagues invented a right to abortion, and imposed a solution more extreme than the policies of just about any other comparable nation.

Religious conservatives became alienated from their own government, feeling that their democratic rights had been usurped by robed elitists. Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters; they could just rely on the courts to impose their views. The parties polarized as they each became dominated by absolutist activists.

Unable to lobby for their pro-life or pro-choice views in normal ways, abortion activists focused their attention on judicial nominations. Dozens of groups on the right and left have been created to destroy nominees who might oppose their side of the fight. But abortion is never the explicit subject of these confirmation battles. Instead, the groups try to find some other pretext to destroy their foes....

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

"We have been able to screen for certain conditions in the womb for quite some time now, but I'm concerned that we don't have a great track record for handling that information very well," Sen. Brownback, R-Kan., said announcing his legislation. "For some conditions that can be detected in the womb, we are aborting 80 percent or more of the babies who test positive."

According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, 20 percent of doctors said when a prenatal test discovered Down syndrome, they encouraged mothers to abort, or they emphasize the negative aspects of the disease "so that parents would favor a termination." Most doctors, however, tried to remain unbiased in telling parents the results of a prenatal test.

Still, "there's a lot of unspoken pressure to abort once you've had the testing done," says Nelson. Throughout the medical literature, "parents are blamed if they have a baby with Down syndrome." Parents who decide to give birth to a Down syndrome child " say that they feel like outcasts, they feel blameworthy."

Because abortion is seen as the preferred option, "Soon, it will be seen as unnecessary to fund therapy and care for the disabled," says Amy Laura Hall, assistant professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. "There is no will to care for the disabled."

The Brownback/Kennedy bill could help alleviate cultural pressure to abort. "The effect of this sort of 'weeding out' is creating new eugenics, a form of systematic, disability-based discrimination," said Brownback. "We don't want a world where parents feel driven to justify their children's existence. We need to link parents with these programs so that they are equipped with all the information they need to hopefully make a life-affirming choice."

Connecticut became the third state to legally recognize same-sex couples Wednesday, signifying a new era in the gay rights movement and bucking a national trend.

The landmark law permits same-sex partners to enter into civil unions and grants nearly all of the rights and responsibilities available to married couples. Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed the bill late Wednesday afternoon, about an hour after the state Senate gave the measure final legislative approval. It takes effect Oct. 1...."All families can be uplifted when civil rights are extended in our state," said McDonald, a Democrat from Stamford who is gay. "The vote we cast today will ... send a wave of hope to many people ... across the country."

The new law extends to gay couples the rights and responsibilities married couples have under 588 state statutes, including the right to file a joint tax return and make medical decisions for a partner. The same-sex union is not recognized under federal law or by most other states.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, elected as the first new pope of the third millennium, assumes office as the church's personification of devotion to orthodox dogma and rigid morality. But at the same time, he assumed a papal name -- Benedict -- last associated with Vatican reforms and outreach to others.

In facing daunting challenges in Catholicism itself and in the world at large, the new pope will need to fill the dual roles of definer of doctrine and global ambassador.

As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for 23 years, Ratzinger, 78, silenced dissident theologians and reiterated established teachings on a wide range of issues, delighting church conservatives and frustrating those hoping for change. In a homily preceding the conclave that elected him, he again decried "moving toward a dictatorship of relativism."...

That is, of course, mostly a matter for Catholics to judge. But at a time when religious fervor increasingly drives violent conflict, the voice of the world's most visible religious leader carries farther. If, as his name implies, Benedict can promote tolerance of differing views, no matter the intensity of his own, he will serve people of all faiths.

Treatment of STDs annually costs the United States $17 billion, and experts predict STD rates will continue to rise as long as Americans underestimate their risk levels.

Is abstinence education the answer?
In his 2006 budget, President Bush proposed a $39 million increase in federal funding for "abstinence-only-until-marriage education," bringing its total funding to nearly $193 million annually.

Often run by faith-based organizations, abstinence-only-until-marriage education is often criticized for excluding information about condom usage, abortion, masturbation and sexual orientation.

"What is born out by scientific evidence is that comprehensive sexual health programs are more effective than abstinence programs. Safer sex programs delay the onset of sex behavior, reduce pregnancy rates and increase likelihood of condom use,” says Dr. Michael Carey, who runs The Center for Health and Behavior at Syracuse University.

