Posts on Ohio Restoration Project

The infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision—declaring enslaved blacks to be property and presaging the Civil War—is often invoked by opponents of abortion rights, who make the analogy that Roe v. Wade is to fetuses as Dred Scott is to African Americans. Rod Parsley does them one better, arguing that Roe v. Wade is to African Americans just as Dred Scott is to African Americans.

Last week, the Ohio televangelist used his TV show to claim that reproductive health-care providers were trying to “exterminate” African Americans. On Sunday he aired a sermon version of the same argument—and paired it with a get-out-the-vote message for his viewers in Super Tuesday states. Warning that a candidate victorious in today’s primaries will likely become president, and will appoint Supreme Court justices and sign or veto abortion legislation, Parsley’s show told viewers, “Our democracy is too important for Christians to be silent any more.”

Parsley appears to have largely abstained from campaigning around the presidential election so far, but it’s hard to imagine him being apolitical in the coming year. In 2004 and 2006, Parsley and Russell Johnson, another Columbus-area megachurch pastor, teamed up to run a church-based political machine driving the successful anti-gay marriage initiative and the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Ken Blackwell. Calling themselves “Patriot Pastors,” they vowed to wage war against their political opponents—“secular jihadists,” the “forces of darkness,” and the “hordes of hell.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer caught up with Parsley’s comrade Johnson, who headed the Ohio Restoration Project alongside Parsley’s Reformation Ohio. The groups promised to save souls while moving hundreds of thousands of voters to the polls, all while hosting candidate Blackwell at events around the state. Johnson promises more “Patriot Pastor”-style organizing—but without being so blatant about it:

Johnson said he expects that Ohio's Christian leadership will become more active once primary season is over, with varying emphasis on social issues, economics and national security from a conservative point of view. …

Johnson said political activity among preachers might look a little different than it did in the past, when he and the Rev. Parsley and their Patriot Pastors movement drew accusations of violating their churches' tax-exempt status by campaigning for Blackwell. (The pastors denied that they officially backed any particular candidate.)

In any case, leaders don't want to become "an easy target," Johnson says, so they are unlikely to give themselves a moniker. But they will be spreading information through e-mail networks, creating discussion groups and voter guides, and urging people to "get registered, get informed, go vote and take somebody with you."

In the past year, the IRS has investigated some churches over whether their political advocacy exceeded their non-profit parameters in the tax code -- in which contributions are private and tax deductible – and pushed into the realm of regulated political action committees that give up some of the subsidies for charity and are required to disclose their work on behalf of candidates for office. Yesterday, reporter Michael Haverluck of Pat Robertson’s CBN looked at this complex issue, and whittled it down to its corresponding far-right talking point:

Will pastors' ability to speak to their congregations about social and moral issues erode, or will their appeals to the First Amendment protect this right?

Haverluck cited as an example the activities of World Harvest Church of Ohio, led by televangelist Rod Parsley. Parsley, along with fellow Columbus-area megachurch pastor Russell Johnson, partnered with Ken Blackwell for a series of church “policy briefings” and political rallies, encouraging pastors across the state to mobilize their members to “vote their values” – all while Blackwell was running for governor. At issue was not “speak[ing] … about social and moral issues” so much as the pastors’ apparently brazen use of their churches to campaign for a candidate. Their efforts to build a new church-based political machine are described in People For the American Way’s report on these so-called “Patriot Pastors.”

In Haverluck’s telling, Parsley just happened to bump into Blackwell a couple of times:

Though Pastor Rod Parsley invited Republican and Democratic candidates to World Harvest Church's events, only Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell showed up.

Blackwell is a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and gay marriage. His stance on these issues with Parsley motivated 56 liberal clergy to call for in an IRS investigation.

One complaint accuses Parsley of supporting Blackwell's run for governor by letting him speak at events. Another claims that Parsley planned on having Blackwell on his radio spots, a baseless allegation denied by the pastor and the politician.

It is also contested without evidence that Parsley's "Reformation Ohio" project, aiming to register 400,000 new voters, seeks only conservatives.

In fact, Parsley and Johnson hosted Blackwell as the featured guest speaker at numerous events, in which the candidate was honored with some award or endorsed explicitly from the stage. Parsley even flew Blackwell to one “Patriot Pastor” function on a church-owned plane. This campaign was only part of a broader agenda to promote Blackwell at bigger and bigger rallies featuring famous religious-right leaders, leading up to the primary election and beyond, and indeed including radio spots featuring Blackwell. The radio spots and the rallies with James Dobson never materialized, but far from being a “baseless allegation,” this plan was posted publicly on Johnson’s “Ohio Restoration Project” web site in 2005: you can read it here.

Blackwell’s lopsided loss in 2006 was certainly a major setback to Parsley’s efforts to build a “Patriot Pastor” political machine, but don’t count the charismatic pastor out: His new book, “Culturally Incorrect,” is currently 15 on Publisher’s Weekly’s bestseller list.

When we covered Vision America’s “War on Christians and Values Voters” conference earlier this year, we noted that the so-called “War on Christians” was little more than a marketing ploy designed to convince right-wing activists that their faith was under attack in order to mobilize them for the November elections.

[C]onference attendees and speakers proclaimed themselves convinced that people of faith, especially Christians, are under constant attack by radical secularists, homosexual activists, federal judges, non-believers and “pagans.”

There’s a reason they work so hard to convince others of this.  It’s easier to convince people they should support discrimination against gays and lesbians and hate judges who interpret the Constitution to protect civil rights and liberties such as the right to privacy, if you have first convinced them that gays and judges are out to destroy their faith and religious freedom.  This is a long-term strategy, and in this election year, it is clear that the cries of “victimization” and “persecution” are an attempt to gin up the Republican Party’s right-wing base.

