Media Transparency

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Bill Berkowitz
May 14, 2006

Anti-Gay leader to mobilize legions of "values voters" for Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio

Phil Burress' Cincinnati, Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values goes statewide

On May 2, 2006 Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's controversial Black conservative Secretary of State defeated current Attorney General Jim Petro in the Republican gubernatorial primary.Kenneth Blackwell Phil Burress, the head of an Ohio-based political action committee called Citizens for Community Values Action (CCVA), observed that Blackwell -- the candidate his organization backed -- won because of his longtime support for "family values," particularly his backing of Ohio's anti-same sex marriage amendment which passed in 2004. Burress expects Blackwell to defeat his Democratic challenger, Congressman Ted Strickland, and to help get that done he intends to mobilize legions of "values voters."

A few weeks earlier, members of a Cincinnati, Ohio-based group called Equal Rights Not Special Rights (ERNSP - a 501(c)(3) charity), another of Phil Burress' enterprises, marched into the office of Joe Gray, the city's finance director, carrying some 14 to 15 thousand signatures -- twice the number necessary -- from city residents on petitions calling for the repeal of the city's new lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality ordinance. According to a recent report in Gay People's Chronicle, the "city council passed the ordinance last month" but the intervention by ERNSP -- just before it was scheduled to take effect on April 14 -- will force the ordinance onto the November ballot.

Thirteen years ago Burress' Citizens for Community Values (CCV) played a pivotal role in forcing the removal of "sexual orientation" from Cincinnati's original human rights ordinance, thereby prohibiting the city from protecting gays, lesbians or bisexuals. Voters finally repealed article 12 in 2004.

In fact, Phil Burress, the born again Christian and one-time union leader and porn addict, "is behind almost every anti-gay effort in Ohio," the Gay People's Chronicle recently pointed out.

CCV (website), another 501(c)(3) charity connected to Burress, was founded in 1983 by Dr. Jerry Kirk, then pastor of College Hill Presbyterian Church, and others. Burress was an early volunteer with the organization. In 2004 he was paid $165,000 for full time employment at CCV. The organization didn't start out by targeting gays and lesbians; it was more focused on the strip clubs and pornography that it claimed was inundating the Greater Cincinnati area and endangering residents.

Few would have imagined that from such humble beginnings more than two decades ago Phil Burress and his assorted organizations would not only still be on the frontlines of the culture war, but that he and his groups would in fact be flourishing.

These days the organization has a full plate. From supporting Kenneth Blackwell for governor, to opposing a recent Bush Administration proposal to label hardcore pornographic sites on the Internet (Burress believes that they should be eliminated, not labeled); from increasing its political presence in the state capital, to building its Internet capacity, which includes new websites monitoring the political positions of candidates running for state office, as well as a site devoted specifically to fighting pornography in hotels across the country.

Agape Press, a Christian evangelical news service, recently reported that Burress had formed a new political action committee "in order to endorse and support candidates who espouse traditional values."

Burress told Agape Press that the creation of his PAC "came about as a result of frustration over trying to get a marriage protection measure added to his state's constitution. 'When we did the marriage amendment here in Ohio in 2004, we were absolutely flabbergasted when our governor, our two U.S. senators -- Senator Voinovich, Senator DeWine -- and our state Attorney General Jim Petro all came out against the marriage amendment.'"

Burress' CCV Action PAC endorsed Blackwell: "Ken is just stalwart on the pro-family issues," Burress told Agape Press. "He was our spokesman on the marriage issue. He is just so solid on all the issues -- a committed Christian [who] refuses to hide the fact that he loves the Lord with all of his heart. That's the type of leadership that we need."

At the group's recent annual banquet on the campus of Xavier University -- attended by some 400 people paying $50 bucks a ticket -- Rabbi Daniel Lapin , the founder of Toward Tradition, the conservative Jewish organization, and one of the Christian right's favorite rabbis, told the crowd that "Politics is the practical application of our religious beliefs." Lapin added, "If Citizens for Community Values fails in its mission, we all lose."

All the proceeds from the dinner went directly to the organization as "the cost was picked up by well-heeled backers, including Carl H. Lindner, a Cincinnati financier and longtime GOP contributor," the Columbus Dispatch reported.

From porn again to born again

According to a profile of Burress titled, "Hometown Heroes: Marriage Man," in Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine, he became addicted to porn at 16. He would save up his money, or steal it, and visit the smut peddlers in downtown Cincinnati.