"Safer sex programs not only include the message that abstinence is the more effective strategy, but also talks about self-management strategies and personal skills. In contrast, a sexual abstinence program does not cover these issues," he said.

In a perfect world women would only get pregnant at exactly the right time and with the right man, and all babies would grow up to be strong, happy and loving adults.

Of course, this is not the reality. No method of contraception is 100% effective, some women experience severe post-natal depression, not all relationships are happy -- or indeed safe -- and the number of children who are emotionally, physically or sexually abused is frighteningly high.

In the face of this reality, widespread persistence in viewing abortion in purely negative terms is quite remarkable and often based on the luxury of detachment....

Demonising abortion will not stop women, neither will criminalising it. Nor, for that matter, will restricting access to it further by changing the law in Great Britain relating to the 24 week time limit.

There will always be women in Northern Ireland who will choose to terminate a pregnancy, so let's respect their choice and ensure they have the full range of appropriate health services to meet their needs.

What caught the eye last week was a bill in Hartford to okay civil unions between gays, temporized by an amendment to that bill which ordained that "marriages" would continue to be understood as unions between a man and a woman. This is a difference that apparently isn't noticed in the State of Mississippi....The quarrel, in Connecticut, continued in another quarter. The Episcopal bishop of Connecticut has himself authorized gay marriage and has supported the ordination of the gay bishop in New Hampshire. Six Episcopal pastors flatly refused to follow their bishop's instruction, and he has retaliated by threatening to remove from them their church keys. The question of the elasticity of orthodoxy will be referred to the annual global meeting of Anglican leaders, but it isn't certain what is that council's authority, or by exactly what doctrines it should be guided.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, a court ordered rescinded nearly 3,000 marriages effected in one county, which had flouted a statewide law. The court ruled simply that the county did not have the legal authority to act independently, so that the quarrel became one of jurisdiction, not of political consensus, let alone doctrinal authority.

We have at work an extraordinary exercise in democratic adjustment. How to acknowledge gay rights while still honoring what many think of as the structural meaning of marriage? And that quarrel abuts -- as in the contentious Episcopal parishes in Connecticut -- upon religious faith. In the hubbub, there needs to be protection for those who are guided by their faith, the desolate communion that needs exegetes wise enough to explain to them what exactly the Connecticut legislature is trying to say.

There's a spot around Sam Ciapanna's ring finger where his wedding band used to be....In a unanimous ruling that disappointed gay-rights advocates and buoyed opponents of same-sex marriage, the court said that marriage laws are a matter of state, not local, jurisdiction and that Multnomah County lacked authority to issue the licenses last spring. The court noted that Oregonians in November passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as strictly a union between a man and a woman.

In Britain, as in Europe generally, abortion law has not been made by judges proclaiming glistening, hard-edged rights that cannot be compromised. Rather, abortion law has been made by lawmakers -- imagine that -- seeking to accommodate clashing sensibilities. That is one reason why British law is less extreme than America's essentially unlimited right to abortion on demand....

In Britain, more babies with Down syndrome are aborted than are allowed to be born. In America, more than 80 percent of the babies diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are aborted. This is dismaying to, among others, the American Association of People with Disabilities, whose premise is that "disability is a natural part of the human experience."

The AAPD worries that increasingly sophisticated prenatal genetic testing technologies will mean that parents who are told their expected babies are less than perfect "will experience pressures to terminate their pregnancies from medical professionals and insurers." The worry is not groundless.

I suppose politicians and reporters in a multicultural world looked for a secular way to praise a religious leader. They paid homage as well to the international superstar quality of the man himself. But, in fact, many of the people who came to praise John Paul for standing firm did not always stand with him.

This was a pope who labored to create "a seamless garment" of right and wrong. Yet world leaders and church followers and the media mainstream seemed to pick and choose pieces of the garment to adorn their praise.

When the president said it was time to "honor and celebrate the life of a truly great moral leader," he was talking about the pope who spoke of a "culture of life." What about the moral leader who opposed the war in Iraq?...

There is no secret to the attraction of unwavering authority figures. When we are sick, we want doctors who exude confidence. When we don't know what to do about the kids, we want Supernanny on call. In times when the world goes on fast forward, we look for eternal verities. When everything tilts, we find comfort in the parent, preacher, or president who is sure of where they are going and -- therefore -- sure of where they will lead us.

