Love it or hate it, America is getting a makeover. In a lightning-quick first 100 days, President Obama has arrested attention with his transformative responses to the economic crisis, as well as his brash foreign-policy moves and trips abroad.

Far less press, however, has been devoted to how the new administration is laying the groundwork for massive cultural shifts here at home.

Aided by a sympathetic Congress, the president is filling the executive and judicial branches with liberal activists whose effect on the nation could be incalculable. Consider a few of these individuals.

David Ogden, a lawyer, is a strong abortion-rights advocate. He has fought to give young teenage girls the right to abort without parental consent. He once argued for Planned Parenthood that “Abortion rarely causes or exacerbates psychological or emotional problems,” and that the few women who do have trouble “appear to be those with preexisting emotional problems.” He also defends homosexual rights and pornography. He worked to remove porn filters from the Internet in public libraries and infamously defended a child pornographer. And now, courtesy of the Obama administration, Ogden is America’s new deputy attorney general. The porn industry called his nomination “refreshing.”

The Washington Times calls Dawn Johnsen “one of the country’s most radical abortion proponents.” She opposes all limits on abortion, including parental notification for teenagers and bans on partial-birth abortion. In a brief she submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of an abortion-rights organization in 1989, she called limits on abortions “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment”—which forbids slavery—“in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest.” By forbidding any type of abortion, she wrote, “the state has conscripted her body for its own ends.” She wrote a bill, the Freedom of Choice Act, that could force hospitals to perform abortions or risk losing federal funding—an act the new president has said he will sign. The Obama administration has nominated this woman to head the Office of Legal Counsel, chief adviser to its legal team. Hers is the voice that, if she is confirmed, will have the ear of the attorney general and the president on constitutional questions.

Former aclu leader and acorn fundraiser David Hamilton is a U.S. district judge well known for his judicial activism. He fought against the Children’s Internet Protection Act. He invalidated a law requiring that sex offenders be registered. He prevented enforcement of an Indiana law requiring a waiting period for abortions. He ordered the Indiana legislature to stop opening its sessions with a “sectarian prayer” because the references to Jesus offended him. Though the American Bar Association rates him as “not qualified” for his current post, Hamilton is the president’s nominee for a vacancy on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Harold Koh believes American courts should consult international law for help in interpreting the U.S. Constitution and making their decisions. Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas say this practice undermines U.S. sovereignty. Their concerns may grow if Koh’s nomination as the legal adviser of the Department of State is confirmed.

Elena Kagan booted military recruiters from the campus of Harvard Law and sought to do the same for all colleges that receive federal funds. She calls the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy “a moral injustice of the first order” because it discriminates against soldiers who want to be openly homosexual. Kagan is now America’s new solicitor general—the executive branch’s chief courtroom lawyer and adviser to the Supreme Court.

Morrell John Berry, during his tenure as director of the National Zoo, implemented several pro-homosexual employee policies. He wants the Defense of Marriage Act repealed and supports benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees. This month, Berry became director of the Office of Personnel Management, which puts him in charge of 1.9 million federal employees—and their benefits. He is the highest-ranking openly homosexual official ever to serve in the executive branch.

Harry Knox is a homosexual activist. Last month he called certain Catholic leaders “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” for supporting California’s Proposition 8, which legally defines marriage as male-female. He criticized the Apostle Paul for being an “educated, rich heterosexual man” who “didn’t think [homosexuality] was natural because for him it must not have been.” The president apparently appreciates Knox’s view of Scripture, because he just appointed him to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

John Holdren has written extensively on global environmental change. He has advocated population control measures such as mandatory abortions and encouraged declines in fertility to reduce stresses on the environment. He has warned of imminent catastrophe caused by global warming. He is now assistant to the president and director of the Office of Science and Technology.

These are only a few of the more notable of the alarming nominations and appointments of the past hundred days. Never has such an unruly cast of characters been so prominent in the affairs of state.

These official selections are dramatically exposing a dangerous lie that has become widely accepted in recent years.

The lie is that the character of a leader doesn’t matter. That personal beliefs and private conduct have no bearing on a person’s ability to govern well.

The truth is that immoral leaders lead people into immorality. Through bad example and compromised judgment, they inevitably spread their malign influence.

The best governors are those who have first learned to govern themselves. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice,” reads the proverb; “but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”

What we see today, however, is worse than leaders having mere personal weaknesses. This is a battalion of zealots, being endowed with the power to give their immoral beliefs binding legal force, and to turn their radical notions into reality. This army of activists is justifiably filling abortion advocates and homosexuals with hope for the future of their causes.

The biblical prophets actually forewarned of just such a curse befalling the nations that descended from ancient Israel, of which the United States is one. Isaiah 3:1-5 prophesy of a crushing void in righteous leadership in this end time, and of vile and base people behaving proudly against the honorable. “Their partiality witnesses against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil upon themselves” (verse 9, Revised Standard Version). “O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (verse 12). Read Character in Crisis for a more complete exposition of how this prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes.

Scripture repeatedly affirms that the character of a leader is paramount in ensuring true success. These words of righteous King David are as relevant in today’s America as they were in the nation he governed: “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God” (2 Samuel 23:3).

This beautiful truth has been progressively ignored. Now we are to the point where the exact opposite dictates governmental appointments. We are certain to suffer for it.