Preachers of Hate.

There is a battle raging right now for the soul of this country. Will we be a democracy that's dedicated to liberty, equality, individual rights, and the separation of church and state, or are we headed down the icy slope toward theocracy?

This question demands asking in the wake of the October murders of Matthew Shepard and Dr. Barnett Slepian and the ongoing violence against homosexuals and abortion providers.

More than 500 people attended a rally here in Madison, Wisconsin, to protest the murder of Shepard, the young man in Wyoming who was pistol-whipped, hung up on a fence for hours, and left to die because he was gay. One after another, people took the megaphone to decry this horrible act of violence, to recount their own experiences of being harassed, or to tell of a friend or loved one who had been beaten by bigots. Speaker after speaker understood that there are powerful religious and political forces in this country that are dead-set on depriving gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people of their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Conservative evangelicals and politicians have fomented this violence. Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, John Ashford, and Jesse Helms--they are the ones who incubated the murderers of Matthew Shepard.

And even after this terrible crime, there were still those who preached from the prayerbook of hate. "It should be remembered that the new saint of the gay movement was a twenty-two-year-old man engaged in sexual perversion who was apparently cruising a bar for the purpose of finding a partner or two to commit vile acts which also violate the laws of nature's god," said the Reverend Ralph Ovadal of Wisconsin Christians United.

This is the epitome of theological callousness. And that same kind of callousness greeted the assassination of Dr. Slepian.

It was Friday night, and Dr. Barnett Slepian had just returned from synagogue, where he attended a yahrzeit service commemorating the death of his father, The New York Times reported. While standing in the kitchen of his home, while enjoying domestic tranquility with his wife and one of his sons, Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot dead.

Dr. Slepian's murder bore all the markings of a political crime, carried out by a fanatical adherent to the "pro-life" cause who refuses to obey the law of the land, refuses to respect women's constitutional right to privacy, refuses to respect the...