Biography
J. Kenneth Blackwell grew up in Ohio and received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Xavier University. He first held elected office as a member of Cincinnati’s city council, before being elected as mayor of Cincinnati in 1979. Blackwell worked in the administration of President George H.W. Bush before returning to state politics in Ohio, where he served as State Treasurer and later Secretary of State. After losing to Democrat Ted Strickland in the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial elections, Blackwell ran (unsuccessfully) for Republican National Committee (RNC) chair in 2009. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of RNC’s Platform Committee and as Chair of Citizens for Working America, a Super PAC exclusively focused on electing U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) president of the United States.
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2014-03-06
In a February 5, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed the Obama Administration is waging a “War on Faith”through “an all-out intimidation campaign to drive the free exercise of faith from everyday life and the marketplace of ideas and into the confines of churches, mosques and synagogues for one day a week.” Blackwell added, “The Washington ruling class understands that the exercise of religion as a living, breathing 24/7 reality—as opposed to once-a-week worship—is perhaps the most significant threat to the expansion of government and its spreading control over our lives. Government's intimidation of competing institutions therefore necessitates an assault on their values as well.” Blackwell makes specific reference to the contraceptive mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which applies to religious and non-religious businesses alike. His editorial was published the day prior to the annual National Prayer Breakfast, an event President Obama has attended and spoke at during each year of his Presidency.
2014-03-06
In a January 25, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “As conservatives, we can take the winning message of economic liberty, family values, and strong defense into minority neighborhoods and share our hopes and dreams with new supporters in churches and synagogues. The current administration is the most hostile to religious liberty in our history … And we know from disillusioned administration insiders that the only concern President [Barack] Obama has for our all-volunteer military is for radical social experimentation.” Blackwell was making reference to the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
2014-03-06
In a December 9, 2013 interview with Newsmax, Blackwell responded to a comment by Republican House Speaker John Boehner that men in the Republican Party should be “a little more sensitive” to women. Boehner also added, “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican conference, and some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” Blackwell stated that Republicans are "foolish" to respond to complaints that the GOP is waging a “War on Women”: "For us to have folks in the mainstream media tell us that we are a bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals might be entertaining to them, but it would be foolish for us to start to respond to it as if they're making a good point … We have no problems convincing women, men, you name them, across these voter groups.”
2014-03-06
In a September 21, 2013 interview with the Christian Post, Blackwell spoke about the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act, which was approved by the House of Representatives on September 19, 2013. The bill proposed to cut $39 billion over ten years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. Blackwell stated, “I think through empowering others and creating self-sufficiency…there within lies the path to sense of worthiness. When I was growing up, there was fundamental belief, that there were times in people's life when they needed a hand up…there were temporariness to those programs, where they were structured so that they didn't breed so that they didn't breed dependency.” Blackwell also stated that there is “nothing more Christian” than “not locking people into a permanent dependency on government handouts, but making sure they are participants in their own upliftment and empowerment so that they in fact through the dignity of work and can break from the plantation of big government."
2014-03-06
2014-03-06
In an August 7, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “[W]e have the deepest concern for the survival of marriage itself. For in marriage, great nations are preserved. In marriage, children are nurtured and protected. Last month, Supreme Court Justice Tony Kennedy dismissed all our concerns about preserving marriage. He attacked us, and the citizens of thirty-two states, saying such ideas can only be the result of bigotry and a desire to inflict hurt on our fellow citizens. We must deny that. We must denounce Tony Kennedy's unhistorical, illogical, and spiteful pronouncements.” On June 26, 2013, the United States Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined “marriage” as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. Blackwell also referred to the decision of the British Parliament to legalize same-sex marriage, writing, “It was … the elected Prime Minister David Cameron who forced through this damaging bill. Having done this wrong thing, how can Cameron's majority in Parliament say NO to those of [the Queen’s] subjects who demand polygamy?”
2014-03-06
In a March 6, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about the position of the Obama administration in the Supreme Court case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, where the solicitor general was expected to urge the Court to find California’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Blackwell wrote, “Last week, President Obama dropped the family friendly mask. He sent his Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court with a simple message: Dump Dads. Lose Moms … President Obama promised to ‘fundamentally transform America.’ Few then realized he meant it. Abolishing marriage is what he is doing. Not changing. Not expanding. More than re-defining marriage, he is abolishing it.”
2014-03-06
In a January 19, 2013 interview with Breitbart News, Blackwell discussed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 first-grade students and six adults were killed. Blackwell stated, “A gun is a tool. The challenge we face instead is the culture … More and more people reject the whole notion of right and wrong. It’s becoming fashionable to deny the existence of God, and claim the right to determine for yourself what you will live for and how you will live. Some embrace the worldview that life is ultimately meaningless, so what’s the point? We come from nothing and we become nothing. Others embrace a worldview that all that matters is going for the thrill and whatever feels good.” Blackwell also addressed President Barack Obama’s proposals to combat gun violence, stating, “If we stop this gun control legislation, what kinds of executive orders and regulations will this president come out with to achieve the same result. We can take him to court on all that, but he’s trying to remake the courts as well. We’re only a single vote away from the Supreme Court erasing the Second Amendment … Nobody wants to talk about 2016 yet, but the reality is this is likely a four-year fight over the Second Amendment to our Constitution. Whoever wins the White House in 2016 will likely determine whether the right to keep and bear arms a decade from now is embraced as a constitutional right, or as a government-granted privilege that a president or governor can revoke on a whim.”
2014-03-06
In a January 15, 2013 open letter to former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, Blackwell wrote, “I was disappointed with the clear implication in your Meet The Press interveiw [sic] that those of us, in the GOP who defend life, protect traditional marriage and advance religious liberty are intolerent [sic]. The Democratic [National] Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina… came out against marriage. They say they only want to add to the number of happily married couples by allowing men to marry men and women to marry women. But we know that wherever these counterfeit marriages have been recognized, true marriage declines … Just as counterfeit money drives out true money, same sex marriage drives out true marriage. … President Obama has refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and pledges to repeal it. He has openly joined the Marriage Enders. They're not changing marriage. They are ending it. If two men can marry, why not three? If gays and lesbians can marry, what about bi-sexual persons and persons who have sought to change their sex? Why can't they have one spouse of either sex? After slavery, after Jim Crow, after the KKK, it is fair to say that among the worst things visited upon black Americans have been the targeting of our families by abortionists and the effort to end marriage. That is why we are in a crisis. This is what happens when a major party rejects God.” Blackwell was referring to Powell’s January 13, 2013 interview on “Meet the Press,” in which he stated that the Republican party is suffering from a “dark vein of intolerance” and that some in the party seem to “look down on minorities.” Blackwell was also referring to the platform at the 2012 Democratic National Convention (DNC) which originally did not include the word “God.” On September 5, 2012, Los Angeles Mayor and Chairman of the DNC Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion on the floor of the DNC to revise the platform to include the word “God.” Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor claimed that one could not audibly hear two-thirds of the delegates say ‘Aye.’ Villaraigosa nonetheless declared the amendment had been approved.
2014-03-06
In a January 12, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.
2014-03-06
In a December 29, 2012 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell wrote about the Washington Post’s endorsement of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) for Secretary of State, stating, “As to his qualifications for that role, we’re reminded of Frederick the Great’s response when he was urged to make a less than stellar general a field marshal. Reminded the only occasionally victorious general had been in every battle for years, Frederick pointed to his mount: ‘So has my mule. Must I make him a field marshal, too?’ … Perhaps the most curious part of the Post endorsement of Kerry is the notion that defeated presidential candidates have something special to offer as Secretary of State.” Kerry was eventually confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 94-3 vote.
2014-03-06
In a December 21, 2012 interview on a Houston radio station, Blackwell spoke about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in which twenty first-grade students and six adults were shot and killed. He said, “We need to take a very comprehensive approach, not only to making sure that we keep dangerous people from acquiring firearms in a manner that doesn’t include disarming law-abiding people from their ability to defend themselves, we need to take an even broader look at the coarsening of our culture. We have people in the name of the First Amendment in Hollywood that basically refuses to rethink its relationship to violence. We need to take a look at what the whole coarsening of the culture, from treating abortion as a form of birth control to the rapid breakup of our families as things that attribute to the atrocities that we have seen occur all too frequently … We need to deal with a coarsening of our culture, everything from getting illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals to making sure that fewer and fewer of our children are born out of wedlock and into broken families where they suffer more and more from the emotional and mental disruptions in their lives that lead to these sort of mass murders.”
2014-03-06
On October 26, 2012, the Ohio Republican Party released a political ad in which Blackwell stated, “Hi, I’m Ken Blackwell asking you to join me in supporting our grassroots efforts to unseat President [Barack] Obama and his Democrat allies this November. The stakes are higher than ever this election … If we want to restore accountability and respect for the rule of law on the part of our leaders then it Is critical that we work together to spread this message … With your help we can elect Mitt Romney as president and send a Republican majority to Congress and begin to put our great nation back on the right track.”
2014-03-06
On October 12, 2012, the Tea Party Victory Fund, a PAC headed by Blackwell, released a political TV ad in which Blackwell asks, “Have Barack Obama's policies empowered or enslaved Americans?" The ad features an unidentified African-American woman at an Obama rally. She says, “He gave us a phone. Keep Obama in president.” When asked how she received the phone, the woman replied, “You sign up if you are in food stamps, you are in Social Security, you've got low income. Keep Obama in president. He gave us a phone." In a fundraising email, Blackwell wrote, “This commercial is a microcosm of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue their dreams. President Obama and the Democrats want to create a dependency on government that ensures that Americans rely on Washington from cradle to grave … What this lady said is so offensive because it's so blatant–she finally comes out and says what we all know that the Democrats really think.” Free phones are given to eligible individuals as part of a Federal Communications Commission program called Lifeline that provides low-cost or free phone service so they are “able to connect to jobs, family, and 911 services.”
2014-03-06
In an October 8, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Obama Mandate will force us to violate our consciences. President Obama famously said he doesn't know when human life begins, but he's willing to force us to collaborate in the destruction of innocent human lives … President Obama doesn't care what you think, so long as you join him in helping to destroy the unborn on demand. And help him by paying for it … We are putting at risk America's unique contribution to the world: religious freedom.” Blackwell was referring to a January 2012 Obama Administration announcement that the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals, that do not rely primarily on members of the faith as employees. Additionally, the Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
2014-03-06
In a September 28, 2012 op-ed for American Thinker, Blackwell wrote, “In New York, at the U.N … [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad called for a new world order. Of what? A rule of a U.N. world body dominated—or at least held hostage by— the Terroristans that make up an increasing number of the members of the General Assembly … Worst of all is this invertebrate Obama administration. Ahmadinejad holds court, calls for a new world order based on terrorism, is applauded in the U.N. General Assembly—and our delegation walks out! That'll show them! Isn't it time to send the U.N. to Geneva and cut the U.S. contribution from 24% to 6%? [President Barack] Obama does not think the U.S. is any more ‘exceptional’ than the Greeks or the British. Very well, Mr. President—then let's scale back our U.N. dues to an unexceptional 6%. That may be the only thing that gets the attention of these dumbstruck U.N. delegates who cheer America's sworn enemy.” Blackwell was likely referring to President Obama’s statement at a press conference in Strasbourg on April 4, 2009. President Obama stated, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I am enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.”
2014-03-06
In a September 21, 2021 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Democratic Party has officially committed itself to ending traditional marriage. For what else can happen to marriage when two persons of the same sex can marry and the rest of us are forced to recognize these counterfeits as true? If two, why not three? There is no compelling reason why not … Historian Michael Knox Beran found this nugget in Mr. Obama's second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope: ‘[I] came to appreciate how the earth rotated around the sun and the seasons came and went without any particular exertions on my part.’ What becoming modesty: earth, sun, seasons. Wait! Did he say the earth rotates around the sun? Yes, he did. Where is our ready-to-pounce press corps on this one? I don't know how they taught in fifth grade science in Jakarta, but here in America I learned that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. This is no small point … President Obama has similarly mixed up the social science on family. His administration has given us ‘Julia.’ She is the Every Woman fictional figure who spends her entire life looking to government for assistance, from Head Start through Social Security. The only man in Julia's life is Barack Obama. Social science unambiguously reports that children thrive with mothers and fathers who are married and who worship regularly. President Obama's administration is not about that at all.” A Department of Health and Human Services report stated that children in nuclear families were “generally healthier, more likely to have access to health care, and less likely to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties than children living in nonnuclear families.” The study defines “nuclear family” as one that “consists of one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family.”
