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Kerry cites faith, 'family values' The convention speech

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry of Massachusetts capped a political convention that saw Democrats emphasizing faith and moral language. “In this campaign, we welcome people of faith,” Senator Kerry told a cheering crowd of about 20,000 delegates, guests and journalists in his acceptance speech at the late July convention in Boston. But alluding to President Bush’s regular use of religious phrases, Kerry said what may have also appealed to Democrats: “I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve.”

Forbes: 'God gap' is wrong distinction: "A trivialization conversation"

Calling the so-called “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats “a trivialization conversation,” New York clergyman James Forbes told an interfaith service in Boston during the Democratic convention that the two groups simply understand their religiosity in different ways.

Rather than Republicans being religious and Democrats being secular, “in a family, personalities differ, and if it is one family, that family is stronger only as there is respect for the differing perspectives,” said Forbes, pastor of New York’s Riverside Church.

Inside the control room: A roar of affirmation for civil liberties

In Control Room, a film on the Arab language television satellite network al-Jazeera, interviewer Abdullah Schleifer presses U.S. Marine Lieutenant Josh Rushing to look at the Middle East as it is seen by the people who live there. Sitting in his headquarters in Doha, Qatar, at the start of the Iraq war, Rushing is trying to be helpful. Finally, he says, “Oh, you mean the Arab perspective.” And indeed, that is precisely what Schleifer, a journalism instructor from American University in Cairo, Egypt, has in mind.