"I was totally obsessed," Burress said. "So when someone asks me about the harm porn causes, I can answer. Porn teaches you to use, abuse and take -- that's how it changed my view of women. Every man who's used porn or been hooked on porn knows I tell the truth."

Citizen reported that Burress' "first two marriages ended in divorce. While still in his second marriage, Burress got a call from his newlywed daughter, whose husband, an evangelist, was speaking at a church in the Cincinnati suburb of Loveland. 'It was five minutes from my house, but I didn't want anything to do with it,' he said. 'I spent the first 18 years of my life in an evangelical Church of God. I lived a double life from age 14 to 18, and then I stopped going to church. I had been away 20 years.'"

Eventually, a visit to church changed his life: "I actually bowed my head and said, 'Lord, if you want me so bad, you send my son-in-law back here to get me,' " he said. "I thought I'd put God in a tight box; my son-in-law wouldn't come all the way to the back of the church. But when I raised my head, there he was. I ran to the front of the church and became a new creation."

"The Lord called me to go public with my problem," Burress told Citizen. "It wasn't fun. I got a lot of ridicule and people making fun. But once Billy Graham did my story in Decision magazine and I started doing radio and TV interviews, my story got out there worldwide. My phone rang off the hook with men calling with the same story, asking for help. The phone is still ringing."

Burress met his third wife, Vickie, at an American Family Association convention in Tupelo, Miss., in 1996. "I was going through a divorce at the time," Vickie said. "My former husband was hooked on porn, and I was in an abusive relationship. I was just having a hard time in life at that point, trying to survive and raise two kids. I never planned on getting remarried. I just thought I'd be a single mom and take care of my kids."

Two years later they met again at another conference, became good friends and were married in Sept. 19, 1998. "She's a wonderful wife and my best friend," Phil said. "We travel together and speak together. She's able to help women who call in here whose men are using porn."

CCV on the march

According to a late-March report in the Columbus Dispatch, the organization, which is "best known for almost single-handedly engineering Ohio's gay marriage ban amendment in 2004 ... is branching out by forming a political action committee to support candidates financially and mounting a radio campaign to lobby federal officials about cable television choice." The newspaper also reported that one "donor from Tennessee gave $100,000 for the latter cause."

"In addition, the group hired two full-time lobbyists in Columbus, set up a Web site (Cleanhotels.com) to pressure hotels into discontinuing pay per-view porn, intervened in a sex-education lawsuit in Boyd County, Kentucky., and sent issues questionnaires to hundreds of candidates for office statewide. The results will be posted on another Web site." The candidate's responses can be found at "Ohio Election Central".

In time for the May 2 primary, Citizens for Community Values posed a series of questions to nearly 2,000 candidates running for public office in Ohio on "key issues such as eminent domain, limited government, abortion, marriage, gambling, and education," the Ohio Election Central website pointed out.

"Even judicial candidates were asked to give voters some insight into their judicial philosophy by telling us which organizations receive their donations and their volunteered time, which ones have endorsed them and given campaign contributions."

"Among the Christian conservative groups, over time there's been a gradual expansion of their agenda," John Green, a University of Akron political scientist and a frequent commentator on the religious right," told the Columbus Dispatch. "They survived because they've become better organized and more adept at performing their functions. They're really quite good at it."

According to the CCV website, its mission is "to promote Judeo-Christian moral values, and to reduce destructive behaviors contrary to those values, through education, active community partnership, and individual empowerment at the local, state and national levels."

The organization maintains that it "strive[s] to be a leader in the restoration of those Judeo-Christian moral values upon which this country was founded in hopes of leaving a lasting legacy of citizens endeavoring to foster and maintain healthy, wholesome, safe, and happy communities."

Since achieving "results" is the name of the game, CCV, which calls itself a "First Amendment free speech organization," boasts an impressive record. Its website claims that:

The group has a national presence as well, organizing, coordinating and chairing two "pro-family forums that bring together leaders on a regular basis for strategizing, developing policy and mobilizing grassroots efforts":

National Pro-Family Forum on Pornography -- "This group includes representatives from most national pro-family organizations and meets every three months, usually in Washington, D.C. The forum has launched several campaigns and projects."
National Pro-Family Forum on Homosexuality -- "This group includes representatives from most of the national pro-family organizations and meets every three months, usually in Washington, D.C. The group's first organized effort was the National Campaign to Protect Marriage that mobilized national and local pro-family leaders in all 50 states to work together to defend traditional 'one man-one woman' marriage. However, their major achievement has been The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and other similar laws that were passed in 36 states since 1996. Another major achievement of this forum was the 'Truth in Love' full-page ad and campaign printed in many major newspapers and on TV.