2014-03-06
In a September 19, 2012 interview with WND Radio, Blackwell spoke about the August 15, 2012 shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in Washington, D.C. According to the criminal complaint, shooter Floyd Lee Corkins II entered the building and encountered the building manager, Leo Johnson. Corkins "stated words to the effect of, 'I don't like your politics,'" a witness told FBI agents. Corkins then pulled a firearm from his backpack and shot Johnson in the arm. Johnson, though injured, wrestled the firearm away from Corkins and subdued him. Blackwell is the Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the FRC. In the interview, Blackwell was asked if he knew of any connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the shooter, Floyd Corkins. Blackwell replied, “Well [Corkins] mentioned that he was not attacking Leo [Johnson] personally but he was attacking us because we were a hate group. And the Southern Poverty Law Center has mislabeled the FRC a hate group because of our stance on traditional marriage and our strong defense of the pro-life ethic in this country … We are asking [the SPLC] to cease and desist. Look, religious liberty is the most profound of our human rights. Without religious freedom people exist only as political or economic entities not as free human beings. Religious liberty, in our view, is the first of all human rights for it implies the dignity of the human conscious. So, one’s faith is one’s most profound level of personhood. And so we think not only FRC but all those who believe in American exceptionalism, because we understand that our rights come from God not from the state, should rally behind this call for the Southern Poverty Law Center to cease and desist for mislabeling people as being haters because they stand for biblical truth … Look, President Obama…is determined to transform our family-centered society into a government-centered society … But I think the transformation [President Obama] is most wedded to is that he wants to transform our national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God to one founded upon the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of central government. That’s why every day of his presidency he has done whatever it takes to undermine the Constitution and to empower a strong central or federal government which, by definition, has to be predicated on the weakening and destruction of the family and chasing God and faith out of the public square or, at minimum, silencing the church.” The SPLC stated in a September 13, 2012 press release that it does not list FRC as a hate group because of its opposition to gay marriage or its religious beliefs, but, “instead, we list the FRC because it engages in baseless, incendiary name-calling and spreads demonizing lies about the LGBT community. The FRC portrays gay people as sick, evil, perverted, incestuous and a danger to the nation. It insists that gay people are ‘fundamentally incapable’ of providing good homes for children–a myth that has been rejected by all relevant scientific authorities. One of its key leaders has actually said that homosexual behavior should be criminalized. Perhaps the FRC’s most dangerous lie is its claim that pedophilia is a ‘homosexual problem.’"
2014-03-06
In a September 7, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Blackwell stated, “Trim and silvered, [Bill Clinton] strode onstage to his own campaign song: Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow. For liberals, it's always tomorrow. For the left, generally, tomorrow is a lot more fun than today. Vperiod! Forward! That was Lenin's cry at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. They were always summoning their people to look beyond the suffering of today and think about the ‘shining heights’ of socialism just ahead. Keep marching. No one ever dared to mention there is such a thing as marching toward a mirage.”
2014-03-06
In a September 5, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “The [Democratic] party was clearly embarrassed because its platform [at the Democratic National Convention] failed to mention God and overlooked the party’s historic support for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel … So now, the Democratic platform has been changed. Are we satisfied? Does anyone think that a party that has to be arm-wrestled into acknowledging God is sincere? What we saw on the convention floor in Charlotte was the real Democratic Party. It was hostile to religion.” The platform at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) originally did not include the words “God” or “Jerusalem.” On September 5, Los Angeles Mayor and Chairman of the DNC Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion on the floor of the DNC to revise the platform to include the word “God” and affirm Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Such action requires a two-thirds vote by convention delegates. Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor claimed that one could not audibly hear two-thirds of the delegates say “aye.” Villaraigosa nonetheless declared the amendment had been approved. Any delegate who objected to the process could have made a formal challenge within ten minutes of the vote. No formal challenge was made.
2014-03-06
In a September 5, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “As President, Barack Obama has loosened the strict work requirements [for welfare] that state governors—including conservative Republicans like John Sununu of New Hampshire and moderate Democrats Bill Clinton of Arkansas—worked for a decade to put in place … Paul Ryan was right to describe Barack Obama's America [in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida]: ‘Where everything is free but us.’ Americans should appeal to President Obama to turn back from the path to soft despotism. We should remember that a government big enough to give us everything we want is strong enough to take all we have—including liberty.” During a period of economic recession, governors from Utah, Nevada, California, Connecticut and Minnesota asked the federal government for more flexibility in how they give out welfare money. The Obama administration granted them waiver that gave them “some flexibility in how [those states] manage their welfare rolls as long as it produced 20% increases in the number of people [receiving welfare] getting work." Former President Bill Clinton defended President Obama’s actions, stating that the administration had taken steps to ensure work requirements for welfare recipients were maintained.
2014-03-06
In a September 4, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “Froward is admittedly an archaic word, but it’s a very good one. It describes what is actually happening in that Democratic platform with respect—or should I say with disrespect?—to marriage. ‘Froward’ is defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as ‘habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition.’ When Democrats convene today in Charlotte, North Carolina, to formally adopt their platform, they will be giving in to disobedience and opposition. Voters in the Tar Heel State strongly endorsed true marriage just last May. Like voters in 31 other states, the people are saying loud and clear: Don’t mess with true marriage. But the party bigs are defiant, determined to shove counterfeit marriage down the throats of the people.” Turning to the issue of minority voters, Blackwell stated, “North Carolina’s black voters backed true marriage by a margin of two to one … What can Democratic Party delegates in Charlotte be thinking? How can they imagine that ending marriage as we know it is a good posture to take in the teeth of such determined opposition from their most loyal group of supporters?” Blackwell was referring to a North Carolina constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and banned the recognition of any other type of “domestic legal union.” The amendment was approved in May 2012.
2014-03-06
In an August 30, 2012 interview with MRCTV, a division of the Media Research Center, Blackwell stated, “President Obama and now the Democratic Party has embraced a national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the national government as opposed to our national philosophy held by most Americans founded upon the primacy of the individual and the centrality and the supremacy of God.” The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibited the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
2014-03-06
In an August 28, 2012 interview with The Hill, Blackwell made references to controversial remarks made by U.S. Representative Todd Akin (R-MO). On August 19, 2012, Akin commented on the issue of pregnancy induced by rape, stating, “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Later, Akin publicly stated that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan had personally asked him to end his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also announced that even if Akin, who was trailing Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in two recent polls, managed to pull even with her, "We're not going to send him a penny." Commenting on this imbroglio, Blackwell stated, "I think it was a mistake not to get the leaders in Missouri lined up before [GOP national leadership] went up and looked overly heavy-handed in the way they were pushing [Akin] … I've encouraged people at the Senatorial Committee to wait about five days and do a poll and see if things have stabilized. If things have, they might want to readjust. Senatorial committees can do anything. It is not as if some of the damage they've done can be papered over but they can reverse themselves on it."
2014-03-06
In an August 27, 2012 interview with Fox News Radio, Blackwell spoke about Voter ID laws. He stated, “Over the past 40 years, most of case law in elections have been focused on the franchise, making it easier for folks to cast their ballots. In the last four to six years, there’s been a focus on the other voting right and that is the right to be protected against a fraudulent vote cancelling out your legal vote … I do a lot of work with Judicial Watch, and Judicial Watch’s studies show that of the 1.3 million voter registrations gathered by Project Vote and ACORN, over 400,000 of those were fraudulent.” Radio host Bob Davis asked Blackwell why Democrats argue there is no fraud in elections. Blackwell replied, “They try to cast it as a voter suppression effort. Again, the facts will fly in the face of those misdirected concerns … In 2004, Georgia, a Southern state that had a history in terms of slavery and the black codes, etc … They implemented a voter ID law in the state of Georgia, everyone said this was voter suppression, this was geared to suppress the black and Latino vote in particular. Well, in 2008, the Latino vote went up from 18,000 to 19,000 … More importantly, there was an increase in the black vote of 42% … In American culture, in American life, having an ID is nothing that’s burdensome. We have an ID for a driver’s license. If you wanna get a library book, if you wanna receive a medical license … We must understand that what the Democrats and the left, in particular, are doing is using this notion of voter suppression to [drum] up anxiety in their base. They’re trying to convert this legitimate effort to protect the integrity of the ballot box into a way to mobilize their base by mischaracterizing as an attempt to throw us back into Jim Crow era.” Blackwell referred to ACORN, a community activist organization and its affiliate, Project Vote. After the 2008 election, the John McCain (R-AZ) campaign accused the group of perpetrating “massive voter fraud.” Neither ACORN nor its employees have ever been found guilty of—or even charged with—casting fraudulent votes. Several ACORN canvassers have been found guilty of faking registration forms. The evidence shows that the canvassers faked the forms to get paid for work they didn’t do, not to stuff ballot boxes. A report by the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress, stated that there were no instances of individuals who were allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN or its employees and who were reported "attempting to vote at the polls." Blackwell also referred to the effect of a voter ID law on voting in Georgia in the 2008 election. In the 2008 election, more than 50,000 residents were purged from the Georgia voter rolls because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. Furthermore, voter ID laws in Texas, North Carolina, and Florida have been challenged in court by the Department of Justice over allegations that they disenfranchise minorities. In July of 2012, the DOJ began investigating Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law to determine whether it discriminates against minorities.
2014-03-06
In an August 24, 2012 interview on "Washington Watch Weekly", Blackwell stated, “President [Barack] Obama and his party want to transform our market economy into a government-controlled economy but most importantly, they are dead set on making sure that they transform our national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God to one founded on the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the central government. Our document, the GOP document, is a direct contrast; it provides the American people with a choice, not an echo. That is so important because there are two paths that we can go down: we can reinforce our fundamental belief that when we are God-centered, free men and free women and free markets can accomplish much and overcome most hurdles thrown in our way or do we want to go down the path of being a government-controlled economy, destroying families, replacing it with bureaucrat decision makers that would run afoul of what the founders of this nation envisioned 237 years ago … In our 237th year as being an exceptional nation we are at risk of losing it all. We just can’t afford to have four more years of a President that one, doesn’t understand the nature of our exceptionalism, and two, has a worldview and a set of guiding principles that are in direct contradiction with what has made us an exceptional nation. I’ve always enjoyed the push and pull of the whole process, I think it’s now incumbent upon us to make sure that this is not a document that is put on the shelf and our candidates across the country can just let collect dust and ignore. There is a fault line from the Pacific to the Atlantic and one side are those who believe in big government and who believe that the family and God can be replaced by a supreme state government, and that’s a problem.” The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibited the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
2014-03-06
In an August 24, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Determined to do [sic] follow what is ‘inevitable,’ very liberal delegates [at the Democratic National Convention] will embrace platform proposals that will spell the end of marriage. Do they fully realize what they are doing? If your only requirement for a marriage is that people love each other, have a committed relationship to each other, and that they give their consent, then you cannot bar twins from marrying. Once you've permitted identical twins to marry, how can you bar twin brother and sister from marrying? They love each other. They have a committed relationship. None of us has had such a biological bond since before birth with our own spouses. Vice President Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act as a U.S. Senator. Now, of course, he says that he is not influenced by his many years as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, he takes his guidance on marriage from Hollywood, specifically from the comedy series, Will and Grace. If Hollywood producers are to set the standard for constitutional law in our country, then marriage will be ended, to be sure. For Hollywood has given us another series, Big Love. It's an HBO production about polygamy. It's pretty favorable toward polygamy, they tell me … Is this really where Democrats want to go? Do their very progressive delegates think the voters at the grassroots will approve their lurch to the progressive extremes?” Blackwell continued, stating, “Minorities give strong support to true marriage. In North Carolina, black and Hispanic voters provided the winning margin for marriage … Marriage is not a wedge issue, it's a bridge issue. It's the way Republicans can embrace minorities and immigrants.”
