The Republicans are playing with fire when they pander to the right-wing Evangelicals, who are bound and determined to use the power of government to mold and shape society into the conservative Christian mold. Its theological fascism they seek, not democracy. On the other hand, the religious libertarians are not much better. Their basic philosophy is one of selfishness, a ruthless survival of the fittest strategy that would have us revert to the days of kings and nobles, where only family ties allow you to get ahead. They desire that government do nothing to help its citizens, but it has already been shown that the efforts of faith-based groups and private charities are nowhere enough to relieve the suffering of the poor and uninsured in this country, much less the world.
Keep religion out of politics and government. To continue on the path the Republicans are going down will destroy our democracy and our freedom.

When young Jefferson was composing the DOI he was asserting the right of humans, specifically Americans, to challenge the same God given rights of the King(George). Apparently Americans forgot that we were ruled by a King with absolute authority and that authority was from God. Jefferson was trying to short circuit that logic. So the rights endowed by a "creator" was equal, same, and perhaps greater than the rights given to any man to lord over us. These rights also trump institutional powers like church and state. When Jefferson and Madison insisted on inserting a Bill of Rights into the Constitution it was quite deliberate to ensure that the rights of MAN cannot be interpreted away.
Jefferson certaining was not establishing God in the DOI as he was bringing George into the human fold. And that is a big difference.

President Bush also likes to say that basic rights come from God, not government, but he's also the first to say that non-citizens can be tortured and deprived of their basic rights as long as it is done at Guantanemo and not on US soil. I suppose the assumption is that God's jurisdiction stops at the US border.

Fred Thompson's faith in God can only be speculated upon, but what one can judge from his other comments is that in fact he IS a God fearing man. He believes in the sanctity of life in his heart as well as in practice as he has been out-spoken about his view that abortion is the killing of unborn children. He does not sparse his words or tip toe through semantic land mines. He is honest, and he is direct. He believes Roe v. Wade was created from whole cloth and that there is nothing in the Constitution that suggests a woman has the right to end the life of her unborn child.

That being said, above all else Fred is a federalist. He places greater power in the hands of individual states. So if you take a state like California, where they seem to outright fond of abortions, if the state chooses to support legalized abortions, then that is the state's prerogative.

I am not a Christian, I am a Hindu, but even I believe Fred has understands that most people of faith have traditional values. Values that do not bend to every whim and trend on a weekly basis, but the values that foster community, family, kindness and acceptance, but also personal responsibility and freedom from the tyranny of the multi-culturist brigade, whose goal is to muddy waters so much that the mere image of the America I was raised in remains but a fleeting memory to my children. These are the values I look for in a Presidential candidate, and Fred possesses these values above all the rest.

Sunana Batra