Washington--(AP) To robust applause from the Southern Baptist audience he could only see via satellite, President Bush railed against human cloning on Tuesday and celebrated the Baptists' refusal to separate religious faith from politics. "True faith is never isolated from the rest of life, and faith without works is dead," Bush said in a speech broadcast live from the White House to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis. "Baptists believe as America's founders did: that religious faith is the moral anchor of American life."

The most hearty applause that could be heard over the two-way linkup came when Bush, a Methodist, outlined the "common commitments" he has with the Baptists: "We believe in fostering a culture of life, and that marriage and family are sacred institutions that should be preserved and strengthened. We believe that a life is a creation, not a commodity, and that our children are gifts to be loved and protected, not products to be designed and manufactured by human cloning. We believe that protecting human dignity and promoting human rights should be at the center of America's foreign policy."

Bush supports a ban on all forms of human cloning, including the manufacture of embryonic cells for use in medical research.