2014-03-06
In an August 24, 2012 op-ed for World Magazine, Blackwell wrote, “Happily, the Republican Platform Committee this week sidestepped the issue of civil unions. Committee members reaffirmed the party's historic support for true marriage. That's a good thing because, from the government's perspective, all our marriages are civil unions. And government has a duty to protect the civil institution of marriage. What some call a civil union-as a softer way to grant same-sex couples all the rights of marriage without the name of marriage-is merely a slow-motion surrender on the critical issue of marriage. Governments cannot sanctify marriage, but governments can and should protect the civil institution of marriage. True marriage … We have seen many examples of the ways in which defenders of marriage will lose their civil rights if marriage itself is abolished. If 61 percent of North Carolina voters last May had voted to end true marriage in that state instead of affirming it, we could have been sure that the very next semester schoolchildren in the Tar Heel State would have been proselytized in the early grades for the new definition of marriage. This is what happened in Massachusetts. When parents of public schoolchildren object, they will be the ones singled out for threats, ridicule, and possibly even government sanctions … Those who want to end marriage as we know it often cite the famed U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia (1967). In that case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for a unanimous court when he struck down a state law that barred men and women from different races from legally marrying. We agree with that opinion. We, too, believe that marriage is a fundamental civil right of Americans. And we also agree with Earl Warren's view that true marriage is necessary for the survival of society. Chief Justice Warren did not have to say true marriage-between one man and one woman. It was understood. It must still be so understood. The civil rights of all Americans must be defended … Keeping marriage alive requires hard work. And it needs government support. What we are saying is that true marriage must survive for America to survive. We are saying preserve Americans' civil right of marriage if we want America to climb back from the abyss of economic decline and social decay.” On the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, Mildred Loving, one of the plaintiffs in the case, stated, “I believe all Americans, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry … I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”
2014-03-06
In an August 21, 2012 op-ed for Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote, “This election now turns on whether a critical mass of American voters have arrived at the undeniable conclusion that if we do not fundamentally transform the three major entitlements for younger Americans then it will not be there for them at all (or even for those who will soon rely upon them), and that if we do not balance the federal budget it will cause an economic catastrophe … [If] President Obama wins a second term, and claims it as a mandate not to curb spending or entitlements … by November 2016 voters should have no doubt what must be done, and realize that liberals offer only blame and denial, while conservatives offer solutions.” To balance the budget, as he has promised, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would have to cut $9.6 trillion from non-defense discretionary spending. Romney would also increase defense spending to $7.9 trillion between 2013 and 2022. Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget plan would cut $5.2 trillion from entitlements and non-defense discretionary spending while increasing defend spending to $5.7 trillion between 2013 and 2022.
2014-03-06
In an August 20, 2012 op-ed for Huffington Post, Blackwell advised President Barack Obama to replace Joe Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election, stating, “Imagine if Hillary could be summoned from whatever international conference she's headed to. Envision her State Department jet being re-routed in mid-air for her to appear on the platform next to her onetime rival, just in time to let hubby [former president] Bill [Clinton] announce the new Obama-Clinton ticket to the world. Joe Biden could be put back on that State Department jet as the newly minted Secretary of State. Not a bad shown-the-door prize for the man who is forever stepping on rakes. Now, in all candor, we have already gone on record calling Hillary America's worst Secretary of State. But she couldn't be our worst vice president. As long as Joe Biden's around, that title is safe.”
2014-03-06
In an August 2, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “[President Barack Obama] announced early in his administration that he would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He has done everything he can in the last three and a half years to dismantle the law. It is a process not unlike termites eating away at the foundations of a house. Until just a few weeks ago, he apparently hoped that the law would collapse as he systematically undermined its foundations. It didn't. So President Obama, prompted no doubt by Vice President Biden's blurted out support for counterfeiting marriage, has ‘evolved.’” Blackwell was referring to Biden’s May 6, 2012 appearance on “Meet the Press” where he stated, “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights.” Biden’s statement came several days before President Obama’s public endorsement of same-sex marriage on May 9, 2012. Blackwell continued, stating, “Democrats have announced they will put same sex marriage in their platform when they meet in convention in Charlotte, North Carolina … If the Democrats' platform embraces this radical proposal, they will be voting to end marriage, not change it. If you say a man may marry a man, and a woman may marry a woman, then on what principled basis can you say three men may not marry?”
2014-03-06
In a July 23, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about President Barack Obama’s “’covert zeal’ for abortion.” He stated, “Abraham Lincoln faced a similar problem in 1854 when he spoke of the ‘covert zeal’ of President Franklin Pierce and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas for the spread of slavery. These leading Democrats never said they were in favor of slavery. They simply viewed the right of whites to choose slavery for blacks as a ‘sacred principle of self-government’ … President Obama doesn’t talk about abortion much … President Obama has been the most pro-abortion president in history … From his first public office, he has been an advocate for abortion-on-demand. He led the fight in the Illinois State Senate to deny protection for newborn children who survive abortion attempts. These children are U.S. citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. And just as too many states denied ‘equal protection of the laws’ to black Americans under a century of unjust Jim Crow laws, Barack Obama denied protection of Illinois laws to newborns in the Land of Lincoln because they had been targeted for abortion.” Then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama voted against the state’s “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” in 2001, 2002, and 2004, because in his words, “Whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a… nine-month-old…child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.” Blackwell wrote, “From his first day in office until now, President Obama has quietly but vigorously pushed the abortion agenda. He records promotional videos for Planned Parenthood. This group kills 340,000 of the more than1,200,000 unborn children killed each year by abortion. Under Obamacare, they will be able to kill millions more.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
2014-03-06
In a July 13, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “[President Barack] Obama announced on July 6 in Ohio that this election is about a ‘clash of visions’ about the role of government in our lives ... If he wins, he will claim a mandate and take federal power to heights we’ve never seen.” In reference to a June 28, 2012 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Blackwell stated, “We can no longer be confident that the Supreme Court will stop him. Liberty endures only when each branch fully and fearlessly checks and balances the other two branches. Abdicating judicial review empowers President Obama to subvert the Constitution with an imperial presidency, and fundamentally transform the United States to the detriment of future generations.”
2014-03-06
In a July 6, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “We are now told by the Supreme Court of our day that millions have come to ‘rely’ on abortion and therefore we must accept it. But did not millions then ‘rely’ on slavery? Today, 71% of pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. For those who view the fate of unborn children as "above their pay grade," that 71% pre-natal death rate is not enough. Today, Obamacare threatens to trample liberty underfoot in its drive to force acceptance of abortion on Catholic and non-Catholic institutions that try to defend innocent human lives. What was wrong in slavery is what is wrong in abortion: It denies to members of our human family their rightful place at the national celebration of the Glorious Fourth. It says we will celebrate as your lives ebb away … Lincoln said it well: If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. We agree. And if abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” It is unclear where Blackwell got his statistics regarding pregnancies in Harlem—he did not provide any source.
2014-03-06
In a July 2012 article for Loop 21 on the pros and cons of “Stand Your Ground” laws, Blackwell was asked why he thought the Commission on Civil Rights was investigating them for racial bias. “Stand Your Ground” laws generated national controversy when unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by concealed handgun permit holder George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012. The National Rifle Association helped to author the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida and promoted it aggressively there and in many other states. Blackwell stated, “Michael Yaki is a member of the commission. Mr. Yaki is an anti-Second Amendment lawyer, who has been pushing for the investigation ... If anything, [the law] benefits racial minorities more.” In June 2012, the Tampa Bay Times identified nearly 200 “Stand Your Ground” cases in Florida and determined that 73 percent of those who killed a black person faced no punishment, compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white person. When asked why he thought “Stand Your Ground” was being challenged, Blackwell responded, “I have no idea why anyone would challenge this point of view, unless they foolishly think we can grow a government big enough to protect all of us, all of the time.” He replied to a question about the cons of the law, stating, “There are none.”
2014-03-06
On June 25, 2012, Herman Cain, former 2012 Republican presidential candidate, released an advertisement in which he and Ken Blackwell defended a Florida’s Voter ID law. Blackwell asked, “Why is [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder demanding that Florida stop removing illegal voters from their rolls/a>?” Blackwell was making reference to a Department of Justice lawsuit which challenged the Florida law because of allegations that it disenfranchises minorities. Blackwell further boasted, “As Secretary of State of Ohio, I was responsible for the integrity of the vote.” In 2004, while serving as the Secretary of State of Ohio and co-chair of the “Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush,” Blackwell was the defendant in 16 lawsuits that alleged he disenfranchised Ohio voters.
2014-03-06
In a June 19, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In 2010 [Director of the Center for Religious Liberty Ken Klukowski and I] published a book [“The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency”] arguing that Barack Obama was creating an imperial presidency. The past few months prove that prediction was correct.” He continued, “The Constitution vests all lawmaking power in Congress. It vests all executive power to enforce and administer those laws in the president. And it vests all judicial power—including the power to determine whether lesser laws violate the Supreme Law (the Constitution)—in the courts … President Obama has arrogated to himself all of those powers. If Congress doesn't make the laws he wants, he just declares them under the name of ‘regulations.’ If he doesn't like a law on the books, he acts like the judiciary by proclaiming the law unconstitutional, and refuses to enforce it. He effectively makes or abolishes laws at will.” Finally, Blackwell warned, “This president has engaged in a series of unprecedented power grabs during his term of office. The past week's amnesty plan [for the American-born children of immigrants] is just the latest in a long train of imperial abuses. And he's done all this knowing he still has to stand for reelection. Can you even imagine how far he will go if he wins reelection and knows he will never again be held to account?”
2014-03-06
In a June 15, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote “Recognizing same-sex couplings as marriages will mean the end of marriage. That's because saying yes to two men or two women marrying opens the door to polygamy … With same-sex couplings and polygamous arrangements recognized, where would that leave marriage? Ended, that's where. When everyone can marry, no one can marry. There is no marriage left. Advocates for same-sex couplings have never agreed to bar polygamous groups being granted marriage rights. After all, if ‘marriage equality’ is the real goal, then three or four marital partners are even more equal than two.” Blackwell continued, stating, “Much media talk about how young people support same-sex couplings does not translate into votes. There is a silenced minority here. Young people are constantly told it's not cool to be against same-sex demands. With Americans waiting longer to get married, it should not surprise us that the youth cohort is the least supportive of true marriage. They're not married yet.” He urged, “Defenders of true marriage need to be equally bold in speaking with younger audiences. Candidates need to tell the young the truth: that if they support marriage rights for same-sex couplings, they will be voting to end marriage … The young, according to all polls, are disproportionately pro-life … We need to share with the young this hopeful message: Marriage is the best protector for unborn children that we have. Four out of five unborn children who are killed in abortion are the children of single parents. If you really care about unborn children, protect the institution that best protects them.”
2014-03-06
In a June 12, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about liberal talk show host Bill Press, who had expressed his distaste for the National Anthem a week earlier. “What is it with liberals that they are forever saying and doing things that lead people to question their patriotism—and then they howl in rage when folks question their patriotism?” Blackwell asked. He continued, stating, “Consider Barack Obama, the most liberal president in history. In 2007, then-Sen. Obama was campaigning in the Heartland. At the famous Iowa State Fair, he raised eyebrows when he failed to place his hand over his heart during the National Anthem … Only in an Obama Nation could the lyrics of our National Anthem be ‘an abomination.’ The Star-Spangled Banner calls us ‘the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.’ Those words inspire us all to action—to keep this Home of Freedom free.”
2014-03-06
In a May 29, 2012 speech at the American Religious Freedom Program Conference, Blackwell called a January 2012 Obama administration announcement about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “one of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom.” The administration was declaring that employers would be required to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. Blackwell warned, “Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant … There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation. More tells his prosecutors: ‘I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.’ Thank God, we have not gotten to that point. But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics—this divide-and-conquer strategy—to succeed. If the [Department of Health and Human Services] can that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?”
2014-03-06
In a May 9, 2012 op-ed for the Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote “Elections are about choices, and 2012's pivotal election showcases two very different visions for America's future.” President Barack Obama’s vision for America’s future, Blackwell claimed, is one in which “government usurps the place of family. Big Brother becomes Big Father who brings home the bacon through government entitlements covering everything from housing, to education, to food (stamps), to government-run healthcare. You need have faith in government alone, as the collective state becomes the god in whom you trust and from whom you receive your daily bread. And they replace the family unit with the state, undermining the foundational unit of civilization.”
2014-03-06
In a May 9, 2012 op-ed for World Community, Blackwell accused President Barack Obama of being a “full-blown advocate of abolishing marriage.” He referred to efforts at the state to level to ban same-sex marriage as evidence that “Americans overwhelmingly do not agree that marriage should be ended.” According to Blackwell, that would be the result if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. “Three men marrying?” Blackwell wrote. “Two men and a woman? If everyone can marry, then no one can marry, thus ending marriage as we know it.”
2014-03-06
In an April 26, 2012 op-ed for The Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about “the secularization of Martin Luther King Jr,” stating, “So, since Rev. King and religion are inseparable, why are some people so quick to hide Dr. King’s religiosity? We would expect this type of careful ideological manipulation of history in the tyrannical states of the former Soviet Union or North Korea, but how does this happen in America? Sadly, I believe this is another example of how the secular left is winning the culture war. By driving religion out of the public square and re-writing the history books, they are erasing the invaluable role religion has played in our country’s history.” He continued, “By eliminating religion, the secular left is using the force of law to build its own type of warped, unholy church which is highly dogmatic and mandates participation under the threat of force … With the Obama administration’s openly hostile approach to religion, we have a government forcing members of religious institutions to participate in acts that violate their consciences, such as providing contraception and abortion services. All churches in Obama’s America are subservient to the whims of government bureaucrats, who are exercising power far outside the limits of our Constitution.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. The Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
2014-03-06
In a February 26, 2012 web appearance on The Daily Caller, Blackwell said of Democratic President Barack Obama, “What you see is a president that ignores the Constitution, an administration that ignores the Constitution. And he wants to build a federal court system in his own philosophy and in his own image, and thereby give him, and his administration, unbridled power.” Blackwell was then asked why some polls were indicating that African-American support was down for President Obama. He responded, “I remember being in graduate school and I read a work of a psychiatrist in the late 1800s and he was talking about the Antebellum south and slavery. And he said, ‘What people don’t understand is that you have a slave, and you have to worry about that slave running and bolting towards freedom. So your guarding and you put him in chains. And what you have is not a slave, you have a captive.’ He said, ‘When you can take off the chains and you can do away with the guards and that captive will not walk and walk outside of the area of prescription of slavery, you then have converted that captive to a slave.’ And he said, ‘There is a fear of freedom, that slaves, unlike captives, wont take the risk of bolting because all of us, slave and master alike, like homeostasis or equilibrium.’ And so one of the things that I’ve started to notice is that more and more young black people are willing to take the risk of being free, the risk of being not dependent on the government, and that is something, that’s a force that the pill of dependency, you know, cannot overtake by the Obama administration.”
