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Obama Dodges a Ballot in Voting Law Case
They don't call them "battleground states" for nothing! Now that
President Obama is
challenging the military's voting rights, the term never suited Ohio more. With
18 electoral
votes up for grabs, the White House is desperate to keep the Buckeyes in the
"win column" on
November 6--so desperate, it seems, that the President is willing to fight the
state's new
voting rules. Together with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Obama
campaign
decided to sue its way to victory in Ohio by taking the state to court over a
new law
designed to give the military more flexibility in its voting time. Concerned
the rules might
give the GOP an edge, the President's team is arguing that it's
unconstitutional and
"arbitrary" to give service members three more days of early voting than the
general
population. Of course, the campaign's real concern isn't the legality of Ohio
's law but the
impact of it. No Republican President has been elected without carrying the
Buckeye
State--and after four years of radically overhauling the military, the
President is right to
be concerned about where the troops stand. Still, that hardly justifies the
campaign's push
to meddle in Ohio's affairs and suppress the military vote.
Unlike other Americans, the Armed Forces are subject to restrictions,
uncertainties,
and scheduling conflicts that make it more difficult to vote. All that Ohio has
done is
extend the courtesy of voting rights to the brave men and women who defend
them. Under the
new rules, service members have until Monday before Election Day to cast their
ballots.
President Obama insists that isn't fair to the rest of the state, whose cutoff
is three days
earlier. But, as Attorney General Mike DeWine points out, Ohioans aren't
exactly hurting for
options. They can vote absentee by mail, in-person balloting on other days, and
Election Day
voting. The idea that this law stifles other opportunities to participate in
the democratic
process is ridiculous. As usual, the Obama administration is jumping to the
conclusion that
if they don't like the law, it must be unconstitutional.
So far, waging a messy legal battle has done more to hurt the
President's cause than
help it. Fifteen organizations--including the National Guard Association,
AMVETS, the
Association of the U.S. Army, and a dozen others--are aggressively defending
the law. As is
Gov. Romney. "The brave men and women of our military make tremendous
sacrifices to protect
and defend our freedoms," he said, "and we should do everything we can to
protect their
fundamental right to vote." Obama advisor David Axelrod tried to turn the
tables on the
Massachusetts Governor during the Sunday shows, calling it "shameful" that
Romney is trying
to affect the vote. Of course, that's more than a little disingenuous, given
his boss's
lawsuits against state voter laws. At the same time the President is trying to
block access
for service members, he's challenging states that require picture IDs at
polling stations.
Apparently, the campaign would rather count fraudulent votes than military ones.
We don't blame them. After four years of taking a wrecking ball to the
troops'
faith, speech, and culture, the day of reckoning is finally here. The
commander-in-chief who
could silence opposition to his policies in the ranks knows he cannot silence
it at the
ballot box. There, in the anonymity of the voting booth, brave men and women
across the
country will have a chance to express their opinion about the President's new
norms. Let's
pray it counts.
Land's End? SBC Legend Announces Retirement
Dr. Richard Land, our dear friend and colleague who leads the Southern
Baptist
Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), recently announced
his
retirement as President, effective next fall. A leading voice for human life,
biblical
marriage, and religious liberty for nearly a quarter of a century while at the
helm of the
ERLC, Dr. Land was named as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals
by Time
magazine in 2005.
Princeton and Oxford University educated and seminary trained, Dr. Land
was uniquely
qualified to lead what was in 1988 the Christian Life Commission (CLC). When
Land took the
reins, SBC entities were in the midst of a major self-correction from their
lurch toward
liberalism. In fact, previous leadership of the CLC had been neutral at best
and pro-choice
at worst on the abortion issue. However, Dr. Land was the first of the
conservative
resurgence wave of SBC entity leaders, and he immediately shifted the focus of
the ethics
entity in a pro-life direction. Land's transformative leadership of the CLC,
renamed the
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), thrust him into the national
spotlight. He
became host of a radio program, a noted author, a much sought after cultural
commentator in
the media, and a respected voice in the halls of power here in Washington, D.C.
Indeed Land
was also chosen to serve for a decade as a member of the U.S. Commission on
International
Religious Freedom, a bipartisan panel of nine members chosen by the President
and
congressional leaders to advise the White House, State Department and Congress
on the
condition of religious liberty in the world's countries. While Land is probably
best known
for his remarkable intellect and witty sound bites, he also has a pastor's
heart, having
served as a pastor and interim pastor in churches all across the SBC and
leading the way for
racial reconciliation.
In his notification to the ERLC Board of his retirement, Land, who
recently began
his 50th year in the gospel ministry, wrote: "When God called me into the
ministry a half
century ago, the burden He placed on my heart was for America. That call and
that burning
burden are still there. I believe the 'culture war' is a titanic struggle for
our nation's
soul and as a minister of Christ's Gospel, I have no right to retire from that
struggle." In
fact, upon his retirement from the ERLC next October, Dr. Land says he looks
forward to
working more closely with the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement,
which is located
at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
We have worked arm in arm with Dr. Land and the ERLC on a number of
important
projects across the years, and he will certainly be missed. He will leave
behind a rich
legacy of leadership in the cultural arena. Dr. Land, we salute you for
unfailingly
defending faith, family and freedom!
--Dr. Kenyn Cureton, a pastor for 20 years and VP for Convention
Relations with the
SBC's Executive Committee before coming to FRC
** We know how the Democratic Party wants to define marriage, but what
about the
rest of the country? Peter Sprigg makes a strong case for where mainstream
America falls on
the issue in his new column for U.S. News and World Report, "Americans Still
See Marriage as
between a Man and Woman."
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