In addition to so-called family values issues, involvement in the state's electoral politics seems to put gas in the organization's tank. Citizens for Community Values is involved in a number of statewide elections and has been particularly supportive of the bid by Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Black conservative Republican Secretary of State, to win the statehouse in November.

Over the years, Burress has become a major player in Ohio politics. Although it is difficult to determine exactly what his relationship is with the Ohio Restoration Project (ORP), the powerful network of Christian fundamentalist pastors aiming to remake the state, at the least, there appears to be mutual admiration: According to a Citizens USA report, Citizens for Community Values has "joined" with the ORP "on several projects." Burress has "expressed his encouragement with the recent development" of the ORP. "In my 25 years of public service this is one of the finest grass roots efforts to mobilize pastors and pews to make a difference in America," Burress said.

The ORP's Pastor Russell Johnson of the Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio, pointed out that Burress "can teach us a great deal of how to be effective in moving Ohio towards a stronger, more Godly representation among our state and national leaders. I'm grateful to be on Phil and Vicky's prayer list."

'Hardcore pornography should be eliminated completely'

Pornography, however, is still a major concern for Burress. In addition to his get-porn-out-of-America's-hotels project, he recently voiced displeasure over a new regulatory initiative proposal by the Bush administration -- through attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- that would require the placement of government warning labels on websites that publish content deemed sexually explicit or pornographic and establishes severe penalties for noncompliance.

According to CNETNews.com, "The Bush administration's proposal would require commercial Web sites to place 'marks and notices' to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page. The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to 'sadistic abuse' and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions."

Burress maintains "that hardcore pornography should be eliminated completely [and he] ... thinks Gonzales should take anti-pornography regulation to the next level by prosecuting satellite television providers like Comcast and Time Warner that sell hardcore pornography," the arstechnica website reported.

"You cannot separate child pornography and hardcore, sexually explicit pornography," Burress said. "That's where our children are being harmed, that's where these pedophiles start. They start with the hardcore pornography. ... [Satellite TV providers and other hardcore pornography distributors] are the culprits and that's where the problem begins and to just say you're going to crack down on child pornography, this will not fix the problem."

Lack of transparency

The current campaign by Equal Rights Not Special Rights/Citizens for Community Values to ban civil rights protections for gays is not without controversy. Gay People's Chronicle reported that "Ohio law requires that petition circulators 'file an itemized statement, made under penalty of election falsification, showing in detail' money or things of value paid for circulating petitions, 'full names and addresses of all persons to whom such payments or promises were made,' and 'names and addresses of anyone who contributed anything of value to be used in circulating such petitions.'"

On April 19, ERNSR filed a statement "saying that $40,000 was spent, [and] then claim[ed] a First Amendment right not to disclose the rest of the information.

"That statement was signed by David Miller, who is acting as ERNSR's agent. He is also vice president of Citizens for Community Values, another of Burress' anti-gay organizations," Gay People's Chronicle reported.

Gary Wright, the chair of Citizens to Restore Fairness, a gay civil rights group supporting the city's equality ordinance told Gay People's Chronicle that the organization's refusal to reveal its financial support isn't anything new.

Last year, "Wright and former Cincinnati mayor Bobbi Sterne filed an elections complaint against Burress and his enterprises, accusing them of laundering approximately $3 million through Citizens for Community Values Action ... to conceal the contributors to Burress' 2004 campaigns to defend Article 12 and pass an Ohio constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The Ohio Elections Commission took no action."

"Citizens for Community Values and its assorted enterprises are not particularly transparent about anything," Eric Resnick, staff reporter for the Cleveland-based Gay People's Chronicle told Media Transparency. Resnick, who has been reporting on Phil Burress and CCV for several years, pointed out "It has never been held accountable or made to explain the way they fund campaigns. The truth is, they have been getting away with stuff for many years. There are huge amounts of money being laundered through those charities and somehow making their way to these campaigns -- possibly as much as $3 million dollars."