2014-03-06
In a February 22, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The term ‘Southern Strategy’ was invented by liberals in 1968 to attack their partisan opponents in the Republican Party, then led by Richard Nixon.” In fact, it was Republican President Richard Nixon’s political strategist, Kevin Phillips, who popularized the practice. The “Southern Strategy” involved exploiting white racism against African-Americans to drum up Republican votes, and was first used by Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. Blackwell added, “We who defend true [heterosexual] marriage are equally committed to civil rights. We strongly believe that marriage is a civil right—and that overturning true marriage will cause grave harm to all Americans, not the least to the poor and to minorities.”
2014-03-06
In a February 7, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post where Blackwell urged Israel to immediately launch a military attack against Iran, he also claimed that the administration of President Barack Obama “is outraged by the sight of too many Jews in Jerusalem.”
2014-03-06
In a February 2, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell lamented that complaints by civil rights organizations led retired General Jerry Boykin to withdraw from speaking at the West Point military academy’s annual prayer breakfast. Blackwell wrote, “The Obama administration's hostility toward religion—and especially Christians—continues even to the detriment of our men and women in uniform.” Boykin is an anti-Muslim hardliner who has described the War on Terror as a “Christian battle against Satan” (a statement that was repudiated by President George W. Bush). He has also called Islam “a totalitarian way of life” and has argued that the First Amendment, which protects the free practice of religion, does not apply to Islam. A statement by VoteVets.org alleged that Boykin’s presence at the prayer breakfast would “put our troops in danger.” Blackwell called Boykin “an ideal choice” to speak at a prayer event held at a military academy. He went on to write, “This sad episode is yet another example of the Obama administration's ongoing hostility to people of faith,” despite the fact that the Obama administration played no role in the controversy.
2014-03-06
In a January 30, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President Obama has relentlessly pushed abortion at home and abroad. Obamacare is the most massive expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Under Obamacare, health care coverage will include abortion. Thus, we will all be forced to pay for the killing of unborn children.” In reality, the signing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” did not alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion. Blackwell also added, “The president is concerned, he tells us, about education. We must all share that concern. But he has taken over college loans, an unprecedented power grab. He does this even as his administration is menacing the liberty of every private and religious college in America. If your college does not want to push condoms in the dorms or dispense abortion-producing drugs [birth control] at Student Health, the Obama administration threatens you with action.”
2014-03-06
In a December 31, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed support for Voter ID laws that have been accused by the Department of Justice and others of disenfranchising minorities. In a rant on the topic of race, he wrote, “The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he's brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing [sic] with such things, DOJ—is their champion. This is also seen in [Attorney General Eric] Holder's incessant playing of the race card. First he says we're a nation of cowards about race. Now that he's on the ropes for DOJ's scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they're both African-Americans.”
2014-03-06
In a December 24, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Nothing so threatens the middle class in America as Obamacare. If this is not repealed, middle income Americans will find themselves shackled to a government-provided health service that gets worse and worse and costs more and more … Worse, Obamacare forces middle income Americans to subsidize the killing of millions of unborn children. These children are the best hope of getting us out of this debt spiral.” In reality, the signing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” did not alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion. Blackwell also expressed amazement “that the canny TR [Teddy Roosevelt] invented” the phrase “the lunatic fringe” “101 years before the Occupy Wall Street crowd appeared on the scene.”
2014-03-06
In a December 9, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act—a piece of legislation that allowed the residents of those states to determine whether slavery would be allowed inside their borders—“the original ‘pro-choice’ legislation.” He also added, “A year before his acceptance speech at Denver. Mr. Obama went before Planned Barrenhood and shackled himself to their sterile ideology of abortion-on-demand.”
2014-03-06
In a December 8, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Mr. Obama and his administration keep Planned Barrenhood in business—shoveling billions to their lethal efforts. Because of them, six in ten pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. There is no hope in that dread change.” In reality, only three percent of services provided by Planned Parenthood are related to abortion, with 90% of services aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancy
2014-03-06
In a November 23, 2011 op-ed for the Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote, “Mr. Obama, as a candidate, had to bat away accusations that he was close, too close, to Rashid Khalidi, a radical Palestinian Arab intellectual.” Khalaidi is actually a Palestinian-American Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. President Barack Obama was acquainted with Khalaidi, but never consulted with him on matters of foreign policy. Blackwell also harshly criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement, writing, “the Occupy Wall Street crowd quickly descended to anti-Semitism. They are protesting income inequality, they say, but their cry of 99% against the 1% is a veiled reference to American Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the U.S. population.” Turning back to the President, he concluded, “Barack Obama's intellectual world is one in which [anti-colonialist Franz] Fanon, [linguist Noam] Chomsky, [historian Howard] Zinn, and those neo-Marxist thinkers hold sway. Only free societies can create enough surplus wealth to support such dissident scholars and their ‘myrmidons’ [hired ruffians] in the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their midst.”
2014-03-06
Writing about Iran, Blackwell authored a November 12, 2011 op-ed for the American Thinker in which he declared, “For three years, Mr. Obama has tried to appease the world's number one terrorist regime. … Even the anti-Semitic Richard Nixon was there for Israel, when the chips were down during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Barack Obama's record makes him unmistakably the first anti-Israel president in our history.”
2014-03-06
Due to ongoing tensions between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands Islands, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in March 2010 that the United States will “facilitate them talking to each other.” “We’re not interested and have no real role in determining what they decide between the two of them, but we want them talking and we want them trying to resolve the outstanding issues between them,” she added. In response to Clinton’s statement, Blackwell authored a November 11, 2011 op-ed for the Huffington Post in which he stated, “By raising the subject of ‘talks’ about the Falklands, Mrs. Clinton is threatening a renewed war. We know Bill Clinton has lamented he did not have a war to assure his presidential greatness. Is Hillary hoping to be called upon to negotiate the Falklands matter so she, too, can cop a Nobel Prize? If she wins one for this, let's make it tin.” Blackwell also compared the Argentine military dictatorship that ordered the invasion of the Falklands to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests addressing income inequality in the United States by writing, “Think ‘Occupy Buenos Aires.’”
2014-03-06
In a November 4, 2011 op-ed for World Magazine, Blackwell claimed that the “Respect Marriage Act,” which would repeal the “Defense of Marriage Act,” would “abolish marriage.” He also said of the bill, “While calling for ‘respect’ in the Orwellian sense, it would offer true marriage the same ‘respect’ President Obama showed to the body of Osama bin Laden—a hasty burial at sea after summarily being put to death.” Blackwell also claimed that legalizing gay marriage would lead to polygamy.
2014-03-06
In a November 4, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell made a number of unverified claims about President Barack Obama’s policy towards Iran and claimed that the President “even sent Persian New Year greetings to the Iranian people and their dictatorial rulers.” In fact, President Obama sent a greeting only to the people of Iran. In that greeting, he compared the political situation in Iran to populist uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and stated, “Just as the people of the region have insisted that they have a choice in how they are governed, so do the governments of the region have a choice in their response. So far, the Iranian government has responded by demonstrating that it cares far more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people.”
2014-03-06
In an October 29, 2011 op-ed for American Thinker, Blackwell cast doubt on the legitimacy of recent populist uprisings in the Middle East by writing, “It is a profound misunderstanding of democracy to think that merely by staging elections and showing off purple fingers of voters we can bring on a new order in Muslim lands. Edmund Burke said it well: ‘Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.’ Intemperate minds are what we see at work in the Arab Middle East. Opinion surveys throughout the region confirm that, by overwhelming majorities, the ‘voters’ for these sham democracies believe that those who convert from Islam must be put to death. As long as this grim reality exists, there will be no democracy in the region.”
2014-03-06
On October 27, 2011, Blackwell appeared on MSNBC host Chris Matthew’s Hardball show to express support for a Mississippi ballot initiative that would confer “personhood” at conception, a designation that would outlaw all abortion. In defense of the measure, Blackwell said, “I am not a doctor and I am not a lawyer, but I am one who believes in the human dignity of the human life no different than the Pope, no different then—God bless him—Jerry Falwell.” Falwell was a controversial televangelist who once noted, “As a Christian who has a theological perspective, I do not feel that rape and incest are moral grounds for abortion. I do not think that two wrongs make a right.”
2014-03-06
In an October 20, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the United States government’s support of the ouster of Egyptian dictator Honsi Mubarak meant that, “American taxpayers [are] aiding the slaughter of Egypt's Christians.” He went on to call President Obama “the most anti-Israel president in our history and also, de facto, the most anti-Christian.” Blackwell’s claim was based on a tragic October 2011 event where Coptic Christian protesters threw molotov cocktails and fired weapons at the Egyptian military, which retaliated with deadly force. In the wake of the violence, Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf addressed the nation, saying, “I call on Egyptian people—Muslims and Christians, women and children, young men and elders—to hold their unity.” Blackwell also claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood—an organization that was a key component of the nonviolent uprising against Mubarak—“is known to use terror against its opponents.”
2014-03-06
In an October 20, 2011 op-ed published by the Family Research Council, Blackwell addressed allegations of racial bias in SAT questions by writing, “Some fringe activists who push the test-optional approach denigrate the exams, claiming they are biased against minority groups, a false assertion that has been debunked thoroughly and is not accepted by mainstream educators and psychologists.” In contrast, a 2010 study published in the Harvard Educational Review found, “The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test and, consequently, all decisions based on its results. All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance—and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success—appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge.” The study confirmed earlier research that the SAT favors whites over African Americans who share a similar educational background and skill set.
2014-03-06
In an October 1, 2011 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell claimed that imposing a federal mandate that requires health care plans to cover contraceptives upon Franciscan University of Steubenville would destroy the institution. He added, “Chai Feldblum [an official in the Obama administration] is a tenured professor at Georgetown University Law School. This is the oldest Catholic university in the country. Ironically, Feldblum, is also a homosexual legal activist … The Obama administration is also the most anti-Catholic administration in American history. Never before have tens of millions of Catholic Americans been forced to subsidize the killing of unborn children with their taxes—as they are under ObamaCare. But now they are also forcing Catholic institutions to take part in the destruction of innocent human lives and the maiming of others by paying for abortifacients and sterilizations.”
2014-03-06
On September 22, 2011 it was announced that Blackwell, along with former Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, would serve as the two vice presidents for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA). Commenting on his selection, Blackwell said, “The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.” One month later, the NFRA endorsed former Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for president in the 2012 election.
2014-03-06
In an op-ed for the Patriot Post published on September 15, 2011, Blackwell called Palestine “Terroristan” and challenged science that supports the conclusion that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. Blackwell praised a Danish scientist who found a connection between solar activity and the earth’s temperature, adding, “It's worth noting that the Danes stood up to China on human rights, even when the Communists in Beijing threatened to crush Denmark ‘like a little bird.’ The Danes published those cartoons of you know who [Muhammad] that set off riots throughout the world by followers of the religion of peace.”
2014-03-06
In a September 13, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell repeated sexist characterizations about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writing, “Mrs. Clinton has even been derided in liberal blogs as Barack Obama's ‘Saudi wife.’ Feminist editor Tina Brown went so far as to say she's been put in a ‘foreign policy burka.’ We don't have to follow the Washington Post's annual In/Out listings. Fashions come and go in the ‘Style Section,’ even burkas.” Blackwell also accused the Secretary of State—without evidence—of anti-Semitism—by stating, “Perhaps most offensive of all is Hillary Clinton's assignment of counting Jews in Jerusalem. Old Washington hands may remember that President Richard Nixon bitterly ordered one of his aides to count the Jews in the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The good man who took on that odious assignment has long since apologized and done penance. And the world has heard on the White House tapes Nixon's foul-mouthed rants and lashings out against the Jews.”
2014-03-06
In a September 8, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that Congressman John Lewis (D-GA)—who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech—intended to incite violence within the crowd with his original planned speech. In the actual speech Lewis delivered that day, he called for the crowd to nonviolently support the civil rights movement by “march[ing] with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today.” Blackwell’s editorial portrayed a nonviolent, pro-union rally on Labor Day 2011 as “an incitement to riot.”
