Now that the first debate between the major presidential candidates is over, we hope that the dialogue will improve beyond whether Donald Trump had the sniffles and whether Hillary Clinton looked smug.

There were plenty of issues to digested in the first 90-minute debate of the campaign. The question now is whether or not we will talk about the issues or continue along the superficial lines that have been drawn so far.

To assist in the development of such talk, we begin this week a series of articles about the issues that are pertinent to the upcoming election on Tuesday, Nov. 8. This week’s installment is about religious liberty and can be found on Page 7.

Too much conversation has centered on whether or not people are actually going to vote. People have been turned off by the personalities of this race. Regardless, the issues remain on the table and cannot be ignored. We will bring them to you on a weekly basis up to Election Day. We don’t want there to be any excuse for not voting.