Established | 1983 |
---|---|
Founder | Jerry Kirk |
31-1075684 (EIN) | |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) organization [1] |
Headquarters | 11177 Reading Rd # 1, Cincinnati |
Key people | Aaron Baer, President |
Revenue (2017) | $403,370 [2] |
Website | www |
Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) is a lobbying organization focused upon implementing conservative Christian sexual morality in public policy. It was originally known as Citizens for Community Values until Feb 2021. [3] It operates primarily in the US state of Ohio and is the Family Policy Council (a Focus on the Family affiliate organization) for that state, with branches in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.
CCV was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center from 2015 to 2017 because CCV vilified LGBT people as categorically destructive to society and families. [4] SPLC designated CCV as a hate group again in 2023. [5] [6]
Center for Christian Virtue has described its mission as: "Seeking to eliminate all activities that debase individuals by catering to that which is obscene, pornographic, or indecent." [7] To this end they lobby to prohibit movies, artwork, dance, and writing with sexual content, particularly if connected to homosexuality, and to prohibit publications connected to LGBT social movements.
The organization lists support of "Free Speech" as a "Core Issue for a Thriving Ohio" in spite of their extensive censorship efforts. [8]
CCV opposes legal same-sex marriage and LGBT employment protections. They also oppose gay-straight alliances and student support groups in schools, saying that "the 'safe school' message of these organizations is nothing more than a deceptive ploy." [9]
Center for Christian Virtue was founded by Jerry Kirk in 1983 [10] as an anti-obscenity organization. The organization's first aim was that the Cincinnati City Council would ban the Playboy Channel from local cable television. CCV opposed "the growing impact of the Playboy philosophy upon America" which members described as "the philosophy that the ultimate good is pleasure and happiness for the individual." [11]
In the 1980s and 1990s CCV organized hundreds of people to attend city council meetings in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana urging city governments to outlaw pornographic movies from video stores. [12] [13]
CCV gained national attention for prosecuting the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati in 1990; an unsuccessful attempt to censor an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Mapplethorpe's work included homoerotic images. According to Smithsonian Magazine , this was the first time in American history that a museum was taken to court on criminal charges for an exhibition. "Citizens for Community Values launched a publicity and letter-writing campaign against the show" in addition to the criminal prosecution, resulting in "thousands of letters demanding the exhibition be cancelled and that funding be pulled from the Fine Arts Fund (an umbrella campaign to raise funds for eight cultural organizations in the city)." [14]
In 1991 CCV of Ohio became officially affiliated with Focus on the Family, and the Wisconsin branch became affiliated with American Family Association. [7] Phil Burress, a self-described former "porn addict", became head of the organization in 1991. Saying that his addiction made him unable to safely consume pornography, Burress's wife examined pornographic movies and magazines on her husband's behalf, writing summaries for him so that he could speak about them to legislators and prosecutors. [15]
Burress led legislative efforts against pornographic movies available in hotel rooms, dedicating a budget of over one million dollars. CCV created a consumer website to rate hotels as "clean" or "dirty" depending on if the hotel made adult movies available. Ohio pornographer Larry Flynt, opposing CCV, commented "when you check into a hotel room and order up a movie, it doesn't have any effect on Phil Burress." [16]
CCV also fought to remove works from libraries that Burress considered indecent, such as The Advocate and other LGBT publications. [17]
In 2001 John Ashcroft, then United States Attorney General, agreed to a meeting with "representatives of about a dozen anti-porn groups" organized by Burress and CCV. [18]
CCV spearheaded the successful 2004 effort to make gay marriage unconstitutional in Ohio. [19] This ban would be challenged in 2013 by James Obergerfell of Cincinnati, leading to the court case Obergefell v. Hodges which would legalize gay marriage throughout the United States.
Community activists in 2004 sought to repeal a part of the Cincinnati city charter that prohibited the city from offering employment protection to people "because of homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation." [20] CCV opposed the repeal, which CCV head Phil Burress described as "anti-religious bias." [21] The repeal passed with tri-partisan support.
Approximately 50 strippers, calling themselves Dancers for Democracy, showed up at the Ohio House of Representatives in 2007 to oppose restrictions on strip clubs drafted by CCV. [22] Charity Fickisen, a dancer who spoke at a Columbus news conference, said "This is America, where consenting adults should be able to do what they want, as long as no one is getting hurt." Most dancers are young women with children who use their wages to pay for college, according to Fickisen. [23]
The law restricting strips clubs passed in the Ohio legislature, so Ohio strippers canvassed the streets to gather the quarter million signatures needed to put the law on hold and onto the November 2007 ballot. [24] CCV successfully disputed the validity of the signatures Dancers for Democracy had gathered; the referendum to undo the law did not appear on the ballot. Famous stripper Stormy Daniels was charged under this law in 2018 because she touched undercover detectives posing as customers. [25]
In 2019 the Ohio House introduced a non-binding resolution backed by CCV [26] to declare pornography a public health hazard, saying that "the #MeToo movement has exposed how dangerous and harmful it is." [27]
CCV worked closely with Ohio lawmakers in the creation of Ohio House Bill 290 or the "backpack bill" in which they drafted, edited, and reviewed the law. The bill would allow “families to choose the option for all computed funding amounts associated with students’ education to follow them to the public and nonpublic schools they attend.” [28] During the 2022 Columbus City Schools teachers strike, CCV placed six billboards highlighting the bill and promote private schools through school choice programs. [29] The organization also helped to found a "micro-school" in the Hilltop area. The private school in the underserved community, where most students are likely eligible for an income or performance-based voucher, is funded using state education dollars instead of private donations. [30]
In 2023, Ohio lawmakers and CCV religious lobbyists began working on anti-trans legislation banning trans women from women's sports teams. [31]
In 2021, CCV paid $1.25 million for a building on Broad Street across from the Ohio Statehouse. [32] Two years later, it purchased the former Columbus Dispatch building next door for $1.1 million and intended to sell the building it purchased in 2021. The organization plans to use its close proximity to the Ohio Statehouse to influence the state's lawmakers and other initiatives. [33]
The board of directors for Center for Christian Virtue of Ohio includes:
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated CCV as a hate group in 2015 because of anti-LGBT statements on the CCV website, such as "homosexual behavior is unhealthy and destructive to the individual, to families, and thus to communities and to society as a whole." SPLC defines a hate group as an organization with "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." In 2017 the CCV removed the controversial statements from their website and is no longer listed by the SPLC. [4]
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery.