2014-03-06
In a September 1, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell commented on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the foreign policy of President Barack Obama by writing, “She had to smile a forced smile and pretend there was nothing amiss. That's not a role that comes naturally to a miss like Hillary. Correction: A Ms.”
2014-03-06
In 2011, Blackwell appeared “Online with Terry Jeffrey.” Of President Barack Obama, he said, “I think the President is one who believes in collectivism. I think his preferred path is European-style socialism.” He also said, “The foundation [of the United States government] started with Moses receiving the Decalogue.” Blackwell added, “Tell me, in all of human history, tell me of any authoritarian government or regime, totalitarian government or regime, big welfare state government or regime, that hasn’t run God and faith out of the public square and hasn’t destroyed the family. When you destroy the family and when you and silence the church you create a void that is filled by the authority and totalitarianism of Big Government.” Speaking on his opposition to gay marriage, Blackwell said, “It goes back to one, not only our moral and biblical foundation of this country, it goes back to common sense economics and sociology. What we know, whether it was Patrick Daniel Moynihan or modern day economists like Walter Williams, the fact of the matter is that when you have strong families and you have role models of men and women in that marriage for young children [then] young children do better educationally, they do better economically, as does the family.” When asked whether it is wrong for married same-sex couples to have children, Blackwell said, “I think so. Do I think that having children experience the well-being and love of an adult community is better than having kids abandoned? Yeah. But I don’t think that should be mistaken for what is, one, the preferred, and two, the Biblically-sanctioned family. [Pope John Paul II] understood that equating any other coupling [other than man and woman] was wrong, and counterproductive, and ultimately destructive of a culture and a society. Even the Ancient Greeks, where they celebrated homosexuality, were not so stupid as to attack the bedrock of culture: the union between one man and one woman in holy matrimony.”
2014-03-06
Blackwell authored an August 19, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, criticizing President Barack Obama’s role in the death of Osama bin Laden. He wrote that what was missing from the raid (ordered by President Obama) was “presidential leadership.” Blackwell further opined that, “The real reason why President Obama has hurriedly put the bin Laden raid behind him is the same reason why George McGovern could not point to his wonderful combat record, or even let others point to it: The Democratic Party houses a large and influential pacifist element.”
2014-03-06
In an August 7, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Not Just Whistlin’ Dixie!” Blackwell wrote, “I'm especially proud of my home state of Ohio. In 2004, Buckeye voters approved a state constitutional amendment protecting [heterosexual] marriage by a thumping 62%. As the Ohio secretary of state at that time, I had to fend off attempts by liberals to throw the measure off the ballot … There is one region of the country where marriage is even more strongly supported: the South. In the ten states of the Old Confederacy where Americans have voted thus far, [heterosexual] marriage initiatives have averaged a stunning 71.44% support. North Carolina has just advanced a marriage initiative. If we are successful there, Tarheel voters will give new meaning to the Solid South.” The “Solid South” is a term for the southern states that voted as a bloc to preserve segregation.
2014-03-06
Blackwell believes that the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review process, which produces reports assessing human rights conditions in all member countries, is being used by European countries to diminish United States sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere by imposing human rights conditions on Latin American countries. In an August 6, 20011 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “has done nothing to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and nothing to defend our Latin American allies from this new form of European imperialism … Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on the side of the European imperialists.”
2014-03-06
On August 2, 2011, Blackwell commented on the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis, writing, “The only thing being terrorized by tea partiers is the tyranny of the status quo.”
2014-03-06
On July 12, 2011 Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted requested $332,000 in taxpayer money to pay for attorney’s fees for plaintiffs who sued then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over his conduct during the 2004 presidential elections. The plaintiffs, who alleged that Blackwell violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, settled the lawsuit with the state in 2009.
2014-03-06
In a July 1, 2011 op-ed for The Daily Caller entitled, “Blacks Don’t Need Same-Sex Marriage,” Blackwell wrote, “The first same-sex unions anywhere on earth appeared less than a decade ago … The ideal remains. Two parents—one man and one woman—raising their children in a loving and supportive marriage gives children the best chance to become happy and successful.”
2014-03-06
In a June 12, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed—without any evidence—that “San Francisco gay activists” were behind a local ballot initiative to ban infant circumcision.
2014-03-06
In June 2011, Blackwell suggested that watching Sesame Street could influence children to become homosexuals.
2014-03-06
In an April 12, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that President Obama was involved in orchestrating the populist uprising in Egypt, writing, “What was the point of going to a nest of Muslim Brotherhood activity to deliver that 2009 Obama address if not to puff up their stature and their influence? Osama bin Laden tells us that Arabs like to go with ‘the strong horse.’ Did Mr. Obama saddle up Mubarak or the Muslim Muslim [sic] Brotherhood as the strong horse with that Cairo speech?”
2014-03-06
In April 2011, Blackwell expressed support for a piece of Ohio legislation that would have banned abortion—for any reason—as early as 18 days after conception. Ohio Right to Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group, opposed the bill in the face of criticism that the legislation was clearly unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade.
2014-03-06
In a March 23, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell, upset that a book about the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan focused too little on Reagan’s policies as president, wrote, “Just imagine if Hinckley had so grievously wounded Jimmy Carter. Can anyone believe that that would have made 18% mortgage rates go away, forget ‘America held hostage’ in Iran, chill out while lining up for gasoline, or learn to enjoy the era of limits and malaise?” The book in question, “Rawhide Down,” was critically acclaimed and well received by reviewers with diverse viewpoints, including Bill O’Reilly and Bob Woodward.
2014-03-06
After President Obama said that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was “on the wrong side of history,” Blackwell wrote a March 17, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post asking, “Where does that ‘wrong side of history’ idea come from? President Obama was at pains to tell the National Prayer Breakfast of his conversion experience. He certainly sounded sincere. But ‘The Wrong Side of History’ trope is drawn from Karl Marx. It presumes that there is a dialectic—a great impersonal, inevitable force moving through time and space. It presumes that history is going one way. Thus, to Marxists, you can be ‘on the wrong side of history.’”
2014-03-06
In a March 10, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed his belief that democracy would never be established in the Middle East because “democracy requires not only religious liberty, but representative institutions, a vibrant civil society, respect for property rights, the rule of law, and a free and open press. The Middle East has no history of these building blocks of democracy. There are other cultural practices that bode ill for democracy.” Blackwell also claimed that “84% of Egyptians say anyone who departs from Islam should be killed … And there is a real danger they will come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.” He concluded by describing Middle Easterners thusly: “Edmund Burke said it well: ‘Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.’ There's a reason no state in the Middle East—except Israel—has been free thus far.”
2014-03-06
In an interview with the radio program “NRA News” on February 11, 2011, Blackwell remarked, “We have to be thankful as a people to our internal alarm clock that has gone off in the form of the Tea Party, in the form of those who love our Constitution, and the brakes that it puts on the big and long reach of government.”
2014-03-06
Blackwell tweeted “I am disappointed with ACU's decision to team up with GOProud” and re-tweeted “homosexuality is not conservative” in response to news that the American Conservative Union (ACU) would allow the GOProud organization to participate in the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
2014-03-06
In a January 19, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the U.N. Population Fund “aids and abets China's government as it brutally enforces its one-child policy.” Claims that the Population Fund encourages women to have abortions have been thoroughly debunked.
2014-03-06
In a January 11, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “The Constitution Did Not Condone Slavery,” Blackwell claimed, “There was no mention of slavery in the Constitution. The framers were unwilling to admit in the federal charter there could be property in men.” To the contrary, the Constitution contained the three-fifths compromise that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for representation and tax purposes. Additionally, Article 1, Section 9 and Article 5 allowed the continued importation of slaves and prohibited the Congress from banning slavery until twenty years after ratification of the Constitution. Finally, Article 4, Section 2 prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaped slaves (before being superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery).
2014-03-06
After actor Liam Neeson said that the Aslan lion character from the “Chronicles of Narnia” series could serve as an allegory for both Jesus Christ and other religious figures, Blackwell wrote a December 21, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “A Fatwa on Liam Neeson?” In it, he suggested: “Liam Neeson is certainly not stupid. He is, unfortunately, a dhimmicrat. A dhimmicrat is one who uses his social, cultural, or political position to smooth the path of sharia, the law they have in Saudi Arabia … Liam Neeson's fawning attempts may prove dangerous. He did, after all, publicly compare Mohammed to an animal. No matter that it's an allegory. It can still be taken up by Muslim rioters as ‘blasphemy.’”
2014-03-06
In a December 17, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell urged the Senate to not ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, because “President Obama has never disavowed his socialist convictions. Even the Washington Post refers to him as a socialist. Isn't it time we had a full airing of all of this before we ratify a treaty with the rulers of the Kremlin?”
2014-03-06
In a November 2, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell—who does not believe in man-made climate change—claimed that “Cap and Trade” legislation would “nationalize all American enterprise.” “It would have the federal government control all decisions about what to produce, where to produce it, when to produce, where to market it, and how,” Blackwell wrote.
2014-03-06
In an October 22, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Today, tragically, nearly 40% of our children are born out-of-wedlock. And big government consumes nearly 40% of our Gross Domestic Product. I don't believe the 40/40 link is imaginary? [sic]”
2014-03-06
Commenting on a controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero, Blackwell wrote an October 20, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post asserting: “Imam Rauf has been seeking funding for this mosque throughout the Middle East. He's in league with some of the most repressive and brutal regimes on earth. It makes no sense to fight a war on terrorism abroad while allowing Islamists to do a victory dance at Ground Zero. Just because Imam Rauf is soft-spoken doesn't mean he’s ‘moderate.’ What he says in his soft-spoken voice is that the U.S. had it coming.” What Rauf actually said was the following: “There's going to be a dedicated prayer space for Muslim, which we do need. And we want to have prayer space for Christians and for Jews. As I said, we have to build on our common platform.” Rauf also indicated that the project will disclose all donors and reject any money offered by organizations that advocate violence.
2014-03-06
Commenting on his support of Delaware Republican candidate for Senate Christine O’Donnell in a September 16, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “It should not go without mention that [Republican candidate Mike] Castle was the co-author of the Castle-DeGette bill. Under this measure, Americans would be taxed to create embryonic human beings. Taxpayers would then have to fund experiments upon those embryonic human beings, including cloning humans. Finally, the taxpayers would have to pay for the killing of these cloned humans and other embryonic human lives. This is a nightmare scenario for pro-life Americans.”
2014-03-06
In an op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Obama’s Mosque at Ground Zero” published on August 20, 2010, Blackwell wrote, “Only their [Muslim] beliefs are respected by President Obama … To allow a mosque within spitting distance of Ground Zero is to allow a triumphal arch for our jihadist enemies. It will be a recruiting poster for jihadists worldwide…Do we want sharia law here? That’s the law they have in Saudi Arabia. [Community center proponent] Imam Rauf is all out for sharia. If he succeeds in his life quest, Americans will lose every liberty—starting with our religious liberty.” Rauf actually has said the following about the center: “
2014-03-06
In a July 28, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the Obama administration promotes abortion in Third
World countries because the administration “wants fewer of them.”
2014-03-06
Commenting on the abortion and LGBT rights debate in America in a July 7, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell complained, “Let Chastity Bono, the daughter of Sonny and Cher Bono, go through surgery and hormone treatments and is there a liberal publication on the planet that will not call this person Chaz and refer to this person as a man?”
2014-03-06
In a May 31, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “What’s a dhimmicrat, you say? It’s not the same thing as a democrat. A dhimmicrat is a person who, while not Muslim himself, nonetheless clears the path for shariah law to be adopted and incorporated into otherwise free nations …. Eric Holder is a leading dhimmicrat in government today.”
2014-03-06
In an April 27, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “When Mr. Obama bowed low before Emperor Akihito, it was a tacit apology for [the use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II].”
2014-03-06
Commenting on his belief that the United States promotes abortion in Kenya in an April 16, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post,
Blackwell flirted with “Birther” rhetoric by writing, “The Obama administration doesn't want to raise any questions about why it's pushing for fewer birth certificates in Kenya.”
2014-03-06
In a March 24, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called President Barack Obama, “The Abortion President.”
2014-03-06
Commenting on the administration of President Barack Obama in a March 19, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “What about jobs? Don’t hold your breath. No, wait, do hold your breath. That’s because Obama’s EPA just issued an ‘endangerment’ finding on carbon dioxide. So, when we exhale, we are polluting. Or so the Obama administration says.”
