Yesterday the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) took action in Washington to awaken the conscience of all Americans. This coalition of over 100 national, regional, and local religious and secular organizations rallied at the Capitol on Tuesday to stand against torture, secret prisons, and to restore due process to detainees. NRCAT was joined by Amnesty International, the ACLU, and the Leadership Council on Civil Rights.

There has been a growing outcry within the religious community over the administration's policies. I asked organizer Jeanne Herrick-Stare if the use of torture by the administration has eroded the moral conscience of religious America. She disagreed saying, "Far from being eroded by the administration's actions, the U.S. religious community is awakening to the true horror of the actions being perpetrated in the name of the American people."

"Moral beliefs are not determined by polls, or manipulated by the results of focus groups," Jeanne added. "Moral beliefs are the bedrock tenants, the immutables that guide our conduct in stressful, difficult, fearful times."

Just this week, Washington Post reporters uncovered that in developing a new interrogation policy for the war on terror, Vice President Cheney intentionally encouraged the circumvention of the Geneva Conventions. For NRCAT these interrogation methods have one name: torture, plain and simple. With new scandalous revelations surfacing about the Bush administration's interrogation policies, NRCAT siezing the moment to rally people of faith who proclaim that torture is an affront to the dignity of each human life.