Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.

The science of life is changing hearts and minds.

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.

When the penalty for a policeman's mistake is to put a criminal back out on the street, then we are hurting America; we are hurting our law-abiding citizens.

The popular culture still ridicules religion and often treats it like the plague.

Americans have not only a right but a responsibility to consider the values of those who seek to lead them - whether they arise from life experience, political ideology or religious belief.

As President, I will end once and for all the use of taxpayer funds to promote the National Endowment for the Arts and other programs that subsidize amoral and degrading activities.