I am fully aware Blackwell embraces the kind of far-right, vaguely theocratic values that the churches like, but these ministries are being used.
HARTVILLE, Ohio — Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell told conservative religious leaders yesterday not to be deterred from political participation by a federal complaint filed by 31 Columbus-area pastors.
"You tell those 31 bullies that you aren’t about to be whupped," said Blackwell, the secretary of state, who said that "political and social and cultural forces are trying to run God out of the public square."
Blackwell was the only candidate for governor invited to address 450 pastors and Christian conservatives at a luncheon north of Canton sponsored by the Ohio Restoration Project two days after it and several allied religious entities were accused of illegally engaging in partisan politics.
Blackwell and the Rev. Russell Johnson, pastor of Fairfield Christian Church and chairman of Ohio Restoration Project, denied allegations in the complaint filed Monday by the 31 ministers who said they were acting individually and not on behalf of their churches encompassing nine denominations.
cont'd...
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/01/18/20060118-A1-02.html