By Dennis Teti

First, the results across the board, for Pres. and Congress, can be explained simply and easily.  The financial markets' collapse since the end of Sept. are sufficient, on top of the housing market's severe downturn beginning at the end of 2006.  Americans are extremely unhappy with the current economic condition and they have been hurt big time in the falling values of their largest assets, their homes and investment portfolios.  They blame the White House party, the GOP, for this, and accordingly have punished them by throwing them out of office and giving the govt. to the other guys.  That is all that has happened.  Americans did NOT become more liberal, or socialist, or globalist, or anti-American; they want economic prosperity and rejected the party they blame for their losses.  I am most concerned to defend my fellow citizens against the charge that they have become indifferent to "family values," "religion," or love for their country.  The sight of Grant Park awash with American flags at Obama's victory speech should be enough to disabuse anyone of that false claim.

At a glance at the changed maps of 2004 and 2008, I believe that you see only marginal changes that were enough to tip formerly red states to blue.  The breathless commentators are telling us that the old coalitions are gone, but that is not correct.  The majority put together by Bush, and formerly by Reagan, was built in large part of families who felt threatened by the Democrats' promotion of anti-family policies.  I do not think that majority has changed much, but economic insecurity also threatens families and overshadowed all else.  In other words, with the return of economic stability, that coalition should reappear in 2010 or 2012.

However, the social issues problem is more complicated: the Dem coalition that will now govern for the next few years will push to nail their social radicalism into place, meaning that the abortion license will be pushed much further.  They really hope to normalize so-callled gay rights, especially gay marriage.  They will enact a federal “civil rights” ban on employment discrimination because of sexual orientation, but beyond that they can’t go at this point.  Referenda in CA and FL that banned gay marriage won despite fierce and heavily funded opposition.  A statutory ban on adoption by unmarried, i.e. same-sex, couples was also enacted by referendum in Arkansas.  This is very impressive.  A big majority of African Americans and many Hispanics supported the CA ban, against the very Democrats they were voting for at the same time. Democratic state lawmakers will also go slow in trying anything more radical than this at the moment.  What we can say is that more and more the gay marriage question will soon be tested in the federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.  The 4 outstanding conservatives will oppose it while Justice Kennedy's position cannot be known.  But they would be on commanding ground if they claimed that the states have broad “federalist” authority to determine the nature of marriage.  President Obama may replace some old liberals with young liberals, but for the next 4 years, barring an unexpected conservative opening, the quasi-conservative majority will remain on the Supreme Court.  The resolution of gay marriage will have to await the results of the 2012 election cycle.  For this reason I strongly recommend that the people who promoted the ban should help to test it in federal courts immediately, before President Obama has much opportunity to remake them.  (At the same time they should bring state and federal hate crime charges against the atrocious CA advertising campaign that slandered Mormons as US-style storm troopers invading the homes of same-sex couples.  These laws protect religious groups as much as homosexuals from "hate-based speech."  If that ad campaign goes unchallenged, we may be absolutely certain that the Catholic Church will be next on the gay block.)

On the basis of these probable consequences, it will be essential for our Church to have a conversation on how to proceed to contain the damage, resist what is morally impermissible, and try to regain what will be lost in the next 4 years.  E.g., the question of withholding taxes used to pay for abortions and embryonic stem cell research will have to be discussed seriously.

My prophetic powers are very limited, but I do think the new govt. will not be up to solving the economic problem that brought them into office with their nostrums of excessive taxation and overregulation of businesses and markets.  Obama's foreign policy proposals present little reason to believe he will defend this country well against people who are willing to use the most awful weapons to terrorize us.  I add, though, that he will not begin a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq since we are so close to victory, thanks to Pres. Bush and Gen. Petraeus.  On balance, I anticipate a Republican resurgence in 2010 and a great likelihood of a GOP Presidency in 2012.  My point being, we are in for a very, very difficult 2 or 4 years but no reason to think the situation will not improve after that.  So Catholics and the Church need to create a 4-year strategy to challenge what will come quickly and withstand the pressures until, God willing, the return of good sense in 2012.

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Dennis Teti is a writer who lives in Hyattsville, MD, a political appointee of the Bush Administration, and was formerly an assistant at the US Commission on Civil Rights, a Capitol Hill staffer, CEO of a Catholic non-profit foundation for cultural change, and former professor of American government, constitutional law, and political philosophy at Hillsdale College and Regent University.