2014-03-06
In a March 9, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could incite a second Falklands War. Blackwell was incensed that Secretary Clinton referred to the Falkland Islands by their Spanish name. “But
now, we face another possible crisis over the Falklands. And all because of Hillary Clinton’s clumsy attempt at “even-handedness”—which is in fact ham-handedness,” wrote Blackwell. “Think we’re having trouble with Latin Americans now? Try to imagine U.S. Naval vessels called in at the last minute to block an Argentine invasion of the Falklands.”
2014-03-06
In a February 26, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed “If it is passed, ObamaCare will greatly increase abortions in this country by making them free.” In reality, in conjunction with the health care reform bill, President Obama issued an Executive Order preserving the restriction on the use of federal government funds to pay for abortions.
2014-03-06
In a February 23, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that homosexuals “created” the AIDs epidemic and worried “Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?” Regarding the potential repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, Blackwell wondered, “What would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic ‘less than 3% figure?’”
2014-03-06
In a February 8, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed outrage about the order in which President Barack Obama listed religions in his Inaugural Address, writing, “When President Obama took the oath of office last year, he made a stunning rhetorical shift in his Inaugural Address. He described America as a nation of ‘Christians and Muslims, Jews, Hindus and nonbelievers.’ Where did that come from? This was the first time in U.S. history that the Jews had been so displaced.”
2014-03-06
In a January 19, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that TWA Flight 800, which crashed in 1996 killing all 230 persons aboard, was downed by a terrorist attack. A FBI investigation revealed no evidence of terrorist involvement.
2014-03-06
In a January 7, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In the 1960s, many developing nation’s had nearly wiped out malaria, but it came back after DDT was banned. It did not matter that DDT was harmless to humans—and actually saved lives—the Left attacked it, ultimately causing 50 million preventable deaths.” Medical research has linked human exposure to DDT to diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and reproductive problems, including miscarriages, developmental disabilities, and premature births. DDT is also a “probable human carcinogen,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
2014-03-06
In 2010, Blackwell, along with Family Research Council colleague Ken Klukowski, published “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.” According to the authors, President Obama’s goal is to “transform the United States of America into a militant, secular welfare state dominated by an overbearing central government” by using tactics “such as changing voting laws, politicizing the census, coercing corporations into adopting its policies, planning to destroy talk radio, and seeking to make millions of illegal aliens into voting citizens.” They also claimed that Obama “shut down media outlets that expose the truth, and co-opt[ed] the rest of the media to parrot his daily messages.” On the subject of race, the book had this to say: “For affirmative action, the victims are blacks or Hispanics. (We can’t say all minorities, because the tremendous overall success of Asians and Indians proves that there’s no systemic racism that keeps all minorities down.)…Whoever you are and whatever you do, if you are not a wealthy white male with a great education and a great career, a stable family, and in fine health, then Barack Obama says you are a victim of something and will tell you who to blame.”
2014-03-06
The Family Research Council (FRC), where Blackwell works as a Senior Fellow, has made a number of controversial statements about homosexuality, leading it to be designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
2014-03-06
After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage, Blackwell wrote a December 21, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post suggesting that the new law would allow polygamy and incest. “Remember, we’ve all been schooled in that LGBT formulation. That means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. The advocates of counterfeiting marriage cannot leave out their B and T. So, what will that mean? How can they deny ‘marriage equality’ to a bisexual person who wants to marry two significant others? Or what about a person who has attempted through surgery and drugs to change his sex? Should such a person, if married, be denied the right to marry another person? If love and commitment make a marriage, why cannot brothers and sisters marry? Or fathers and daughters? What the District Council has done is to open the door to polygamy, to incest.”
2014-03-06
In a December 19, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “When someone repeated to [author Malcolm] Muggeridge [economist John Maynard] Keynes’s famous dictum—in the long run we’re all dead—Muggeridge shot back, ‘Well, he would think that wouldn’t he? He was a predatory homosexual.’ That line was considered below the belt. But there is more than an element of truth in it.”
2014-03-06
In a December 16, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell worried that the recent Copenhagen climate change summit was a step towards the “implementation of Chinese-style population control” around the world. “China has for more than thirty years been engaged in a ruthless campaign of forced abortions. Beijing’s one-child policy, were it to be enforced world wide, would lead not only to totalitarianism and massive human rights violations, it would lead to infanticide, as well … Could Americans ever be forced under such an inhuman regime? Is this what Global Warming alarmism leads to? … There is one thing we could do that would make a small contribution to lowering temperatures: We could bury, not burn, the bodies of unborn children who have been aborted under Mr. Obama’s health care takeover. Currently, the practice is to incinerate the hundreds of thousands of bodies cruelly of those denied the right to life,” wrote Blackwell.
2014-03-06
Comparing the Department of Justice’s decision to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court to the role of then-Attorney General Janet Reno during the Waco siege, Blackwell wrote a December 5, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, stating, “Attorney General Janet Reno thought she might have to prove her toughness by transferring dozens of women and children from a Waco cult headquarters to eternity. Really bad idea.” Blackwell also wrote, “Eric Holder’s decision to try the terrorists in Manhattan may not be simply the worst decision of this administration, it bids fair to stand with Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade as being among the three worst decisions in American history.”
2014-03-06
In a December 4, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In turn, [former Kansas Governor] Sebelius vetoed bills that might have put a crimp in [George] Tiller’s sales. While we denounce Tiller’s murder and his murderer, it’s interesting that liberals have not really been able to make Tiller a martyr. He didn’t donate those abortions.”
2014-03-06
Blackwell compared the presidency of Jimmy Carter to the slave trade in a November 25, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, writing, “More Africans lost their freedom during Jimmy Carter’s four years than at any other time in history.”
2014-03-06
In a November 20, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed “more than 90 percent” of Democrats “never go to church.”
2014-03-06
Blackwell called President Barack Obama “the world’s Number One enabler of China’s forced abortion policy” in a November 14, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post.
2014-03-06
In a October 30, 2009 opinion piece, Blackwell attacked the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin, by writing, “Would you rather not have a receptionist or customer service representative of your company who has tattooed his or her face with fierce Maori markings? You could be forced by the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] to make that hire.” Blackwell also worried about the EEOC’s effect on “employers who would prefer not to hire or promote employees who dress as members of the opposite sex.
2014-03-06
In an October 22, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “I was elected statewide as secretary of state. Believe me, I know the corrupt influence labor-backed groups are on the ballot box.”
2014-03-06
Expressing his belief that homosexuality is a choice at the 2009 Republican National Convention, Blackwell said, “I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else, I could have in fact suppressed that urge.” Blackwell further stated that the only two sexual orientations are “male” and “female.”
2014-03-06
In a May 27, 2008 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell wrote about the decision of the Philadelphia City Council to increase the Boy Scouts of America’s lease of a city owned building from $1 per year to $200,000 per year because of their discriminatory policy barring homosexual members. Blackwell stated, “Ever since 1910, Scouting has taught that part of being a committed Scout is a traditional understanding of sexuality. Though Scouting respects adherents of various faiths, it has always had a Bible-based morality as the foundation of its values. The Boy Scouts of America believes expressed homosexuality is inconsistent with its credo. They believe their ‘duty to God’ and promise to be ‘reverent’ requires fidelity to that traditional faith. As a result, the Scouts do not allow openly homosexual individuals in their adult leadership ranks. But the Philadelphia City Council has bought into a radical homosexual agenda lock, stock, and barrel. Not only does the Council provide full recognition of special homosexual rights, they also will obviously attack any organization that does not adopt its newfound agenda. The Council is utterly intolerant of any person or organization that does not embrace its new ‘tolerance,’ and is seeking to drive the Scouts from the city. One consequence of democracy is if elected leaders, in a city, state, or nation, choose to embody a radical agenda and attack traditional values, they can usually get away with it. There is nothing to stop government from enacting wrong policy.” Philadelphia officials explained that city law does not permit government subsidies of groups that discriminate.
2014-03-06
While serving as Ohio Secretary of State, a state audit revealed that Blackwell illegally paid out over $80,000 in bonuses to staff in December 2006 just before the switch from a Republican to a Democratic administration.
2014-03-06
During the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial election, Blackwell was accused by his Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland, of using innuendo to imply that Strickland had a homosexual relationship with a former aide. During a debate, Blackwell also made the shocking accusation that Strickland was associated with the pro-pedophile North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Strickland defeated Blackwell by a large margin.
2014-03-06
On two separate occasions, Blackwell was blamed for the release of the social security numbers of millions of Ohio residents. In 2006, while serving as Ohio’s Secretary of State, Blackwell’s office sent CDs to 20 political parties that contained records of 7.7 million registered voters in Ohio. This followed an earlier incident in which a lawsuit was filed against Blackwell for publishing the social security numbers of thousands of Ohio residents on state websites.
2014-03-06
In 2006, Blackwell said that he favors legislation that would outlaw abortion in the case of rape, incest, and even to save the life of the mother.
2014-03-06
2014-03-06
In 2006, Blackwell co-wrote a book with Jerome Corsi, who is well known for his role in the “Swift Boat” campaign against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the “Birther” accusations against President Barack Obama. Blackwell and Corsi’s book called for eliminating all federal welfare benefits.
2014-03-06
While overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, Blackwell was accused by the Democratic Party and others of implementing policies that disenfranchised minority and young voters. Numerous lawsuits were filed against Blackwell, who was at the time an Honorary Co-Chair of President George W. Bush’s Ohio campaign. One lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party alleged that Blackwell’s policies violated the Help America Vote Act, passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election fiasco.
2014-03-06
In October 2004, prior to the presidential elections, Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell sent a letter to conservatives to encourage them to vote on a gay marriage ballot issue. Democrats contended that it was inappropriate for the person in charge of overseeing the election to rally voters to vote a specific cause. Marion County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Slagle compared Blackwell’s conduct to “allowing the manager of the New York Yankees to also serve as the chief umpire in the World Series.”
2014-03-06
Blackwell received the John M. Ashbrook Award at the CPAC convention in 2004. The award is named after one of the founders of the ACU who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 21 years as a Republican from Ohio.
2014-03-06
Blackwell owned shares of Diebold, a voting machine manufacturer, while he was responsible for overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio as Secretary of State. While Secretary of State, Blackwell also directed Ohio to purchase Diebold voting machines. Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold and a fundraiser for George W. Bush, famously sent a letter to Ohio Republicans stating that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [George W. Bush in 2004].”
2014-03-06
Blackwell called himself “the lead spokesman” for a 2004 ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in Ohio.
2014-03-06
In 1980, Blackwell wrestled a soda-drinking bear named Victor as part of a charity event during his tenure as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. The bear broke Blackwell’s finger. By 2006, Bear wrestling had been banned in 20 states. The practice is accused of being cruel because of the harsh physical and psychological training the bear receives.
2014-03-06
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In a February 5, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed the Obama Administration is waging a “War on Faith”through “an all-out intimidation campaign to drive the free exercise of faith from everyday life and the marketplace of ideas and into the confines of churches, mosques and synagogues for one day a week.” Blackwell added, “The Washington ruling class understands that the exercise of religion as a living, breathing 24/7 reality—as opposed to once-a-week worship—is perhaps the most significant threat to the expansion of government and its spreading control over our lives. Government's intimidation of competing institutions therefore necessitates an assault on their values as well.” Blackwell makes specific reference to the contraceptive mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which applies to religious and non-religious businesses alike. His editorial was published the day prior to the annual National Prayer Breakfast, an event President Obama has attended and spoke at during each year of his Presidency.
In a February 5, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed the Obama Administration is waging a “War on Faith”through “an all-out intimidation campaign to drive the free exercise of faith from everyday life and the marketplace of ideas and into the confines of churches, mosques and synagogues for one day a week.” Blackwell added, “The Washington ruling class understands that the exercise of religion as a living, breathing 24/7 reality—as opposed to once-a-week worship—is perhaps the most significant threat to the expansion of government and its spreading control over our lives. Government's intimidation of competing institutions therefore necessitates an assault on their values as well.” Blackwell makes specific reference to the contraceptive mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which applies to religious and non-religious businesses alike. His editorial was published the day prior to the annual National Prayer Breakfast, an event President Obama has attended and spoke at during each year of his Presidency.
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In a January 25, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “As conservatives, we can take the winning message of economic liberty, family values, and strong defense into minority neighborhoods and share our hopes and dreams with new supporters in churches and synagogues. The current administration is the most hostile to religious liberty in our history … And we know from disillusioned administration insiders that the only concern President [Barack] Obama has for our all-volunteer military is for radical social experimentation.” Blackwell was making reference to the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
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In a January 25, 2014 op-ed for The Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “As conservatives, we can take the winning message of economic liberty, family values, and strong defense into minority neighborhoods and share our hopes and dreams with new supporters in churches and synagogues. The current administration is the most hostile to religious liberty in our history … And we know from disillusioned administration insiders that the only concern President [Barack] Obama has for our all-volunteer military is for radical social experimentation.” Blackwell was making reference to the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
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In a December 9, 2013 interview with Newsmax, Blackwell responded to a comment by Republican House Speaker John Boehner that men in the Republican Party should be “a little more sensitive” to women. Boehner also added, “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican conference, and some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” Blackwell stated that Republicans are "foolish" to respond to complaints that the GOP is waging a “War on Women”: "For us to have folks in the mainstream media tell us that we are a bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals might be entertaining to them, but it would be foolish for us to start to respond to it as if they're making a good point … We have no problems convincing women, men, you name them, across these voter groups.”
