Family Council Obtains Affidavits from Sponsors of Abortion, Marijuana, Casino License Repeal Measures

On Thursday Family Council received copies of the ballot initiative sponsor affidavits from Local Voters in Charge and Arkansans for Patient Access.

Local Voters in Charge is backing a measure that would repeal the Racing Commission’s authority to issue a casino license without local voter approval in a countywide election. Arkansans for Patient Access is sponsoring an amendment to expand medical marijuana in Arkansas.

On July 5, both groups submitted petition signatures to place their amendments on the ballot.

Documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show that leaders from both groups filed affidavits with the Secretary of State attesting, among other things, about how each group conducted background checks and training for paid canvassers employed in the petition drives.

Act 1413 of 2013 specifically requires a ballot initiative’s sponsor to list any paid canvassers employed in collecting signatures, and it requires them to file a statement confirming that each paid canvasser was given a copy of the state’s initiative and referenda handbook as well as an explanation of relevant state laws before he or she solicited petition signatures.

Under Arkansas law, paid petition canvassers must be residents of Arkansas. They must pass a criminal background check, and their information must be properly recorded with the Secretary of State’s office.

The affidavit from Local Voters in Charge is available here.

The affidavit from Arkansans for Patient Access is available here.

Family Council also received documents that Arkansans for Limited Government — the group backing an abortion measure in Arkansas — filed with the Secretary of State concerning its abortion amendment petition.

The documents included an affidavit stating the number of petition signatures submitted, but the affidavit did not include a statement concerning how the organization background-checked and trained its paid canvassers.

The group submitted some 101,525 petition signatures to place the measure on the ballot on July 5. However, the Secretary of State disqualified every petition signature, because Arkansans for Limited Government failed to provide affidavits from the measure’s sponsor concerning paid canvassers as required by state law.

In his letter notifying the group about the disqualification, Secretary of State Thurston pointed out that no other initiative sponsors failed to provide an affidavit concerning paid canvassers.

On Tuesday Arkansans for Limited Government sued the Arkansas Secretary of State for rejecting its petitions. The lawsuit called his rejection “unlawful,” and asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to order the Secretary of State to count the petition signatures for the abortion amendment.

Arkansans for Limited Government previously submitted documents to the Secretary of State showing it employed 265 paid petition canvassers over the course of its petition drive — including more than 70 paid canvassers hired within 48 hours of the July 5 signature deadline.

Legal experts have pointed out the abortion amendment would prevent the State of Arkansas from restricting abortion during the first five months of pregnancy — which is more extreme than Roe v. Wade — and would allow thousands of elective abortions on healthy women and unborn children every year.

The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it does not require abortions to be performed by a physician or in a licensed medical facility.

It automatically nullifies all state laws that conflict with the amendment, jeopardizing basic abortion regulations — like parental-consent and informed-consent requirements that both sides of the aisle have supported in the past.

The measure also contains various exceptions that would permit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases.

The lawsuit over the Secretary of State’s rejection of the abortion amendment petitions is currently before the Arkansas Supreme Court. Family Council will continue to monitor and report on the case.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

The Attempted Assassination of a President: Guest Column

Saturday marked the end of the longest span between domestic assassination attempts of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since President Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. President Garfield was killed in 1881; Mckinley in 1901. Attempts were made at Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Truman in 1950. President JFK was killed in 1963 and candidate RFK in 1968. Candidate George Wallace was shot and survived in 1972, and two attempts were made at President Ford in 1975. The most recent domestic assassination attempt prior to Saturday was over forty years ago, when Ronald Reagan was shot and survived, and afterward quipped to his wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” 

While the frequency of this violent history may be surprising, it does not diminish the horrific and evil nature of Saturday’s shooting nor the tremendous loss experienced by the family of Corey Comperatore. According to the New York Times, Comperatore died when he “threw himself over his family members to shield them.”

A former fire chief, Comperatore was also, according to his daughter,  

[T]he best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer. … [H]e could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day (at the rally) and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family. 

Questions abound about this attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, from the motivations of the shooter to the seemingly unfathomable reality that the 20-year-old was able to reach an elevated position with direct line-of-sight only 130 yards or so from the President. There’s also the many “what might have been” questions, about the President personally and about the nation, questions that have only shudder-inducing speculative answers. And there are the worldview questions that arise in historic moments like this, about the reality of God and the role of divine providence in national and international affairs; and about the human condition, especially the frailty of life and the moral significance of our actions. 

