Fifty Days of Prayer for the National Election 2012 – Day 33

Day 33 October 20th
Focus: Party Platform Comparisons 
LABOR:
Democrat
The Democratic platform states that “the right to organize and collectively bargain is a fundamental American value” and opposes “the attacks on collective bargaining that Republican governors and state legislatures are mounting in states around the country.” 
Republican
Supports right-to-work laws, which weaken unions, and salutes “the Republican governors and state legislators who have saved their states from fiscal disaster by reforming their laws governing public employee unions.” 
GUN CONTROL:
Democrat
States that “the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms.” But, the right can be subject to “reasonable regulation,” and calls for reinstating the assault weapons ban. 
Republican
Opposes legislation intended to restrict Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the assault weapons ban passed during the Clinton presidency. 
EDUCATION:
Democrat
“The Republicans in Congress and Mitt Romney have a very different idea about where they want to take this country. To pay for their trillions in additional tax cuts weighted towards millionaires and billionaires, they’ll raise taxes on the middle class and gut our investments in education, research and technology,” the platform states. The party platform promotes the reform of the federal student loan program, the increased funding to Pell Grants and the new income based repayment option for federal loans. Democrats also hit Republicans on another one of their planks – taking on for-profit colleges. 
Republican
Supports consumer choice, including home schooling, local innovations such as single-sex classes, full-day school hours and year-round schools. Renews the call for replacing family planning programs for teens “with abstinence education which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior.” 
ENERGY:
Democrat
Begins with commonsense investments to harness the natural world around us-the sun, wind, water, geothermal and biomass sources, and a rich array of crops-to create a new generation of affordable energy for the 21st century. “We support tax credits for private sector investment in clean, renewable sources of energy, and we will make ethanol credits work better for farmers.” Supports improving fuel standards, and is committed to developing hydrogen as a clean, reliable domestic source of energy. 
Republican
Committed to domestic energy independence and an “all-of-the-above” energy policy, and criticizes the Obama administration for picking winners and losers in the energy sector and expresses support for new coal-fired plants that will be low-cost, environmentally responsible and efficient. 
VOTER INTEGRITY:
Democrat
Believes the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted is an essential American freedom, and opposes laws that place unnecessary restrictions on those seeking to exercise that freedom. 
Republican
Praises legislation that requires photo identification for voting in order to prevent election fraud. 
Almighty God,
You have punished us less than our sins deserve. We have disregarded Your commands. We are in a land that You entrusted to us to be a light to the world, but it is being polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By our detestable practices, we are filling America with our impurity from one end to the other. We pray that we, Your remnant, will not compromise our commitment to worship and serve You; we pray we will not ally ourselves nor sign treaties of friendship with those who mock the Lord. Then we will once again be a strong nation, and we will enjoy the good things this land produces. Then we will leave our children a godly and everlasting inheritance. 
O LORD, You are just. We come before you in our guilt as nothing but an escaped remnant, though in such a condition none of us can stand in Your Presence. You watch over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. O righteous God, Who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure. You uphold our right and our cause; You sit on Your throne, judging righteously. You judge the world in righteousness; You govern the peoples with justice. 
Remember how the enemy has mocked you, O LORD, how foolish people have reviled Your Name. Come against the strong man who binds the minds of the American people with confusion. Teach us as a nation what pleases You. Help us choose Whom we will serve. Keep us from making our decisions carelessly, according to the flesh [like a worldly man], ready to say, “Yes, yes,” when what we really may mean is “No, no.” As surely as You are faithful, Your word will not waver between “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who has been preached among the world was not Yes and No; but in Him it is always the divine Yes. We pray for mercy for the United States of America. We pray for righteous rulers, in Jesus’ Name. Amen. 
(Job 37: 23, Psalm 7: 17; Job 29: 14; Deut. 6: 25; Psalm 16: 11; Ezra 9; Psalm 1: 6; Psalm 7: 9; Psalm 9: 4; Psalm 9: 8; 2 Cor. 1: 17-19; Psalm 74: 18) 
Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.”
(John Hancock, 1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence, History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229. ) 
We, the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for the preservation of the American Union and the existence of our civil, political and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those blessings to us and our posterity, do, for the more certain security thereof and for the better government of this State, ordain and establish this Constitution. (Preamble to the Constitution of North Carolina)