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Share with Friends | | August 06, 2012 | Permalink 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." FRC Action: 801 G Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 P: 202/393-2100 or 877/372-2808 W: frcaction.org unsubscribe You are subscribed as perks...@frontier.com -- APFN-1 YahooGroups: Subscribe: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/join Unsubscribe: apfn-1-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com APFN MSG BOARD: `In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/149495.html APFN CONTENTS PAGE: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm APFN TWITTER http://twitter.com/signup?follow=APFN1 Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more. http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ SUPPORT APFN: PMB 206, 7549 W. CACTUS RD. #104, PEORIA, AZ 85381