A new article in Christianity Today more or less confirmed our assessment, thanks to a direct quote from the “War on Christians” conference organizer, Rick Scarborough of Vision America.  

The article focuses primarily on Rod Parsley and the right-wing political work he is doing via the Ohio Restoration Project’s "Patriot Pastors" network – a group we examined in this recent report.  The bulk of the article covers Parsley’s appearance at Vision America’s “War on Christians” conference, where he outshone dozens of other right-wing leaders with his fanatical rhetoric:

Parsley compared the struggle against the “war on Christians” to the civil rights movement, defiantly shouting that “We [are] not going to the back of the bus … My Father owns the bus line. I will sit where I please!” He promised “freedom at any cost” – “If you think 2004 was something, we have not reached critical mass! We are the largest special interest group! … We’re building order from chaos! We’re fighting the sword with the word! We’re fighting savagery with hope!” Swelling with the force of his own metaphors, he shouted at the crowd, “I came to incite a riot! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!”

For two days, speaker after speaker took the stage and recounted how Christians were under attack by homosexual activists, activist judges, the liberal media, and society as a whole – but then, when the audience had departed and the conference room was empty, Scarborough admitted to Christianity Today that this supposed “War on Christians” was little more than a marketing ploy:   

Talking with Scarborough as waiters clear the cups and napkins, it's clear that the conference has been a great success. His new book, Liberalism Kills Kids, sits in stacks on the book table. He has the ear of senators and members of Congress. His editorial in USA Today will appear tomorrow.

But was proclaiming a "War on Christians" putting it a bit too strongly? "We were accused of using hyperbole. I confess we did," Scarborough says with a grin. "Our desire was to get the press exercised."

Russell Johnson says “The forces of darkness … should never silence people of faith.”

AFA’s Don Wildmon says sitting out election is “precisely what the liberals” have “orchestrated.” Dobson, citing Supreme Court, says this election may turn country’s direction, “maybe forever.” FRC’s Perkins and Ohio “Patriot Pastor” Russell Johnson predict strong turnout anyway.

‘Patriot Pastors’ cited in GOP rift. Also, Blackwell says there’d be “very few” African Americans if there had been a rape exception to an abortion ban in slavery times.

Last week an Ohio GOP "social conservative coordinator" and erstwhile director of the Ohio Restoration Project launched an Internet-based rumor campaign against Ted Strickland, the Democratic candidate for governor. The operative, Gary Lankford, suggested that Strickland and his wife are gay and that he is sympathetic to child molesters. The GOP fired Lankford, who also runs a Christian homeschool program, and the spokesman for Republican candidate Kenneth Blackwell's campaign, which had employed Lankford during the primary, denied involvement.

In an editorial, Columbus Dispatch political reporter Joe Hallett excoriates the Ohio GOP for its "Houdini act" in denying the effort, which he describes in detail:

On July 17, Lankford launched an e-mail titled "10 Things to Know About Ted Strickland." The e-mail noted that Strickland married his wife, Frances, at 46, they have no children and they live apart, which, in truth, is the case when Strickland is tending to his congressional duties in Washington. Lankford linked readers to an Internet blog written by Scott Pullins, who questioned the sexual orientation of both Stricklands.

Pullins is best known as the former anti-tax crusading head of the Ohio Taxpayers Association. He lost his credibility around the Statehouse when he gave the green light to corporate-tax increases in a budget-balancing bill and later attacked GOP lawmakers for tax increases.

In addition, Hallett reports that Russell Johnson, the megachurch pastor who created the Ohio Restoration Project as a way to organize so-called "Patriot Pastors" around selected causes and candidates like Blackwell, is standing by his former lieutenant.

In an interview Thursday, Johnson perpetuated the rumor by suggesting that the Stricklands file a lawsuit and go to court to prove they are heterosexuals. If Lankford’s claim is untrue, Johnson said, "It’s slanderous and they’ve got a case. I’m withholding judgment until the facts are in."

Unlike the Ohio GOP, which eventually fired Lankford and issued Strickland an apology, Johnson wants Strickland to prove he is not gay.

As of last week, Gary Lankford was listed as state director of the Ohio Restoration Project, an obstensibly nonpartisan organization based out of Russell Johnson's Fairfield Christian Church. The ORP has played a critical role in Republican Kenneth Blackwell's campaign for governor, honoring the candidate at meetings of "Patriot Pastors" across the state. "This is to elect values candidates," said Johnson of his group.

But as the Columbus Dispatch reports, that's not the only role Lankford has been playing in Ohio politics. Acting as the Ohio GOP's "social conservative coordinator," Lankford recently distributed an e-mail to spread rumors about Blackwell's Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland, and his wife.

The e-mail, obtained by The Dispatch, was sent to an undisclosed group of GOP supporters — with instructions to forward it to others — by Gary Lankford, whom the party hired in July as its "social conservative coordinator." He was paid $16,000 as a "voter contact consultant" for the primary-election campaign of GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell before taking the party job.

Among other things, the e-mail says Strickland married his wife, Frances, at 46, has no children and lives apart from her. It also links readers to an Internet blog that directly questions the sexual orientation of both Stricklands and notes accusations he is "soft on those who sexually assault children."

Blackwell and ORP chairman Johnson often insinuate that their political opponents are something akin to enemies of Christianity in America, and recently, Blackwell said that Democrats like Strickland "believe government is God." Standing by the remark, his spokesman added that Strickland's allies believe "God and faith have no place in the public square." Early polls suggest that charges of anti-Christian sentiments may not stick against Strickland, himself a United Methodist minister. Perhaps the rumor campaign started by Lankford--an operative of both the Republican Party and the church-based Ohio Restoration Project--portends a blunter approach in the next three months.

UPDATE: The Ohio Republican Party has fired Lankford, the AP reports.