• A Prayer for America on Election Day

  Americans head for the voting precincts today as the 2008 election is now at hand. Already, some 20 million citizens have voted through early voting options. Some expect a record turn-out for today's election. In any event, millions of citizens will participate in the first duty of freedom - the freedom to vote.

• What's Really at Stake in the Gay Marriage Debate? Part Four

  Writing more than twenty years ago, Thomas Sowell described the basic worldview clash we observe today as a struggle between "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions of humanity. The fundamental distinction between these two visions is moral, but the thrust of each is ideological. The constrained vision may be considered basically conservative, while the unconstrained vision is basically liberal, in modern terms.

• What's Really at Stake in the Gay Marriage Debate? Part Three

  "We're talking about really refraining from using things like, husband-wife, boyfriend-girlfriend, those kind of things, and just say 'partner,'" explains Robin Sinks. She is the health education specialist for the Long Beach Unified School District in California. The point she was making is clear enough. The legalization of same-sex marriage will require a comprehensive change in our language.

• So, What's Really at Stake in the Gay Marriage Debate? Part Two

  Same-sex marriage is, for now, legal in three of fifty states in the United States. Beyond our borders, it is legal in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, South Africa, Canada and Norway. This represents a very small percentage of the world's population. Same-sex marriage is, by any measure, the exception rather than the rule. Even when legalized civil unions and domestic partnerships are thrown into the mix, the countries that consider same-sex unions and heterosexual marriages to be equal before

• So, What's Really at Stake in the Gay Marriage Debate?

  Human society is a complex reality, but certain constants have framed that reality for human beings. One of those constants has been the institution of marriage. The respected status of the heterosexual pairing, set apart for exclusive rights and respected for its functions for the society, is among the most important of those constants. Even where deviations from this pattern occur, they are of interest merely for the fact that they are deviations from this norm.