Cleve Plain Dealer: Ohio SOS Blackwell's "Character" Program - An Evangelical Front?
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Material Brings Objection
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Friday, March 17, 2006
Ted Wendling, Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus - In January, Massillon attorney Perry Stergios registered a
new business with Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, whose office then
mailed him a receipt and certificate. A week later, Blackwell's office
sent Stergios a second 30-cent mailing -- one that raised his hackles.
It contained another copy of the certificate and a document that
promoted the Republican gubernatorial candidate's Ohio Center for Civic
Character.
Blackwell's spokesman, Carlo LoParo, said the second mailing was a
one-time mistake, that Blackwell's office typically mails the civic
character document with the receipt, costing taxpayers no extra
postage.
Even if that's true, Stergios said, the material is still a campaign
piece, promoting what he considers to be Blackwell's messianic agenda
even though it espouses secular principles such as honesty, integrity
and ethical leadership.
"I'm about as Democratic as you can get, so it's just offensive to me
that they're sending that out on our dime," Stergios said. "I know what
this Blackwell's like, and for him to be sending out this stuff to
people who are filing things in Columbus is campaigning.
"It's all a front. It's the same thing they did with gay marriage, so
that they could get all these arch-conservatives out to vote for Bush."
Assistant Secretary of State Monty Lobb, who heads the Center for Civic
Character, says that's simply untrue.
"This is something that's been around 2,000 to 3,000 years in
Greco-Roman cultural civilization in terms of honesty or respect for
others," he said. "We just think it's language of the conscience. It's
not religious language at all."
One side of the document is a "Dear Ohio Business Leader" letter from
Blackwell, congratulating the new business owner, wishing him success
and introducing the center, which Blackwell founded in 2000.
The other side includes a "Declaration of Character" letter from
Blackwell and an abridged version of "UnCommon Sense," a set of ethical
principles drafted by Chip Weiant, a former Chagrin Falls resident and
Columbus restaurateur who founded the American Center for Civic
Character.
Lobb said Blackwell supports "citizenship in a civil society" and notes
that UnCommon Sense can be found on the Web sites of nonpolitical
organizations such as the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio.
But the mailing also is colored by Lobb's association with Citizens for
Community Values, the conservative Cincinnati group that has been at
the forefront of Ohio's culture wars.
Lobb was president of CCV from 1989-91 and led the crusade against
Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center Director Dennis Barrie for
displaying Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic photographs.
In 2004, CCV spent nearly $1.2 million to promote Ohio's gay-marriage
ban, which passed overwhelmingly.
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© 2006 The Plain Dealer