As Dr. Al Mohler helpfully articulated in The Briefing, “[L]ife and death can come down to the matter of seconds and to a matter of a millimeter.” The former president seems to also recognize that his survival was due to that level of precision, acknowledging to the New York Post“I’m not supposed to be here. … By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.” 

That it is by God and not luck, Christians know for sure (and it seems, so does the President). At the same time, this clear teaching of Scripture, that God oversees the affairs of men particularly in raising up and casting down those in power, is not easy to understand. Why would God spare the President’s life but not Mr. Comperatore? By all indications, Mr. Trump turned his head to a chart on a screen and was somehow saved. Mr. Comperatore made the decision to throw himself between his family and an assassin, and it cost him his life. How does that make any sense? 

“Here,” Mohler continued, “Christians understand we have nowhere to go but the Doctrine of Providence. … It is essential to our Christian understanding of the world.” God’s providence extends to every moment of human history, not just the seemingly exceptional ones. The world is never outside of His control, even when the outcome is not as we hoped. Put differently, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was providential for both England and Spain. The fog that enabled the Dunkirk rescue was providential for the British, the Germans, and the entire world. 

And yet, just as essential to the Christian understanding of the world is the moral capacity of human beings and the meaningfulness of human actions. A Hindu leader once noted to theologian and missionary Lesslie Newbigin,  

I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it. 

There is no conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility. In fact, the alternatives would be far worse. If no sovereign God exists, then life and all that happens is random and meaningless, except for some preferred interpretation we choose to impose on it. If all is predetermined, either by “nature” or by some heartless deity, we have no cause to expect better behavior of ourselves or others. The meaningfulness of our actions and the constant presence and oversight of our loving Creator may be difficult to reconcile, but it is a far better scenario. 

Thus we can say, both truthfully and meaningfully, that God graciously spared the former president, that the shooter’s actions were evil and heinous, and that Mr. Comperatore was heroic to protect his family. We can also, truthfully and meaningfully, judge the words and the actions of ourselves, our leaders, and our press in response to this tragedy. We can act so that, by God’s grace, this kind of thing will not become normal. We can pray that, having lived through this attempt on his life, President Trump is brought to a place of gratitude to God and a sense of responsibility, rather than to a sense of entitlement. At the same time, we should pray that God’s grace and mercy covers the Comperatore family and that He will use His church to do so.  

We should know also that our moral actions matter as well, as citizens and voters who follow Christ. How God’s people respond to this telling and troubling political moment will either point this world to Christ or not. So, here’s a prayer for us all:  

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.  

If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.

Copyright 2024 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

Policy Advocates Renew Calls for Planned Parenthood-Style Sex-Education Law in Arkansas

On Monday the media outlet Arkansas Advocate reported on a renewed push for Planned Parenthood-style comprehensive sex-education in the state.

The goal is to “improve” sex-education and reduce teen pregnancy in Arkansas.

On the surface, it may sound like a good idea. However, Arkansas has been down this road before, and we know from experience that Planned Parenthood-style sex-education is bad for Arkansas.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public officials in Arkansas promoted comprehensive sex-education, but the programs failed to have a meaningful impact on teen pregnancy and abortion in the state.

Then in 1997 the Arkansas Legislature and Governor Mike Huckabee began promoting abstinence education in Arkansas. From 1997 to 2005, Arkansas’ teen birthrate decreased 17%, and Arkansas’ teen abortion rate plummeted a staggering 48%.

Governor Huckabee’s abstinence education model was so successful in Arkansas that it drew national recognition. Family Council was pleased to support Arkansas’ good abstinence education program. The program continued into the early 2000s, but was gradually scaled back as a result of budget cuts and changes in state and federal government.

According to the CDC, teenagers who practice abstinence are healthier in nearly every way than teenagers who are sexually active.

Sexually-active teens have been found to be less healthy and to engage in riskier behavior.

In other words, abstinence is linked to healthier lifestyles overall.

Comprehensive sex-education programs often focus on contraceptives and “risk-reduction” without encouraging abstinence or teaching teenagers to avoid risky situations altogether. This leads to riskier behavior among teens. Those are just some of the reasons Family Council opposes comprehensive sex-education in Arkansas.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.