Gay marriage debate began frequent meetings by Blackwell, pastors

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Gay marriage debate began frequent meetings by Blackwell, pastors

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Beacon-Journal (Akron, Ohio), April 5, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio's 2004 gay marriage debate was the impetus for the frequent contact between Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a candidate for governor, and two conservative pastors whose activities on his behalf sparked an IRS complaint, newly obtained records show.

The records support Blackwell's contention that the meetings with pastors Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson relate only to public policy issues that started with gay marriage and continue over abortion and taxes, rather than partisan politics.

"None of those meetings were about partisan politics," Blackwell said in a recent interview. "I probably hadn't talked with Rod Parsley for five years before 2004."

The records also underscore how, regardless of the reason for meeting, those two ministers achieved a prominence on Blackwell's calendar schedule far above the dozens of other ministers and church groups that Blackwell meets with regularly.

A group of liberal religious leaders who filed the Jan. 15 complaint planned Thursday to announce a second complaint against Johnson and Parsley, alleging they continue to improperly promote Blackwell's candidacy for governor.

The leaders want the IRS to investigate whether the churches are breaking federal election laws regarding political activities by nonprofits.

Blackwell, a Republican, met just twice with Johnson and never with Parsley in 2003, according to a copy of Blackwell's confidential schedule obtained by The Associated Press through a records' request.

By contrast, Blackwell had a total of 28 meetings with both beginning in 2004 and continuing in 2005 and this year. Ohio voters approved one of the country's strictest gay marriage bans in November 2004.

Putting those meetings in context, Blackwell's schedules document 93 meetings of a religious nature from 2003 through the present, including visits to churches, meetings with pastors and Christian business groups, speeches to church groups and attendance at prayer breakfasts and Christian men's groups.

Of those, 30 were with Parsley or Johnson, including rallies, meetings, flights on a church-owned plane and attendance at church services, according to AP's review of the schedules.

Johnson said ministers filing the complaint are looking for someone to blame for their shrinking congregations. He said liberal churches have been hijacked by homosexual activists pushing an agenda most Christians disagree with.

"Instead of reflecting and saying, 'Maybe our dogma needs to be more aligned with biblical truth,' they turn and blame conservative churches for why they're losing election after election," Johnson said.

Neither Johnson nor Parsley have been contacted about the complaint by the IRS, which by law does not comment on individual cases.

Two groups that frequently defend churches over freedom of speech issues, the Alliance Defense Fund and the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom, said this week they will represent Fairfield Christian Church if the IRS tries to challenge its tax exempt status.

The Becket Fund has enlisted Blackwell's help in the past, such as paying $4,417 for him to attend a five-day conference on religious freedom in Rome in December.

World Harvest Church has had several offers of legal help but has not accepted them, "because they haven't done anything wrong," Giles Hudson, a Parsley spokesman, said Wednesday.

Johnson, whose church is in Lancaster in southeast Ohio, is chairman of the Ohio Restoration Project, a group of religious conservatives that helped spearhead the gay marriage ban.

Parsley, whose church is in suburban Columbus, is chairman of Reformation Ohio, a similar group whose goal is to convert 1 million people to Christianity, help the poor and register 400,000 new voters.

Thursday's complaint will allege that Johnson and Parsley continue to improperly promote Blackwell's candidacy by only featuring him at rallies around the state.

The lack of meetings before 2004 illustrates the difficulties in filing such a complaint, said Bill Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University.

The fact that Blackwell didn't begin meeting with the pastors until 2004 "means the contact may not be as far reaching as alleged," Leonard said.

On the other hand, frequent meetings, even if over one issue, could prove a violation, he said.

The complaint alleges the churches are engaging in partisan politics regardless of the focus on the meetings, said Rev. Eric Williams, a United Church of Christ pastor organizing the IRS complaints.

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