The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical 501(c)(3) non-profit activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization. FRC promotes what it considers to be family values. It opposes and lobbies against: access to pornography, embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, divorce, and LGBT rights—such as anti-discrimination laws, same-sex marriage, same-sex civil unions, and LGBT adoption. The FRC has been criticized by media sources and professional organizations such as the American Sociological Association for using "anti-gay pseudoscience" to falsely conflate homosexuality and pedophilia, and to falsely claim that the children of same-sex parents suffer from more mental health problems.
The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative and Christian fundamentalist 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States. It opposes LGBT rights and expression, pornography, and abortion. It also takes a position on a variety of other public policy goals. It was founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon as the National Federation for Decency and is headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi.
The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) was an American conservative Christian organization. It was founded in 1980 at Anaheim California by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon to oppose LGBT rights. Sheldon's daughter, Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, was initially the executive director and presently serves as president. TVC was influential in the 1980s and 1990s in lobbying for government policy based in Christian fundamentalism.
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt religious liberty organization that engages in litigation related to evangelical Christian values. Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by its chairman Mathew Staver and its president Anita L. Staver, who are attorneys and married to each other. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Liberty Counsel as an anti-LGBT hate group, a designation the group has disputed. The group is a Christian ministry.
The Family Research Institute (FRI), originally known as the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), is an American socially conservative non-profit organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado which states that it has "...one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse". The FRI is part of a sociopolitical movement of socially conservative Christian organizations which seek to influence the political debate in the United States. They seek "...to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level." The Boston Globe reported that the FRI's 2005 budget was less than $200,000.
Mission: America is an American Christian right organization based in Columbus, Ohio and founded in 1995 that seeks to "cover the latest cultural and social trends in our country and what they might mean for Christians." The organization publishes articles on its web site about its views on homosexuality and paganism. Mission: America's founder and president, Linda Harvey, is an outspoken critic of LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage.
A Family Policy Council (FPC) is one of several US state-level organizations affiliated with Focus on the Family (FotF), a nationwide conservative Christian organization. Family Policy Councils work for policies that FotF describes as "pro-family". These include opposition to same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption, and LGBT workplace protections, and support for abstinence-only sex education, increased legal restrictions on abortion and traditional Christian gender roles. FPCs also work to shape public opinion, organize political demonstrations, and cultivate future politicians.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is a United States coalition that promotes Christian right values internationally. It opposes divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, while supporting a society built on "the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage". WCF comprises organizations in several countries, and most of its member partners are strongly active campaigners against abortion rights and same-sex marriage. WCF was formed in 1997 and is active worldwide, regularly organizing conventions. Its opposition to gay marriage and abortion has attracted criticism.
MassResistance is an American organization that promotes anti-LGBT and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. state of Ohio enjoy most of the same rights as non-LGBT people. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in Ohio since 1974, and same-sex marriage has been legally recognized since June 2015 as a result of Obergefell v. Hodges. Ohio statutes do not address discrimination on account of sexual orientation and gender identity; however, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County established that employment discrimination against LGBT people is illegal in 2020. In addition, a number of Ohio cities have passed anti-discrimination ordinances providing protections in housing and public accommodations. Conversion therapy is also banned in a number of cities. In December 2020, a federal judge invalidated a law banning sex changes on an individual's birth certificate within Ohio.
The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) is a right-wing United States-based advocacy group, founded in 1997, in order to affect policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. It was formerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. The 501(c)(3) organization is anti-abortion and anti-LGBT.
Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) is an organization which describes its mission as "exposing the homosexual activist agenda". AFTAH rejects the idea that sexual orientation is innate and believes that people can "leave the homosexual lifestyle". AFTAH contends that there is a fundamental conflict between gay rights and religious freedom. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated it as an anti-LGBT hate group.
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is a Christian organization based in Tinley Park, Illinois. Founded in 1990, its stated mission is "upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois", and it is affiliated with the American Family Association. The organization's legislative arm is the 501(c)(4) lobbying group Illinois Family Action, founded in 2010. The organization's executive director is David E. Smith, who in 2006, succeeded Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.
Parents Action League (PAL) is a citizens organization started in 2010 to oppose changes in the Anoka-Hennepin (Minnesota) School District 11 policy which limited discussions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in district classrooms. PAL's roots go back as far as 1994, when one of its most-vocal members, Barb Anderson, successfully influenced the school district's board to exclude homosexuality from its sex-ed curriculum.
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Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment (HOME) is an American pro-heterosexuality, anti-homosexuality organization founded by Wayne Lela and based in Downers Grove, Illinois. The organization's aim is "to use science, logic, and natural law to expose all the flaws in the arguments homosexuals use to try to justify homosexual activity". The organization has been designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center "based on their propagation of known falsehoods".
SaveCalifornia.com is an American conservative activist group founded in 1999 by Randy Thomasson as part of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF). The organization is active in influencing public policy on various social issues, and has opposed California's FAIR Education Act.