But, at the same time, conviction is not always a virtue. The Taliban have the courage of their convictions, tyrants are sure of themselves, and dictators know where they want to lead us. To remain unswayed may also be to remain untouched by the people around you....Today, "moral relativism" has become a kind of intellectual whipping boy. It's regarded as a weakness. But for many, moral authoritarianism is a strength admired best from afar. As for self-doubt? With all its difficulties, doubt may be the crack in the door that makes way for understanding and, even, change.

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees....

The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule change by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as the climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of legal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and marriage.

"As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."

Democrats accused Dr. Frist of exploiting religious faith for political ends by joining the telecast. "No party has a monopoly on faith, and for Senator Frist to participate in this kind of telecast just throws more oil on the partisan flames," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

The Lawrence majority did not exactly say what it would do about same-sex marriage. (On the other hand, the majority recognized well enough where its reasoning pointed, and issued disclaimers about whether same-sex marriage was implied by its ruling.) In my judgment, however, there can be little question that by setting up the case the way it did -- as one of endangered fundamental rights, gasping for life in a sea of politically dominant prejudices -- the Supreme Court has all but bound itself to take up the same-sex marriage question, and soon. To do otherwise would, I think, leave the Justices open to charges that they had betrayed the Court's own professed ideals....

It seems to me that, like it or not, the Lawrence Court in effect opened a "constitutional convention" on the subject of same-sex marriage. For so long as Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) (upholding the constitutionality of Georgia's sodomy law case), was settled law, there was no possibility that same-sex marriage could be constitutionally required: the defining sexual acts of same-sex couples had no constitutional standing. But Lawrence expressly overruled Bowers. In the course of overruling Bowers, the Lawrence Court made unmistakably clear that its reasoning opened the marriage question for further, and final, constitutional scrutiny.

Perhaps the question could usefully be viewed, then, as this: If there is going to be an amendment to the Constitution about same-sex marriage -- making clear that our basic law is "pro" or "con" -- which body shall make that call? The Court? Or Congress and the American people?

After meeting on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush said, "The United States is committed to Israel's security and well being as a Jewish state, including secure and defensible borders. We're committed to preserving and strengthening Israel's capability to deter its enemies and to defend itself."

The president did not say what he meant by such a "commitment," but it is hard to accept that Israel's security is preserved and strengthened when the American government, over several administrations, has pressured various Israeli prime ministers into relinquishing land to its sworn enemies.

The two sides haven't even gotten to the road map yet and are still in what might be called the "pre-road map stage." But Sharon has said that even in this stage, certain conditions must be met before moving to the road map, itself.

These, reasonably, include a full cessation of terror, violence and incitement, the dismantling of terror groups and collection of their weapons, as well as the cessation of smuggling of terrorists and weapons, particularly from Egypt, through the Gaza Strip and into Israel.

None of these conditions, which are spelled out in the road map, have been met, but that does not deter President Bush, or those who have preceded him, from pressuring Israel to give more.

On every previous occasion when Israel has caved to U.S. pressure and ceded territory vital to its own defense, the Palestinian and Arab side has behaved like a giant boa constrictor. It swallows its prey, rests for a bit to digest it, and then starts looking for more.

Oral arguments were to begin before the U.S. Supreme Court on one of the most litigated questions in American law: Should the Ten Commandments be displayed on government property?...Though many Americans cannot recite the Ten Commandments as set out in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, an Associated Press survey in February found that 76 percent of the 1,000 people polled approved of displaying them on government property.

Opponents say such displays violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The intent, scholars say, was to protect Americans from an imposed state religion, guaranteeing the right to worship God however they pleased.

The battle over pharmacists' consciences has been building for some time, as abortion rights activists have been focusing their attention on pharmacists and pharmacies that refuse to fill prescriptions for "Plan B," the most commonly prescribed medication intended to prevent a fertilized egg from being successfully implanted in a woman's uterus. Taken up to five days after sexual intercourse, the pill effectively causes an early-term abortion, leading to the destruction of a fertilized egg....

Thus, when abortion advocates talk about "emergency contraceptives," they do not mean that the pills prevent the union of sperm and egg. What they mean is that the extremely high dosages of oral contraceptives found in "Plan B" or the "morning-after pill" prevent the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall, a process which amounts to a chemical abortion.

For that reason, pharmacists with pro-life convictions--the very people who understand exactly how this pill works--cannot fill these prescriptions without a violation of conscience.

