At least two sex scandals have reached the surface of the mainstream press and the entertainment world lately – Roman Polanski’s drugging and rape of a 13-year old and David Letterman’s multiple affairs with staffers. What is most telling about these scandals is not necessarily that they happened, but that those who come from inside the media and entertainment swamps are nonplussed. Not only that, but many of them are finding ways to excuse the adulterous, manipulative, and vile behavior represented in these two cases. Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski’s pedophilic sodomy as not being “rape-rape.”

How is it people can stare blatantly immoral behavior in the face and shrug their shoulders? At least in part, it happens when people have replaced their natural moral core with the idolatry of image. Certain people who represent certain ideologies become more important than moral truth. So as a result, moral outrage is reserved for people “on the outside” of a political and cultural system while genuine immorality is dismissed because the person, the image, or the ideology is more important.

Our idols form and shape our characters, moral sensibilities and personalities. If then our idol is image as presented in our current media-saturated world, our moral sensibilities will be changed to fit the demigod of fame. Famous people get away with murder (literally and figuratively) because the supporting media structure idolizes fame at the cost of all other concerns. In addition, scores of your average Joes and Janes suffer the same psychologically debilitating consequences. The image presented by Letterman’s fame is more important than marital fidelity to his wife and his fatherly example to his child. What is worse, the fact that Polanski made a few films loved by the film industry excuses him of drugging and raping a child. By what they excuse, these people tell us what they love.

So what is the cure? In the end it is simple – replace all our idols with the Only Wise God. In light of these realities, I was struck by Ephesians 4:17-20 this week:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!

Take for instance Minnesota. As of this writing, they are on the verge of electing a tax-evading troglodyte to the U.S. Senate over a man of integrity and thoughtfulness. Pennsylvania reelected Mertha, a man who called his own constituents racists. Then Pennsylvania did themselves one better by supporting a presidential candidate who is on record as calling them back-water “bitter-clingers.”

The heads of mining companies supported a presidential candidate who promised to cap-and-trade them out of existence. Christians, who claim a pro-life stance, trended toward supporting a president who has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and simultaneously believed he would reduce the number of abortions. The poor, who will suffer disproportionately under the president-elect’s taxing of oil companies, supported him in droves. Supporters of Israel supported a candidate whose actual record of association (it’s the only record he has) is anti-Israel. Pundits who complained about Bush’s experience and political pedigree glossed over a candidate’s complete lack of experience. People who crucified McCain by associating him with Bush cried foul when Obama was associated with anyone. Investigative journalists didn’t seem phased by known and uncovered systemic voter registration fraud. Individuals making over $200,000 a year voted in greater numbers than usual for a man and a party that wants to take more of their money and give it to people who won’t work.

The list could go on, and it all points to one direction—we lost our minds today.

Why? Well, that is the question conservatives have to answer over the next two years if they are going to bring our nation back to its senses. Bush’s last four years were no real help and McCain did not run a very good campaign. We suffered under a lack of brave and principled leadership in the House and Senate during a time when conservatives could have reclaimed fiscal and social policy from the cultural pressures of liberalism.

But we didn’t do it, and today we suffered the consequences. It is unlikely our populace has actually moved hard-left toward serious socialism, but they did react against the less-than-stellar showing by conservatives in just enough numbers for this to be a wake-up call.

Unfortunately, the result is the election of a man whose only known beliefs are hard-left. Let’s hope and work for a near future where conservatism finds its soul and its legs again and proposes some serious ideas to a nation that, if the numbers are to be believed, agrees with them anyway.