In a Nov. 6 op-ed piece in The New York Times, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) explains that he will vote for Mukasey, in spite of his evasions about waterboarding, because the Justice Department needs a firm hand at the helm to undo the mess left by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Schumer says he is "confident" that Mukasey will enforce any law passed by Congress that defines waterboarding as torture. I say the Department of Justice requires a leader who doesn't need a new law to tell him that simulated drownings, or the use of the rack, qualify as torture. It all reminds me of a line that embattled civil rights workers used in the sixties in Mississippi: "There is a town in Mississippi called Liberty. There is a department in Washington called Justice." Sen. Schumer, for whom I have voted twice, ought to know that there are some principles more important than the short-term need to fill an administrative vacuum.

It is utterly stupid to ask, "Wouldn't you be willing to torture a prisoner if he knew when and where a nuclear weapon was about to be set off in the United States?" This is the sort of situation that appears only in spy novels. In general, "extreme methods of interrogation" are applied in an effort to wring some general knowledge about the enemy (or enemies) out of a prisoner who may or may not be in a position to provide useful information. All studies have shown that most information obtained through torture is useless. People will say anything, confess to anything, to stop pain. Islamist terrorists are no more likely to be telling the truth under torture than were Jews who renounced their religion and embraced Christianity during the Inquisition.

And what if I were willing to violate my own values in an attempt to obtain information about a bombing? Does that mean we ought to have a government policy that sanctions such behavior by our military or our Justice Department? The Bill of Rights has undoubtedly been violated millions of times by government officials. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the Bill or Rights: it only shows how necessary it is to frame laws that hold us to the highest possible ethical standard.

According to experts in interrogation, torture doesn't work. That is a practical issue. The moral issue is what the practice of torture does to the character of individuals who impose it directly, and to the character of a nation that sanctions it. Torture coarsens both individuals and society. Our refusal to hold those at the top of the chain of command responsible for Abu Ghraib speaks volumes about the moral breakdown of our society.

To me, this is not a specifically religious issue, although various religions and factions within religions have taken different positions on the subject. But it is certainly a values issue--a values issue of far greater importance to our nation than the endless arguments about sexual issues such as gay marriage and the availability of contraception to minors.

There are some issues--slavery and human sacrifice are among them--by which the long, slow process of civilization is measured. By sanctioning torture, directly or indirectly, we are turning our backs on the civilizing process itself, as well as on the best ideals that gave birth to our nation. There will always be violations of civilized norms in war--indeed, such violations are the essence of war--but there is a vast difference between acknowledging that such violations exist and looking the other way while the Bush administration claims the right to do whatever it wants to suspects, all in the name of protecting America.

What will be left to protect after we have sanctioned actions that violate the best of our values? Of slavery, Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just." (Please, no silly comments about an atheist's use of a quotation with the word "God" in it.) All of those cowardly senators who are going to vote for Judge Mukasey's comfirmation, in spite of his evasions about torture, ought to reflect deeply on that quote. There may not be a just God, but there is always a reckoning for sanctioning or turning a blind eye to practices that violate fundamental human rights.