In a September 21, 2013 interview with the Christian Post, Blackwell spoke about the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act, which was approved by the House of Representatives on September 19, 2013. The bill proposed to cut $39 billion over ten years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. Blackwell stated, “I think through empowering others and creating self-sufficiency…there within lies the path to sense of worthiness. When I was growing up, there was fundamental belief, that there were times in people's life when they needed a hand up…there were temporariness to those programs, where they were structured so that they didn't breed so that they didn't breed dependency.” Blackwell also stated that there is “nothing more Christian” than “not locking people into a permanent dependency on government handouts, but making sure they are participants in their own upliftment and empowerment so that they in fact through the dignity of work and can break from the plantation of big government."
In an August 7, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “[W]e have the deepest concern for the survival of marriage itself. For in marriage, great nations are preserved. In marriage, children are nurtured and protected. Last month, Supreme Court Justice Tony Kennedy dismissed all our concerns about preserving marriage. He attacked us, and the citizens of thirty-two states, saying such ideas can only be the result of bigotry and a desire to inflict hurt on our fellow citizens. We must deny that. We must denounce Tony Kennedy's unhistorical, illogical, and spiteful pronouncements.” On June 26, 2013, the United States Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined “marriage” as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. Blackwell also referred to the decision of the British Parliament to legalize same-sex marriage, writing, “It was … the elected Prime Minister David Cameron who forced through this damaging bill. Having done this wrong thing, how can Cameron's majority in Parliament say NO to those of [the Queen’s] subjects who demand polygamy?”
In a March 6, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about the position of the Obama administration in the Supreme Court case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, where the solicitor general was expected to urge the Court to find California’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Blackwell wrote, “Last week, President Obama dropped the family friendly mask. He sent his Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court with a simple message: Dump Dads. Lose Moms … President Obama promised to ‘fundamentally transform America.’ Few then realized he meant it. Abolishing marriage is what he is doing. Not changing. Not expanding. More than re-defining marriage, he is abolishing it.”
In a January 19, 2013 interview with Breitbart News, Blackwell discussed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 first-grade students and six adults were killed. Blackwell stated, “A gun is a tool. The challenge we face instead is the culture … More and more people reject the whole notion of right and wrong. It’s becoming fashionable to deny the existence of God, and claim the right to determine for yourself what you will live for and how you will live. Some embrace the worldview that life is ultimately meaningless, so what’s the point? We come from nothing and we become nothing. Others embrace a worldview that all that matters is going for the thrill and whatever feels good.” Blackwell also addressed President Barack Obama’s proposals to combat gun violence, stating, “If we stop this gun control legislation, what kinds of executive orders and regulations will this president come out with to achieve the same result. We can take him to court on all that, but he’s trying to remake the courts as well. We’re only a single vote away from the Supreme Court erasing the Second Amendment … Nobody wants to talk about 2016 yet, but the reality is this is likely a four-year fight over the Second Amendment to our Constitution. Whoever wins the White House in 2016 will likely determine whether the right to keep and bear arms a decade from now is embraced as a constitutional right, or as a government-granted privilege that a president or governor can revoke on a whim.”
In a January 15, 2013 open letter to former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, Blackwell wrote, “I was disappointed with the clear implication in your Meet The Press interveiw [sic] that those of us, in the GOP who defend life, protect traditional marriage and advance religious liberty are intolerent [sic]. The Democratic [National] Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina… came out against marriage. They say they only want to add to the number of happily married couples by allowing men to marry men and women to marry women. But we know that wherever these counterfeit marriages have been recognized, true marriage declines … Just as counterfeit money drives out true money, same sex marriage drives out true marriage. … President Obama has refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and pledges to repeal it. He has openly joined the Marriage Enders. They're not changing marriage. They are ending it. If two men can marry, why not three? If gays and lesbians can marry, what about bi-sexual persons and persons who have sought to change their sex? Why can't they have one spouse of either sex? After slavery, after Jim Crow, after the KKK, it is fair to say that among the worst things visited upon black Americans have been the targeting of our families by abortionists and the effort to end marriage. That is why we are in a crisis. This is what happens when a major party rejects God.” Blackwell was referring to Powell’s January 13, 2013 interview on “Meet the Press,” in which he stated that the Republican party is suffering from a “dark vein of intolerance” and that some in the party seem to “look down on minorities.” Blackwell was also referring to the platform at the 2012 Democratic National Convention (DNC) which originally did not include the word “God.” On September 5, 2012, Los Angeles Mayor and Chairman of the DNC Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion on the floor of the DNC to revise the platform to include the word “God.” Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor claimed that one could not audibly hear two-thirds of the delegates say ‘Aye.’ Villaraigosa nonetheless declared the amendment had been approved.
In a January 12, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.
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In a January 12, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.
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In a January 12, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.
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In a January 12, 2013 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.
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In a December 29, 2012 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell wrote about the Washington Post’s endorsement of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) for Secretary of State, stating, “As to his qualifications for that role, we’re reminded of Frederick the Great’s response when he was urged to make a less than stellar general a field marshal. Reminded the only occasionally victorious general had been in every battle for years, Frederick pointed to his mount: ‘So has my mule. Must I make him a field marshal, too?’ … Perhaps the most curious part of the Post endorsement of Kerry is the notion that defeated presidential candidates have something special to offer as Secretary of State.” Kerry was eventually confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 94-3 vote.
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In a December 21, 2012 interview on a Houston radio station, Blackwell spoke about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in which twenty first-grade students and six adults were shot and killed. He said, “We need to take a very comprehensive approach, not only to making sure that we keep dangerous people from acquiring firearms in a manner that doesn’t include disarming law-abiding people from their ability to defend themselves, we need to take an even broader look at the coarsening of our culture. We have people in the name of the First Amendment in Hollywood that basically refuses to rethink its relationship to violence. We need to take a look at what the whole coarsening of the culture, from treating abortion as a form of birth control to the rapid breakup of our families as things that attribute to the atrocities that we have seen occur all too frequently … We need to deal with a coarsening of our culture, everything from getting illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals to making sure that fewer and fewer of our children are born out of wedlock and into broken families where they suffer more and more from the emotional and mental disruptions in their lives that lead to these sort of mass murders.”
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In a December 21, 2012 interview on a Houston radio station, Blackwell spoke about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in which twenty first-grade students and six adults were shot and killed. He said, “We need to take a very comprehensive approach, not only to making sure that we keep dangerous people from acquiring firearms in a manner that doesn’t include disarming law-abiding people from their ability to defend themselves, we need to take an even broader look at the coarsening of our culture. We have people in the name of the First Amendment in Hollywood that basically refuses to rethink its relationship to violence. We need to take a look at what the whole coarsening of the culture, from treating abortion as a form of birth control to the rapid breakup of our families as things that attribute to the atrocities that we have seen occur all too frequently … We need to deal with a coarsening of our culture, everything from getting illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals to making sure that fewer and fewer of our children are born out of wedlock and into broken families where they suffer more and more from the emotional and mental disruptions in their lives that lead to these sort of mass murders.”
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On October 26, 2012, the Ohio Republican Party released a political ad in which Blackwell stated, “Hi, I’m Ken Blackwell asking you to join me in supporting our grassroots efforts to unseat President [Barack] Obama and his Democrat allies this November. The stakes are higher than ever this election … If we want to restore accountability and respect for the rule of law on the part of our leaders then it Is critical that we work together to spread this message … With your help we can elect Mitt Romney as president and send a Republican majority to Congress and begin to put our great nation back on the right track.”
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On October 12, 2012, the Tea Party Victory Fund, a PAC headed by Blackwell, released a political TV ad in which Blackwell asks, “Have Barack Obama's policies empowered or enslaved Americans?" The ad features an unidentified African-American woman at an Obama rally. She says, “He gave us a phone. Keep Obama in president.” When asked how she received the phone, the woman replied, “You sign up if you are in food stamps, you are in Social Security, you've got low income. Keep Obama in president. He gave us a phone." In a fundraising email, Blackwell wrote, “This commercial is a microcosm of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue their dreams. President Obama and the Democrats want to create a dependency on government that ensures that Americans rely on Washington from cradle to grave … What this lady said is so offensive because it's so blatant–she finally comes out and says what we all know that the Democrats really think.” Free phones are given to eligible individuals as part of a Federal Communications Commission program called Lifeline that provides low-cost or free phone service so they are “able to connect to jobs, family, and 911 services.”
In an October 8, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Obama Mandate will force us to violate our consciences. President Obama famously said he doesn't know when human life begins, but he's willing to force us to collaborate in the destruction of innocent human lives … President Obama doesn't care what you think, so long as you join him in helping to destroy the unborn on demand. And help him by paying for it … We are putting at risk America's unique contribution to the world: religious freedom.” Blackwell was referring to a January 2012 Obama Administration announcement that the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals, that do not rely primarily on members of the faith as employees. Additionally, the Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
In a September 28, 2012 op-ed for American Thinker, Blackwell wrote, “In New York, at the U.N … [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad called for a new world order. Of what? A rule of a U.N. world body dominated—or at least held hostage by— the Terroristans that make up an increasing number of the members of the General Assembly … Worst of all is this invertebrate Obama administration. Ahmadinejad holds court, calls for a new world order based on terrorism, is applauded in the U.N. General Assembly—and our delegation walks out! That'll show them! Isn't it time to send the U.N. to Geneva and cut the U.S. contribution from 24% to 6%? [President Barack] Obama does not think the U.S. is any more ‘exceptional’ than the Greeks or the British. Very well, Mr. President—then let's scale back our U.N. dues to an unexceptional 6%. That may be the only thing that gets the attention of these dumbstruck U.N. delegates who cheer America's sworn enemy.” Blackwell was likely referring to President Obama’s statement at a press conference in Strasbourg on April 4, 2009. President Obama stated, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I am enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.”
In a September 21, 2021 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Democratic Party has officially committed itself to ending traditional marriage. For what else can happen to marriage when two persons of the same sex can marry and the rest of us are forced to recognize these counterfeits as true? If two, why not three? There is no compelling reason why not … Historian Michael Knox Beran found this nugget in Mr. Obama's second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope: ‘[I] came to appreciate how the earth rotated around the sun and the seasons came and went without any particular exertions on my part.’ What becoming modesty: earth, sun, seasons. Wait! Did he say the earth rotates around the sun? Yes, he did. Where is our ready-to-pounce press corps on this one? I don't know how they taught in fifth grade science in Jakarta, but here in America I learned that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. This is no small point … President Obama has similarly mixed up the social science on family. His administration has given us ‘Julia.’ She is the Every Woman fictional figure who spends her entire life looking to government for assistance, from Head Start through Social Security. The only man in Julia's life is Barack Obama. Social science unambiguously reports that children thrive with mothers and fathers who are married and who worship regularly. President Obama's administration is not about that at all.” A Department of Health and Human Services report stated that children in nuclear families were “generally healthier, more likely to have access to health care, and less likely to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties than children living in nonnuclear families.” The study defines “nuclear family” as one that “consists of one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family.”
In a September 19, 2012 interview with WND Radio, Blackwell spoke about the August 15, 2012 shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in Washington, D.C. According to the criminal complaint, shooter Floyd Lee Corkins II entered the building and encountered the building manager, Leo Johnson. Corkins "stated words to the effect of, 'I don't like your politics,'" a witness told FBI agents. Corkins then pulled a firearm from his backpack and shot Johnson in the arm. Johnson, though injured, wrestled the firearm away from Corkins and subdued him. Blackwell is the Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the FRC. In the interview, Blackwell was asked if he knew of any connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the shooter, Floyd Corkins. Blackwell replied, “Well [Corkins] mentioned that he was not attacking Leo [Johnson] personally but he was attacking us because we were a hate group. And the Southern Poverty Law Center has mislabeled the FRC a hate group because of our stance on traditional marriage and our strong defense of the pro-life ethic in this country … We are asking [the SPLC] to cease and desist. Look, religious liberty is the most profound of our human rights. Without religious freedom people exist only as political or economic entities not as free human beings. Religious liberty, in our view, is the first of all human rights for it implies the dignity of the human conscious. So, one’s faith is one’s most profound level of personhood. And so we think not only FRC but all those who believe in American exceptionalism, because we understand that our rights come from God not from the state, should rally behind this call for the Southern Poverty Law Center to cease and desist for mislabeling people as being haters because they stand for biblical truth … Look, President Obama…is determined to transform our family-centered society into a government-centered society … But I think the transformation [President Obama] is most wedded to is that he wants to transform our national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God to one founded upon the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of central government. That’s why every day of his presidency he has done whatever it takes to undermine the Constitution and to empower a strong central or federal government which, by definition, has to be predicated on the weakening and destruction of the family and chasing God and faith out of the public square or, at minimum, silencing the church.” The SPLC stated in a September 13, 2012 press release that it does not list FRC as a hate group because of its opposition to gay marriage or its religious beliefs, but, “instead, we list the FRC because it engages in baseless, incendiary name-calling and spreads demonizing lies about the LGBT community. The FRC portrays gay people as sick, evil, perverted, incestuous and a danger to the nation. It insists that gay people are ‘fundamentally incapable’ of providing good homes for children–a myth that has been rejected by all relevant scientific authorities. One of its key leaders has actually said that homosexual behavior should be criminalized. Perhaps the FRC’s most dangerous lie is its claim that pedophilia is a ‘homosexual problem.’"
