November 2nd is over and now that the numbers are in, albeit unofficially, the media has already begun the process of picking apart the motivations behind voter’s choices for the nation’s next leader.

Regardless of whether voters cast their ballot for the Kerry-Edwards or Bush-Cheney tickets, one thing seems to be consistent; media agencies nation-wide are all asking, &uot;What’s with the values thing?&uot;

From radio and television to newspapers and magazines, media officials are burning up the wires to interview Evangelical Christian leaders in an effort to try and figure out why the country seems to have turned back to religious morals.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that over the past 30 years or so, the country has taken a severe cultural shift downhill where people have progressively walked away from &uot;God and country&uot; and embraced a philosophy of selfishness and zero accountability, but as many of our contemporaries are now seeing reflected in the polls, Americans are getting sick of it.

With the threat of homosexual marriage and gay-agenda curriculum finding its way into public schools coupled by the widespread disregard for life in the form of abortion among other issues, it’s about time people have said, &uot;enough is ENOUGH!&uot;

With 11 states voting in an overwhelming majority to adopt state constitutional amendments protecting marriage as solely the union of a man and a woman, fillabuster-famed Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle losing his long-held seat to Republican candidate John R. Thune and President Bush being the first President since 1936 to get re-elected while gaining seats in both the U.S. House and Senate, it is clear that America was tired of seeing things status quo.

Prior to the election, whenever Kerry-Edwards supporters were asked why they were going to vote for their candidate, they would have responded that they wanted to see a &uot;change,&uot; but the kind of change that they wanted and the kind their likely to get are two completely different things.

In speaking with a college student who recently voted for Kerry, I asked a young lady why, as a professing born-again Christian who holds tightly to a pro-life and pro-traditional marriage between a man and a woman, would she cast her vote for a candidate who has a 20-year record of repeatedly striking down every pro-life and pro-family piece of legislation brought before him as well as denying the brutal procedure of partial birth abortion even exists.

Her response was an honest reflection of what I believe Kerry supporters across the nation would likely have answered, the war and the economy. How can that be? How can something so obvious disappear from the center of the scope and fade so unrecognizably out of view?

How can it be that despite the enormous courage and sacrifice put forth by those who founded this great nation on Judeo-Christian principles, that we would so brazenly trample on ideals for which our martyrs died to afford us the freedom to enjoy the unalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator in the name of selfishness? A nation whose god is money and selfishness will surely crumble.

Though we cannot begin to understand or know all of the reasons the President did what he did with regard to going to war in Iraq, I believe the majority of the men and women fighting the war over there are doing it for two reasons.

First, they know that freedom is bought with a price, ours was purchased with the blood of patriots and the Iraqi people will be no different.

Second they realize the urgency of the situation. The unprovoked attack that toppled the Twin Towers and turned the U.S. into a war zone on September 11, 2001 was only a taste of what these terrorists wish to bring us, whether they live in Afganistan, Iraq or are deeply woven in the fabric of American society. Our military forces know it and in their wisdom realized that the best line of defense is absolutely a good offense.

The threat of terror will not be stopped by taking a defensive position or by putting our heads in the sand and pretending life is grand. These soldiers know, when they sign up to serve in the armed forces, especially when there is a war at hand, that they might lose their lives, but they choose to live by the principle that no greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for another.

Do we finally get it? Has the veil that once shrouded our complacent eyes begun to wane? Indeed, things are beginning to change, people are starting to see the magnitude of what is at stake and they are finally stepping up to the plate.

I suppose many of those who voted for Bush could falsely believe the battle is over and return back to &uot;business as usual&uot; simply because our candidate &uot;won,&uot; but the social depravity of the nation didn’t transpire overnight and it certainly won’t get undone and rebuilt by doing nothing for the next four years.

Legislation will continue to be introduced and our senators and congressmen and women, both locally and nationally, will need to hear our voices. We need to stay informed about the issues and make it our business to speak out against things that threaten the foundation of the family and our nation.

The sleeping giant has awakened, but I fear, that if we don’t heed that warning cry, she will fall, yet again, into a fatal slumber. America, God’s grace has indeed been shed on thee, may we not neglect to defend what defines your greatness; subsequent generations depend on it.