Whatever issue may come before me as President - on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject - I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come - and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible - when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

The attempt to use government to interfere with what has been seen as
behavior within a citizen's right of privacy and to impose the religious beliefs
of a minority of the electorate who are fundamentalist Protestants and
conservative Catholics is an extremely disturbing evolution in American
politics. This minority wishes to impose their stance on issues of private
behavior and scientific research, such as birth control, when life begins, stem
cell research, decriminalizing homosexuality, gay marriage/civil unions, the
right to die, comprehensive sex education, the distribution of condoms to
countries severely afflicted with AIDS, and the teaching of evolution versus
Genesis in public schools.

Many, primarily Republican, politicians placate this vocal minority of
Protestant Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics because they
consider the first a bedrock of their support and the second a way to
garner the votes of a group that has traditionally voted Democratic.

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube. ...

In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes.

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law.

I do not fault religious people for political action. Since Moses confronted the pharaoh, faithful people have heard God's call to political involvement. Nor has political action been unique to conservative Christians. Religious liberals have been politically active in support of gay rights and against nuclear weapons and the death penalty. In America, everyone has the right to try to influence political issues, regardless of his religious motivations.

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

Many of the people with whom we did speak used identical words to describe their position and cited similar statistics indicating an anti-gay echo chamber. Mary Ann Markarian rattled off numbers that come from widely discredited reports by Paul Cameron. The chairman of a right-wing outfit called the Family Research Institute, Cameron was dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association in 1983 for lack of cooperation with the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct. Several identified Kelly Shackleford as a leader. Shackleford, a former GOP delegate, is president of a radical right think-tank called the Free Market Foundation. He also works as a lawyer with the Liberty Legal Institute, where he helps to gin out prayer-in-school and anti-evolution lawsuits.

Now I know this is not real pleasant, but the truth needs to come out. When we say the word "gay," we’re really just hiding because we're really not understanding what that word really entails - what it means, what people are doing, and why this can hurt society as a whole. It's never been an accepted lifestyle. If we allow this to become accepted, then the numbers will grow astronomically. Now they want to take it into the classroom, to teach our children that this is okay. Our society is two to three percent gay, but if you teach children that homosexuality is okay, then we’re going to have a lot of problems.

I testified for myself as an individual at the hearing [on the initiative], but I am a member of a myriad of groups including the Mordecai Mission Initiative, the Eagle Forum, and the Daughters of Liberty who support the marriage plank of the Republican Party. I founded the Gulf Coast Eagle Forum because I felt like I could get more knowledge if I did that; I had a lot of respect for Phyllis Schafly, a very smart lady.

I don't believe in killing, stealing, or adultery either, and to me all of those things are in the same category [with homosexuality]. We have laws against theft, murder, even against lying, so it doesn't make me a bad person because I disagree [with the gay rights crowd] on this homosexuality issue, too. ...

A few years ago, my husband and I were at one of the [Gay Pride Week parades]. After the parade broke up, some of them walked by us, talking to each other, but I heard them look around and say, "Mess with us, and we'll rape your kids."

We had a homosexual in my family, a young man. During high school, he learned to be gay; he wasn't before that. Was that different for my family? You bet it was, because we are a family of heterosexuals who really believe in being heterosexual. About two years ago, that young man learned not to be homosexual, and he has a girlfriend now. Right in the midst of all this social controversy, he learned to be gay, and then he learned not to be. I’ve seen him changed, and I've seen two or three or four changed. ...

Even if your mother was a racist, you can condemn her actions and behavior, but you will also defend her until the day she dies. Nobody is going to lay a hand on your mother because you love her. If your mother is a racist, she was taught to be a racist, and being taught to be a racist does not make it right. Homosexuals were also taught homosexual behaviors, but that doesn't make those behaviors right either.

And again, supporting this amendment is not an act of hostility. It's not a personal act of violence. [Say what? - Bruce] Perhaps as a church we've done a poor job of articulating that, maybe because at times we’re not mature enough in our relationship with God that we can articulate it that way. But I'm not going to question a person's Christianity because they're flinging words of hate at homosexuals. I won't agree with it, but I'm very careful about making a judgment call and saying, "Hey, I don't think you're Christian."

I heard recently there was a church, a Baptist church, in one of the southern states—they did some kind of rally, yelling, "We hate homosexuals. We hate you for this. God’s going to kill you. God hates you. Blah, blah, blah." Clearly, that's wrong. No doubt, no doubt. Now if this is a church doing it, well, you know, there are some elements of that kind of thinking everywhere. Look at some of the extreme Muslim churches, you know - "God hates everyone who isn’t Muslim, so we're going kill you all." You gotta watch out for that, but that kind of extreme position is not representative of the Christian body.

Rev. Phillip "Flip" Benham ... Benham is the director of the Dallas-based anti-abortion group Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue). In Benham's view, the Lord cast down Katrina and Rita upon America as a warning that we must stop the sins of abortion and "homosexual sodomy." (Note to our hetero readers: Benham was very specific about the homosexual part, so it looks like you're off the hook on the sodomy end of things until further notice.) Basically, we must repent all our other sins or the Lord will rain down ever greater horrors upon us.

On September 23, Benham put out a press release that reads in part, "God is roaring to us in America. Can we hear Him now?" The good reverend's statement continues, "This time He is using Rita to get our attention. He has something to say to a nation that 'legalized' child sacrifice. We have been warned, we have experienced His judgments [those being Katrina and Rita]… Our call as a nation is to repent - not rebuild. REPENT! He will not be silent. God has more disaster than our federal government has relief!"