That's no problem for those pushing the pro-abortion agenda. An April 3, 2005 editorial in The New York Times referred to a right of conscience for pharmacists as "an intolerable abuse of power by pharmacists who have no business forcing their own moral or ethical views onto customers who may not share them." In the paper's blunt assessment: "Any pharmacist who cannot dispense medicines lawfully prescribed by a doctor should find another line of work."

The arrogance of that statement is almost breathtaking. A newspaper that would fight to the death for the freedom of the press is apparently eager to deny similar freedoms to an entire class of medical professionals. In its radical worldview, a woman's right to exercise her own "reproductive freedom" trumps all other rights and liberties.

Most young Americans strongly believe in having choices, an attitude that is likely to shape their identification with traditional religions, a study says.

"Generation Y," born between 1980 and 2000, is "bringing [media] industries to their knees" by embracing IPod, TiVo and other technologies that allow unprecedented consumer choice, said Roger Bennett, co-founder of Reboot, a Jewish group that is examining generational issues.

The big question is how traditional religions will respond to a new generation of Americans who value choice, informality and personal expression, he said.

It may mean the rise of "orthodoxy a la carte," where, as with IPods and music, young Americans take a "mix and match" approach to religion, said Bill Galston, a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration.

While divorce ends a given marriage, it does not threaten marriage as an institution. Of course, many marriages fail and end in divorce -- while some other marriages fail and do not end in divorce -- but why does this threaten marriage as an institution?...

There is a second reason the divorce-rate-threatens-marriage argument is disingenuous: If gays marry, they will divorce at least as often as heterosexuals do. That is why the divorce issue is entirely unrelated to the question of whether we should redefine marriage. The only reason the argument is even offered is because gullible people will buy it. The gullible include well-intentioned centrist Americans who think, "Hey, that's a good point. Straights sure haven't done such a great job with marriage; why not let gays have a crack at it?" And the gullible include well-intentioned religious Americans whose loathing of divorce overwhelms their critical thinking.

A third flaw in the argument is that it presupposes that every divorce constitutes a failure of a couple's marriage. Sometimes this is true; sometimes it is not....

There may be honest reasons to support the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. The argument that heterosexuals divorce a lot is not one of them. It is, in fact, demagoguery.

Not that most of us need reminding, but boys and girls tend to be distractions for one another. The Marines understand this, which is why they separate males and females during basic training. And the Army knows it, as evidenced by its own research, but chooses to ignore the facts in deference, apparently, to feminist goals.

As long as men and women are seen as interchangeable, then feminist theory survives -- even if some of our "soldiers" don't. Never mind that coed training was found to be "not efficient" according to a 2002 "Gender Integrated Training" report presented to the secretary of the Army. The briefing also reported that coed training negatively affected "rigor" and "standards" (translation: women couldn't keep up with men), and that women suffered a disproportionate number of injuries, especially stress fractures to the shins and feet....The point is not that women don’t belong in the military -- though given women's statistically diminished "rigor" and "standards," they inarguably don't belong in the infantry -- but that women can’t be properly trained (or men either) in a distracting, hormone-rich environment....

The fact of human nature, as opposed to feminist theory, is that girls will be girls when guys are around, and vice versa. This maxim produces beneficial results when population growth needs a boost, but otherwise leads to something less than military readiness.

When they left Hamersley's office, Saqib says, he'd reconciled himself to termination. In his mind, Leila was already lost, and he was not willing to risk losing Susan, too. But Susan had never believed that abortion was okay to end an imperfect or inconvenient pregnancy. To Susan, abortion was wrong unless a mother's life was clearly at risk. And she wasn't convinced that her life was.

Saqib knew Susan's view on abortion before they were married. "I had seen pro-life literature lying around her parents' house," he says. "I knew they were evangelical Christians." But Saqib didn't share Susan's fervent opposition to abortion; he was comfortable with it, he says, as a legal last resort. "In a case where there's a risk to the family," he says, "I think it's okay."

At Hamersley's suggestion, the Alis consulted Kenneth Rosenbaum, a clinical geneticist and director of the Center for Prenatal Evaluation at Children's National Medical Center. Rosenbaum says he didn't think Susan's life was in danger and tried to reassure Saqib on that front. He told the Alis that, in his opinion, she could continue the pregnancy without significant risk to her own health. The greatest risk to Susan would be if the baby died inside her, but he thought that was unlikely to happen. He also said there was no way of knowing exactly how bad off Leila would be, which only fueled Susan's hopefulness. Maybe Leila wouldn't be that bad off.

