you write: "But how can you, on the one hand, be pro-life and say abortion is murder, and be against stem cell research and say killing embryos is murder, and yet be for the death penalty?"

Two points on that:
1) The Catholic Church is pro-life, against stem cell research AND against the death penalty. So they don't have the consistency problem.

2) The commandment in question (is it the 6th? I'm not up on the order) doesn't say "Thou shalt not kill." It says "Thou shalt not MURDER."

Everyone can agree there's a difference between killing and murder.

Example: If someone is trying to kill you, and you, in defense of yourself, kill them first - that's not "murder."

The "death penalty" (whether one is against it or for it) is not "murder" either.

I'm against the death penatly personally - not because I think the penalty itself is too harsh for certain crimes, but because I don't trust the government/state/legal system to be accurate enough to mete it out fairly, every time.

But do I think executing, say, Timothy McVeigh, or Ted Bundy, or [name the serial killing bastard here] is "murder"?

No.

And I can sleep perfectly sound at night knowing that those blights on humanity got what was coming to them.

Even though I'm super, super, way pro-choice, I believe pro-lifers have a much better argument that abortion is "murder" than the execution a convicted, dangerous (read: murder, violent rape) felon.

Note: Andrew, keep up the great political blogging. I'm psyched the election season has brought it out in you.

I'll try to comment more.