Blackwell is darling of foes of gay marriage

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/open/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1147002913139070.xml&coll=2

Sunday, May 07, 2006
Ted Wendling
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus -- In June 2003, a group of evangelical Christian leaders met in Arlington, Va., to map strategy for a clash they viewed as the political equivalent of Gettysburg, the greatest battle ever fought on American soil.

The group members, veterans of the culture war and the birth of the religious right that followed the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 ruling legalizing abortion, coalesced around an issue that they felt crystallized the depths of depravity to which America had sunk -- same-sex marriage.

For Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Thought to have little chance of beating either Attorney General Jim Petro or Auditor Betty Montgomery in a Republican primary for governor, Blackwell seized the moment and led a successful, high-profile campaign to outlaw gay marriage in Ohio in 2004. In the process, he helped hand President Bush a second term...




Group's common denominator is opposition to gay marriage

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1146990827239750.xml?nohio&coll=2

Sunday, May 07, 2006

The Arlington Group is an informal coalition of nearly 60 of the nation's most influential evangelical Christian leaders. It formed in the summer of 2003 to mount a nationwide campaign to oppose gay marriage. Following are vignettes on a few of its members:

Paul Weyrich

chairman, Free Congress Foundation,Washington.D.C.

A co-founder of the Arlington Group, he also is one of the founders of modern conservatism in the United States. His foundation is one of the pre-eminent think tanks dedicated to reversing America's "long slide into the cultural and moral decay of political correctness."...