Now Saqib felt he had one doctor on his side, and Susan felt she had one on hers. Thus began the war of the Alis. From the start, it was clear that there would be no winner. Should they abort Leila? Should they carry her to term, only to watch her die? If Leila lived, could they provide the 24-hour care she might need? Should they let themselves get to know Leila, to love her and then mourn her? Or should they mourn her right away? Adding to their burden was the fact that they were moving into their new house -- the one they'd bought when they learned Susan was pregnant.

Meet the Dominionists -- biblical literalists who believe God has called them to take over the U.S. government. As the far-right wing of the evangelical movement, Dominionists are pressing an agenda that makes Newt Gingrich's Contract With America look like the Communist Manifesto. They want to rewrite schoolbooks to reflect a Christian version of American history, pack the nation's courts with judges who follow Old Testament law, post the Ten Commandments in every courthouse and make it a felony for gay men to have sex and women to have abortions. In Florida, when the courts ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, it was the Dominionists who organized round-the-clock protests and issued a fiery call for Gov. Jeb Bush to defy the law and take Schiavo into state custody. Their ultimate goal is to plant the seeds of a "faith-based" government that will endure far longer than Bush's presidency -- all the way until Jesus comes back....

To implement their sweeping agenda, the Dominionists are working to remake the federal courts in God's image. In their view, the Founding Fathers never intended to erect a barrier between politics and religion. "The First Amendment does not say there should be a separation of church and state," declares Alan Sears, president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a team of 750 attorneys trained by the Dominionists to fight abortion and gay marriage. Sears argues that the constitutional guarantee against state-sponsored religion is actually designed to "shield" the church from federal interference -- allowing Christians to take their rightful place at the head of the government. "We have a right, indeed an obligation, to govern," says David Limbaugh, brother of Rush and author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity. Nothing gets the Dominionists to their feet faster than ringing condemnations of judicial tyranny. "Activist judges have systematically deconstructed the Constitution," roars Rick Scarborough, author of Mixing Church and State. "A God-free society is their goal!"

The Pope's opposition to the Iraq war has also been exaggerated. He said that war represented a failure of statesmen and urged peace. But he did not condemn the war, declare it unjust, or urge Catholic soldiers not to participate in it. Contrast this with his opposition to abortion: He did urge Catholic doctors not to perform abortions. The gravity and definitiveness of the teachings on these issues are not comparable, and a list of the Church's "positions" -- as though it had a political platform -- must inevitably obscure this.

Another motif of the coverage has been that this papacy represented a retreat from the "openness" of Vatican II. But Karol Wojtyla was a major figure in Vatican II. His understanding of what it meant was very different from that of liberals who wanted the Church to accommodate itself to modernity (and of conservatives who feared that the Church was doing that). There is a reason that Church liberals typically invoke the "spirit" of Vatican II: They are trying to do to it what the theory of the "living Constitution" has done to America's Founders.

Finally, the media have kept noting that many Catholics, especially in the West, have flouted the Church's teachings on abortion, birth control, and sexual morality. This is true; but it should be put in context. Even more Catholics have flouted Church teaching on, say, the universal obligation to love one another and the immorality of lying. The odds that the Church will change its teaching on love or lying are approximately as great as the odds that it will bless abortion and non-marital sex -- whatever the church of the television anchors may want.

Congress and President Bush earned the disdain of Americans with their clumsy attempt to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. One branch of government -- the judiciary -- fulfilled its role in a government of checks and balances by standing up for the decision of the judge who actually heard the evidence. Americans should keep this example of principled independence in mind in coming weeks as the Bush administration tries again to foist upon the country federal judges whose records display not independence but slavish adherence to ideology.

Conservatives often decry judges for rulings that they believe are outside of the mainstream. But in the Schiavo case, a CBS News poll showed that 82 percent of the public criticized President Bush and Congress for their effort to second-guess the courts. In its bones, the public knows that the decision to end or continue Schiavo's 15-year persistent vegetative state was a complex one best left to a court that actually took testimony from her family, friends, and doctors....

Now that the Schiavo case has made clear what an important role the federal judiciary can have, the Senate -- and the public -- are right to insist on this kind of backbone in nominees for lifetime judicial positions. It is difficult to see that quality in some of the Bush nominees, whose backgrounds offer little evidence of willingness to resist political pressure. The Schiavo case has underlined the need for high-quality judicial nominees. Senators should not hesitate to reject nominees who fall below that standard.