- The Washington Times - Friday, June 10, 2016

Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said on Friday that November’s election is too important for people of faith to ignore because of disappointment in both major party nominees for president.

“We dare not sit on the sidelines during what I believe is the most important election in our lifetimes,” Mr. Reed said at his group’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington, D.C.

“There are some who counsel timidity and retreat, and they recommend that people of faith retreat to the cold comfort of a stained-glass ghetto and decline to muddy our boots with the mire and the muck of politics,” he said. “But that is not an option for followers of Christ.” 

“There are some…who say that this election is just a choice between two deeply flawed candidates who simply represent the lesser of two evils and therefore, as men and women of conscience, we really have no stake in the outcome,” the veteran political activist added. “My friends, the exact opposite is true.”

The former Christian Coalition executive director went on to criticize presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her positions on issues like abortion and gay marriage, and noted that Mrs. Clinton was delivering a speech at a nearby Planned Parenthood Action Fund event on Friday.

Mr. Reed also noted that presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump recently released a list of potential U.S. Supreme Court picks to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Make no mistake about it: this fall, not only is the presidency on the ballot, but the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary are on the ballot,” Mr. Reed said. “And the Supreme Court ultimately decides, sadly, just about every issue we care about, whether it’s life or marriage or religious freedom, or Obamacare — you choose it.”

He said his group plans to distribute 35 million non-partisan voter guides in more than 117,000 churches and houses of worship across the country, make 15 million phone calls, and send 20 million emails and text messages to 7 million voters of faith in key battleground states.

Mr. Reed said every one of them will get a text message the day early or absentee-ballot voting begins in their state. “And if they haven’t turned in their vote by election day, they’ll get another text message that includes a map that they can click to that sends [them] directly to their polling location,” he added. “And if they haven’t voted by 4:00, we’re going to go to their house in a car or on a bike or in a van and we’re going to get ’em to the polls.”

• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.

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