Christians eat lions.(Scan)

Since at least the mid 1970s, the Democratic Party and its allies have devoted themselves to making life miserable for Christians. On Election Day, Christians returned the favor.

Followers of Jesus--evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics in particular--have been portrayed as superstitious degenerates, bigots, trailer-park misogynists, both sexually repressed and hypocritically lecherous, and a gang of Torquemada wannabes who constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and modernity. The only dilemma for the Left is deciding whether Christians are more Elmer Gantry or Elmer Fudd.

They've derided their values, indoctrinated their children, given their teenage sons condoms and told their teenage daughters how to get an abortion without their parents' knowledge, used their tax dollars to fund "art" like a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine, eliminated the mildest public expressions of faith, and tried to overturn 3,300 years of Judeo-Christian tradition by mandating gay marriage from the bench.

After all of this, the Democrats are shocked to discover that they aren't wildly popular in the Bible Belt. Where, oh where did we go wrong, they moan, as George W. rallies Christian support to become the first President since 1936 to win re-election and increase his party's representation in both houses of Congress.

To the amazement of the New York Times, 22 percent of November voters told exit pollsters they were motivated by "values" or moral questions--more than based their votes on the economy or the war on terrorism. Bush was endorsed by over 80 percent of values-driven voters.

White evangelicals pulled the GOP lever by 78 to 21 percent. And running against the first Catholic Presidential candidate (at least in name) since 1960, Bush won the votes of 51 percent of Catholics.

As a general rule in the 2004 election, the more a voter went to church, the redder he got. Those who never attend religious services voted for Kerry 62-36 percent. But Bush got the support of voters who visit a house of worship once a week (58 percent) and more than once a week (64 percent). For the Democratic Party, churchgoing America is enemy territory.