I woke up Wednesday morning in a state of immorality.

No, I was in the same house where I usually sleep. And, yes, I was sharing the same bed with the same wife I’ve had for 30 years. I checked just to be sure.

But I had awoken in Maine, and I had learned overnight that it is one of those immoral blue states.

The TV commentators had told me so late the night before, explaining that moral issues had driven the red-state voters to the polls. The poor dears were exasperated by my immorality.

The people in the red states had voted to re-elect our morally upright president, they said, while my state had thrown its lot in with biblically unfortunate places like Sodom, Gomorra and Massachusetts.

People in the red states loudly espoused “traditional” values, which members of the TV chattering class said boiled down to “God, guns and gays.” That’s pretty clever.

Of course, by the time I’d had my first cup of coffee, I realized what was happening here: I’ll call it rank hypocrisy, although there is a barnyard epithet that red-staters might better understand.

Morality? Tell me about it! That’s exactly why I had gone to the polls on Tuesday and that’s why, along with most Mainers, I had voted for John Kerry.

I voted against a presidential administration that has driven this country right into a moral mud hole.

For instance, I feel strongly that torturing people in overseas prisons is immoral. Call me quaint, but that just ain’t right.

I am convinced that rolling back decades of environmental progress is immoral. They call it God’s creation for a reason, you know.

I am fairly certain that ignoring the health-insurance crisis among low-income working people is immoral. “Jesus loves poor people,” my Dad used to say, “that’s why he made so many of em.”

I think the way my nation squanders petroleum is not only obscene but immoral. Isn’t gluttony one of the corporal sins?

And I am absolutely positive that initiating a foreign war on false or mistaken pretenses is immoral. If it isn’t, then I don’t know what is.

Surely, Jesus would not condone these things. Surely he would be offended.

And, as a result, as I lined up with other voters Tuesday morning waiting for my polling place to open, I felt – no, I knew – I was about to strike a blow for a more moral nation.

I knew that my vote was based upon a moral code that I had developed over 50 years, which was as strong, consistent and defensible as anyone’s. I knew it was based upon my belief in a compassionate God that I felt would be more offended by a child killed by 2,000-pound bomb than by the sight of two men hugging.

Even in the cold light of election defeat, I firmly believe that our government is on a morally reprehensible path.

But, after Tuesday, I better understood the differences between how morality is defined in the red and blue states.

Blue-staters talk about imposing morality on larger governmental actions and policies, while the reds talk about imposing morality on personal conduct.

That’s the real agenda of the red-state ayatollahs, reshaping the behavior of other adults to their own narrowly defined standards. The hot issues in the red states are restricting various options for human relationships (civil unions) and restricting personal choices (a woman’s access to abortion).

They want scientists to conform to their moral agenda by restricting funding for things like stem cell research. They would rather see already frozen embryos destroyed than used to help unravel the diseases that afflict millions of their fellow citizens.

That’s the kind of people they are. Moral issues seem strangely confined to the area between the belt buckle and knees.

Make no mistake about it: This will be the agenda for the next four years. The red-state jihadists are not interested in uniting this nation. Their focus, through George Bush, will be on forcing their interpretation of Biblical morality upon what they see as a heathen land, a little like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

It will come through the appointment of activist judges and the passage of social-conformity legislation.

And while we’re at each others’ throats, lobbyists will be hard at work rolling back more environmental regulations, passing corporate tax breaks, obtaining chummy Pentagon contracts and finding creative ways to loot Social Security.

But, hey, those are small matters compared to two gals getting married in Frisco, right?

On Wednesday, President Bush delivered the requisite speech calling upon the nation to heal, unite and forgive.

On Thursday, he got real, crowing about the “political capital” he had “earned” and talking about “spending it.” Gosh, that 51-49 “mandate” is burning a hole in his pocket already.

Hold on to your freedoms, America. The moral mullahs are on the march.

Rex Rhoades is the executive editor of the Sun Journal. He has lived in several red states and was once a Baptist. He can be reached at [email protected].