defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

Web JewsOnFirst

Optional Member Code

Please email us
(click here)
catcher@JewsOnFirst.org

And "bookmark" us at
JewsOnFirst.org

Jews on First
P.O. Box 2283
Rockville MD 20847

310-910-9153

Blackwell tells pastors to ignore complaint

Group doesn't invite other gubernatorial candidates to meeting

By Joe Hallett, The Columbus Dispatch, January 18, 2006

HARTVILLE, Ohio - Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell told conservative religious leaders yesterday not to be deterred from political participation by a federal complaint filed by 31 Columbus-area pastors.

"You tell those 31 bullies that you aren't about to be whupped," said Blackwell, the secretary of state, who said that "political and social and cultural forces are trying to run God out of the public square."

Blackwell was the only candidate for governor invited to address 450 pastors and Christian conservatives at a luncheon north of Canton sponsored by the Ohio Restoration Project two days after it and several allied religious entities were accused of illegally engaging in partisan politics.

Blackwell and the Rev. Russell Johnson, pastor of Fairfield Christian Church and chairman of Ohio Restoration Project, denied allegations in the complaint filed Monday by the 31 ministers who said they were acting individually and not on behalf of their churches encompassing nine denominations.

Johnson accused the complaining pastors of launching a "secular jihad against expressions of faith" and said, "We are not going away. We will not be intimidated."

The rancor expressed by Blackwell and Johnson punctuated growing fallout from the complaint accusing the Rev. Rod Parsley's World Harvest Church in Columbus and two affiliated entities - the Center for Moral Clarity and Reformation Ohio - along with Johnson's church and organization of sponsoring voter registration and education drives to bolster Blackwell's candidacy for governor.

Along with seeking an Internal Revenue Service investigation into whether the entities headed by Parsley and Johnson should lose their tax-exempt status, the 31 pastors also asked the IRS to seek a court injunction "if these churches' flagrant political campaign activities do not cease immediately." The IRS does not comment on investigations.

Before speaking at yesterday's luncheon, Blackwell called the complaint "bogus" and cited at least one instance when Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, as a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was invited to speak at a Parsley sponsored event.

He called the complaint "not only a deliberate spread of misinformation, it was, in fact, a double standard that borders on being slanderous."

Blackwell said he was invited to events sponsored by Parsley and Johnson, including yesterday's lunch, because of his vocal support for a successful 2004 ballot issue to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage and because of his long opposition to abortion rights.

"The last time I checked, there was not anything (in the IRS code) that prohibited them from recognizing my leadership in the public square," Blackwell said.

Johnson said that yesterday's lunch at the Hartville Kitchen was the fourth of 10 planned meetings across the state by the Ohio Restoration Project to enlist "Patriot Pastors" and register voters who share its values, particularly its opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

He accused the 31 complaining pastors of "spiritual adultery" for aligning with the American Civil Liberties Union, adding: "On the day we celebrated Martin Luther King's accomplishments as a leader and minister, the religious left sent people to the back of the bus. They wanted to muzzle people of faith."

Although the organizations run by Parsley and Johnson have continually featured Blackwell as a speaker at their events, Johnson said that "every statewide officeholder who supported" the ballot issue to ban same-sex marriage was invited to yesterday's meeting.

A spokesman for state Auditor Betty D. Montgomery, who supported the ban, said Johnson's group did not invite her.

Asked why, Johnson replied: "She is pro-abortion."

Attorney General Jim Petro, a GOP candidate for governor who opposed the ban in 2004, and U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, also weren't invited, according to their spokesmen.

Among politicians who attended yesterday's event were Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice Terrence O'Donnell and Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, a GOP candidate for Ohio attorney general, both running this year.

Eric Williams, senior pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus and spokesman for the 31 pastors, said the Hartville meeting appeared to provide evidence for the complaint.

"What they're saying is that they selectively invited candidates who agree with their issues," he said. "That sounds like electioneering to me."

Williams refused to release the names of the 31 pastors because "some have a fear that there could be acts of retribution against them."

Blackwell said other clergy members have backed Democratic candidates, pointing to a February 2004 photograph in yesterday's Dispatch showing John Edwards - then a North Carolina senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination - being blessed by two bishops during an appearance at First Church of God on Refugee Road.

But Timothy J. Clarke, senior pastor at the church, said yesterday that any candidate who asks to appear at the church may do so - but that no candidates are specifically invited or endorsed from the pulpit.

Clarke said he will pray for candidates, as seen in the photo, and that he will endorse issues. But he never uses the church to back specific candidates, he said.

"Whenever candidates of any party worship with us, my statement always is, we do not endorse candidates from this church," Clarke said. "I encourage my members to vote; I do not tell them how to vote."

Fair Use Statement: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.