The Judicial Confirmation Network helpfully released a chart comparing the positions of the Democratic and Republican parties on federal courts and judges.

The chart is based upon the positions outlined in the two parties' respective platforms from their conventions, as well as the statements made by the presidential candidates for each party.

To each of the following questions, the Republican Party answers YES and the Democrat Party answers NO.

Calls judicial activism a threat?

Opposes Kelo eminent domain decision?

Opposes Court granting legal rights to enemy combatants?

Opposes Court's interference with death penalty?

Opposes courts setting abortion policies?

Opposes judges undermining traditional marriage laws?

Opposes judges injecting foreign law into American jurisprudence?

Opposes Senate inquiry into a judicial candidate's religious convictions?

The Judicial Confirmation Network is an organization of citizens joined together to support the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States. It works to ensure that the confirmation process for all judicial nominees is fair and that every nominee sent to the full Senate receives an up or down vote.

The Judicial Confirmation Network understand that the proper role of a judge or justice is to interpret the law and the Constitution – not make up the law and deprive the people of the right to govern ourselves—and a judge or a justice should not use the power of the court to impose his or her personal or political agenda on the people.

Wendy E. Long, Judicial Confirmation Network general counsel:

"There is perhaps no clearer distinction between the Republican and Democratic parties than their positions on judges, and particularly the appointments that each candidate would make to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because the next President is likely to choose Justices that will determine the outcome of important cases for the next generation, the stakes for the Supreme Court could not be higher than they are in this election.

"John McCain and the Republican platform identify judicial activism as a threat to self-government and reject judges legislating from the bench. Barack Obama and the Democratic platform do not, which is not surprising given that Obama has said he prefers liberal activist judges and would not appoint those who practice judicial restraint.

"The Republican platform condemns the Court's erosion of private property rights, its granting legal rights to enemy combatants, its interference with the death penalty, its intrusion into the realm of abortion policy, its undermining of traditional marriage laws, and its injection of foreign law into American jurisprudence. The platform is clear and specific about the problems of the courts and what the model of the judiciary should be.

"The Democrats are silent about all of this. Instead, their platform recites self-evident propositions that fail to illuminate the differences between the parties, including statements such as: 'Our Constitution is not a nuisance.' It's odd that anyone would even evaluate the Constitution in such terms, but the reason the Democrats don't consider the Constitution a 'nuisance' is that they have no qualms about running around it in order to impose liberal policies on the American people."

I'll simplify this: if you want a President who will appoint Justices who will strike "under God" from "The Pledge of Allegiance," Obama is the one to bring about that change. If you want "good" change, but not "bad" change, don't be insane and make it McCain.

Michael J. Gaynor is an independent columnist