For the record, I believe elected officials should talk about faith. Our founders believed the moral principles of faith were indispensable to our nation's survival. The Declaration of Independence mentions God four times.

As a conservative, I maintain a healthy skepticism of the theory of man-made global warming. I also believe that more people enjoying the fruits of modernity and economic development is a good thing - as long as those people arrived legally and obey the law.

I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists.

Beyond politics, the West is suffering from what can be called a crisis of brokenness - broken institutions, broken families and broken souls.

Fairness' can be an important quality for legislators to consider when they are passing public policies. But it is a subjective standard. And it has no place among judges on a court - whose duty is to dispassionately judge a law's constitutionality.

There is something wrong with our culture when the view that marriage is between one man and one woman, a view shared by half the nation, is portrayed as evidence of hatred.

Republican values - strong families, faith, personal responsibility and freedom, among others - are not unique to specific subsets of the electorate. They are universal values, and it is Republicans' job to remind Americans of that fact.