"What makes that a bad idea is that murder can, and has been, promoted on religious principles."

And on non-religious principles, so I guess we haven't really gotten anywhere.

"What is lost in the scuffle is that murder is inherently harmful to public safety, which is a goal that just about anyone can support."

Good, so you shouldn't be so upset that I object to murder, then.  We're all together!

"Of course you do, and I have never claimed you didn't."

Sure sounds like it.  On any other grounds your remarks are irrelevant.

"What I said was that your basis for public policy was flawed and the policy you promoted a bad one."

No, what you said is:

"You want to use the government to force others to obey your religious principles.  You have no non-religious argument for opposing abortion, so your political position contradicts the separation of church and state in the First Amendment."

If I have the right to vote my conscience on any basis that I please, even a religious one, then my position cannot 'contradict' the first amendment. 

You do this all the time.  First you wax poetic about how people shouldn't impose their religion in the public square and should provide secular reasons for their religious positions and then only after a little fuss do you realize that you bumped clean up against totalitarianism. 

"If you want to change the law to support your policy on abortion, you must provide a secular argument in favor of it."

See, you did it again.

"You misquoted it.  That sentence fragment was or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

My bad. 

"And I shall note the portion that you omitted from the amendment:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Hmmmm.  Am I Congress?  If I vote on this basis for the president am I passing a law in Congress?

"That is the portion that invalidates your attempt to pass a law eliminating a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy."

And the dog returns to its vomit.  In one breath I am free to express myself as much as I want only it is bad policy and in the next breath if I attempt to act on it I am acting in violation to the constitution.

But it is not true, precisely, that I want to pass a law eliminating 'a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.'  I want to pass a law prohibiting murder.  And I thought we were both on board with murder being bad? 

"If you can come up with a secular argument for criminalizing abortions, then you might be able to make a case for it."

To make a case for you.  If I don't want to you can't make me, and if I can't, you can't limit my right nonetheless to vote on this basis or attempt to persuade others to vote on the same basis.  If the whole country decides that slaves are persons too, on religious grounds, and votes that way, then by golly they have that right.

"People have gone to jail in the US for engaging in public protests, too. "

You speak out of ignorance.

"It is extremely rare for a fetus to survive an abortion procedure,"

Indeed it is, so Obama shouldn't have had any problem approving legislation that would entitle such babies the right to medical care.  Truly, it is difficult to imagine that after the 'entity' has been removed from the womb in a late term setting that it is still a 'fetus.'  That's really outrageous of you.  But that is of course why Obama didn't want to go along with it.  A baby that is born at 8 months is a baby, a person.  A baby that is 'terminated' at 8 months, but survives, and is identical in every way to the 8 month old next to it only the mother didn't try to kill it, is a 'fetus,' ie, not entitled to the rights of a person.  That's why he resisted the legislation, and it is despicable.

"Obama's public positions on abortion have had nothing to do with infanticide, but you can continue to rant on that subject if you want.  It does not surprise me that you choose to focus on irrelevancies like that rather than issues of importance to the country."

I tend to think that murder is an important issue to the country.  If Obama can't bring himself to call what is clearly a person a person, that's a fine precedent, isn't it?  I suppose the last class of humans he'll de-personalize will be the linguistic professors, but for the rest of us...

"Rubbish.  Your interpretation is a total distortion of the context of Biden's remarks."

lol, right.  'spine of steel' probably meant that Obama was going to play nicey-nice.

"If you think we ought not to, then you need to come up with some better material."

Do you think I have any intent to try to convince you?  You're a lost cause, Cop.  It took five posts for you to even comprehend that I was speaking about 'infanticide' and not 'late term abortions' even after repeated corrections on my part.  That was a simple case.  It would take a thousand years and a translator just for you to understand what I was saying, let alone consider it on its merits.  As far as I'm concerned, I will be content to keep you and your ilk out of power.

You do this all the time.  First you wax poetic about how people shouldn't impose their religion in the public square and should provide secular reasons for their religious positions and then only after a little fuss do you realize that you bumped clean up against totalitarianism. 

What's really telling is that Cop. thinks the vast majority of people actually think like he does. It begs the question if people actually care that the reasons are secular or religious in order to convince them. I certainly have no trouble with the reasons being religious even if it's from another religion. Because the vast majority of religions share the same basis of morality.

Ever since Powell went for Obama, there has been a steady trickle of more prominent Republicans defecting.  The latest is former Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein.  And then there are the McCain endorsers, such as Lawrence Eagleburger, who feel compelled to admit that Sarah Pain is simply not ready to be President. 

Sarah Palin continues to be the single biggest drag on the McCain ticket, although McCain's erratic behavior also scares voters.  CNN's Wolf Blitzer had a piece on an undecided Republican voter in Ohio today.  She was being courted by both the McCain and Obama campaigns, since CNN had chosen to follow her.  She said that McCain was closer to her views on abortion, her being a devout Catholic.  So she found it hard to reconcile voting for Obama.  On the other hand, she said that McCain's erratic behavior tended to scare her.  She finally mailed her absentee ballot and phoned CNN to tell them that she was voting for Barack Obama.