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In a September 7, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Blackwell stated, “Trim and silvered, [Bill Clinton] strode onstage to his own campaign song: Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow. For liberals, it's always tomorrow. For the left, generally, tomorrow is a lot more fun than today. Vperiod! Forward! That was Lenin's cry at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. They were always summoning their people to look beyond the suffering of today and think about the ‘shining heights’ of socialism just ahead. Keep marching. No one ever dared to mention there is such a thing as marching toward a mirage.”
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In a September 5, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “The [Democratic] party was clearly embarrassed because its platform [at the Democratic National Convention] failed to mention God and overlooked the party’s historic support for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel … So now, the Democratic platform has been changed. Are we satisfied? Does anyone think that a party that has to be arm-wrestled into acknowledging God is sincere? What we saw on the convention floor in Charlotte was the real Democratic Party. It was hostile to religion.” The platform at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) originally did not include the words “God” or “Jerusalem.” On September 5, Los Angeles Mayor and Chairman of the DNC Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion on the floor of the DNC to revise the platform to include the word “God” and affirm Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Such action requires a two-thirds vote by convention delegates. Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor claimed that one could not audibly hear two-thirds of the delegates say “aye.” Villaraigosa nonetheless declared the amendment had been approved. Any delegate who objected to the process could have made a formal challenge within ten minutes of the vote. No formal challenge was made.
In a September 5, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “As President, Barack Obama has loosened the strict work requirements [for welfare] that state governors—including conservative Republicans like John Sununu of New Hampshire and moderate Democrats Bill Clinton of Arkansas—worked for a decade to put in place … Paul Ryan was right to describe Barack Obama's America [in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida]: ‘Where everything is free but us.’ Americans should appeal to President Obama to turn back from the path to soft despotism. We should remember that a government big enough to give us everything we want is strong enough to take all we have—including liberty.” During a period of economic recession, governors from Utah, Nevada, California, Connecticut and Minnesota asked the federal government for more flexibility in how they give out welfare money. The Obama administration granted them waiver that gave them “some flexibility in how [those states] manage their welfare rolls as long as it produced 20% increases in the number of people [receiving welfare] getting work." Former President Bill Clinton defended President Obama’s actions, stating that the administration had taken steps to ensure work requirements for welfare recipients were maintained.
In a September 4, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “Froward is admittedly an archaic word, but it’s a very good one. It describes what is actually happening in that Democratic platform with respect—or should I say with disrespect?—to marriage. ‘Froward’ is defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as ‘habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition.’ When Democrats convene today in Charlotte, North Carolina, to formally adopt their platform, they will be giving in to disobedience and opposition. Voters in the Tar Heel State strongly endorsed true marriage just last May. Like voters in 31 other states, the people are saying loud and clear: Don’t mess with true marriage. But the party bigs are defiant, determined to shove counterfeit marriage down the throats of the people.” Turning to the issue of minority voters, Blackwell stated, “North Carolina’s black voters backed true marriage by a margin of two to one … What can Democratic Party delegates in Charlotte be thinking? How can they imagine that ending marriage as we know it is a good posture to take in the teeth of such determined opposition from their most loyal group of supporters?” Blackwell was referring to a North Carolina constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and banned the recognition of any other type of “domestic legal union.” The amendment was approved in May 2012.
In an August 30, 2012 interview with MRCTV, a division of the Media Research Center, Blackwell stated, “President Obama and now the Democratic Party has embraced a national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the national government as opposed to our national philosophy held by most Americans founded upon the primacy of the individual and the centrality and the supremacy of God.” The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibited the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
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In an August 28, 2012 interview with The Hill, Blackwell made references to controversial remarks made by U.S. Representative Todd Akin (R-MO). On August 19, 2012, Akin commented on the issue of pregnancy induced by rape, stating, “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Later, Akin publicly stated that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan had personally asked him to end his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also announced that even if Akin, who was trailing Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in two recent polls, managed to pull even with her, "We're not going to send him a penny." Commenting on this imbroglio, Blackwell stated, "I think it was a mistake not to get the leaders in Missouri lined up before [GOP national leadership] went up and looked overly heavy-handed in the way they were pushing [Akin] … I've encouraged people at the Senatorial Committee to wait about five days and do a poll and see if things have stabilized. If things have, they might want to readjust. Senatorial committees can do anything. It is not as if some of the damage they've done can be papered over but they can reverse themselves on it."
In an August 27, 2012 interview with Fox News Radio, Blackwell spoke about Voter ID laws. He stated, “Over the past 40 years, most of case law in elections have been focused on the franchise, making it easier for folks to cast their ballots. In the last four to six years, there’s been a focus on the other voting right and that is the right to be protected against a fraudulent vote cancelling out your legal vote … I do a lot of work with Judicial Watch, and Judicial Watch’s studies show that of the 1.3 million voter registrations gathered by Project Vote and ACORN, over 400,000 of those were fraudulent.” Radio host Bob Davis asked Blackwell why Democrats argue there is no fraud in elections. Blackwell replied, “They try to cast it as a voter suppression effort. Again, the facts will fly in the face of those misdirected concerns … In 2004, Georgia, a Southern state that had a history in terms of slavery and the black codes, etc … They implemented a voter ID law in the state of Georgia, everyone said this was voter suppression, this was geared to suppress the black and Latino vote in particular. Well, in 2008, the Latino vote went up from 18,000 to 19,000 … More importantly, there was an increase in the black vote of 42% … In American culture, in American life, having an ID is nothing that’s burdensome. We have an ID for a driver’s license. If you wanna get a library book, if you wanna receive a medical license … We must understand that what the Democrats and the left, in particular, are doing is using this notion of voter suppression to [drum] up anxiety in their base. They’re trying to convert this legitimate effort to protect the integrity of the ballot box into a way to mobilize their base by mischaracterizing as an attempt to throw us back into Jim Crow era.” Blackwell referred to ACORN, a community activist organization and its affiliate, Project Vote. After the 2008 election, the John McCain (R-AZ) campaign accused the group of perpetrating “massive voter fraud.” Neither ACORN nor its employees have ever been found guilty of—or even charged with—casting fraudulent votes. Several ACORN canvassers have been found guilty of faking registration forms. The evidence shows that the canvassers faked the forms to get paid for work they didn’t do, not to stuff ballot boxes. A report by the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress, stated that there were no instances of individuals who were allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN or its employees and who were reported "attempting to vote at the polls." Blackwell also referred to the effect of a voter ID law on voting in Georgia in the 2008 election. In the 2008 election, more than 50,000 residents were purged from the Georgia voter rolls because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. Furthermore, voter ID laws in Texas, North Carolina, and Florida have been challenged in court by the Department of Justice over allegations that they disenfranchise minorities. In July of 2012, the DOJ began investigating Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law to determine whether it discriminates against minorities.
In an August 24, 2012 interview on "Washington Watch Weekly", Blackwell stated, “President [Barack] Obama and his party want to transform our market economy into a government-controlled economy but most importantly, they are dead set on making sure that they transform our national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God to one founded on the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the central government. Our document, the GOP document, is a direct contrast; it provides the American people with a choice, not an echo. That is so important because there are two paths that we can go down: we can reinforce our fundamental belief that when we are God-centered, free men and free women and free markets can accomplish much and overcome most hurdles thrown in our way or do we want to go down the path of being a government-controlled economy, destroying families, replacing it with bureaucrat decision makers that would run afoul of what the founders of this nation envisioned 237 years ago … In our 237th year as being an exceptional nation we are at risk of losing it all. We just can’t afford to have four more years of a President that one, doesn’t understand the nature of our exceptionalism, and two, has a worldview and a set of guiding principles that are in direct contradiction with what has made us an exceptional nation. I’ve always enjoyed the push and pull of the whole process, I think it’s now incumbent upon us to make sure that this is not a document that is put on the shelf and our candidates across the country can just let collect dust and ignore. There is a fault line from the Pacific to the Atlantic and one side are those who believe in big government and who believe that the family and God can be replaced by a supreme state government, and that’s a problem.” The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibited the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
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In an August 24, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Determined to do [sic] follow what is ‘inevitable,’ very liberal delegates [at the Democratic National Convention] will embrace platform proposals that will spell the end of marriage. Do they fully realize what they are doing? If your only requirement for a marriage is that people love each other, have a committed relationship to each other, and that they give their consent, then you cannot bar twins from marrying. Once you've permitted identical twins to marry, how can you bar twin brother and sister from marrying? They love each other. They have a committed relationship. None of us has had such a biological bond since before birth with our own spouses. Vice President Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act as a U.S. Senator. Now, of course, he says that he is not influenced by his many years as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, he takes his guidance on marriage from Hollywood, specifically from the comedy series, Will and Grace. If Hollywood producers are to set the standard for constitutional law in our country, then marriage will be ended, to be sure. For Hollywood has given us another series, Big Love. It's an HBO production about polygamy. It's pretty favorable toward polygamy, they tell me … Is this really where Democrats want to go? Do their very progressive delegates think the voters at the grassroots will approve their lurch to the progressive extremes?” Blackwell continued, stating, “Minorities give strong support to true marriage. In North Carolina, black and Hispanic voters provided the winning margin for marriage … Marriage is not a wedge issue, it's a bridge issue. It's the way Republicans can embrace minorities and immigrants.”
In an August 24, 2012 op-ed for World Magazine, Blackwell wrote, “Happily, the Republican Platform Committee this week sidestepped the issue of civil unions. Committee members reaffirmed the party's historic support for true marriage. That's a good thing because, from the government's perspective, all our marriages are civil unions. And government has a duty to protect the civil institution of marriage. What some call a civil union-as a softer way to grant same-sex couples all the rights of marriage without the name of marriage-is merely a slow-motion surrender on the critical issue of marriage. Governments cannot sanctify marriage, but governments can and should protect the civil institution of marriage. True marriage … We have seen many examples of the ways in which defenders of marriage will lose their civil rights if marriage itself is abolished. If 61 percent of North Carolina voters last May had voted to end true marriage in that state instead of affirming it, we could have been sure that the very next semester schoolchildren in the Tar Heel State would have been proselytized in the early grades for the new definition of marriage. This is what happened in Massachusetts. When parents of public schoolchildren object, they will be the ones singled out for threats, ridicule, and possibly even government sanctions … Those who want to end marriage as we know it often cite the famed U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia (1967). In that case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for a unanimous court when he struck down a state law that barred men and women from different races from legally marrying. We agree with that opinion. We, too, believe that marriage is a fundamental civil right of Americans. And we also agree with Earl Warren's view that true marriage is necessary for the survival of society. Chief Justice Warren did not have to say true marriage-between one man and one woman. It was understood. It must still be so understood. The civil rights of all Americans must be defended … Keeping marriage alive requires hard work. And it needs government support. What we are saying is that true marriage must survive for America to survive. We are saying preserve Americans' civil right of marriage if we want America to climb back from the abyss of economic decline and social decay.” On the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, Mildred Loving, one of the plaintiffs in the case, stated, “I believe all Americans, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry … I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”
In an August 21, 2012 op-ed for Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote, “This election now turns on whether a critical mass of American voters have arrived at the undeniable conclusion that if we do not fundamentally transform the three major entitlements for younger Americans then it will not be there for them at all (or even for those who will soon rely upon them), and that if we do not balance the federal budget it will cause an economic catastrophe … [If] President Obama wins a second term, and claims it as a mandate not to curb spending or entitlements … by November 2016 voters should have no doubt what must be done, and realize that liberals offer only blame and denial, while conservatives offer solutions.” To balance the budget, as he has promised, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would have to cut $9.6 trillion from non-defense discretionary spending. Romney would also increase defense spending to $7.9 trillion between 2013 and 2022. Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget plan would cut $5.2 trillion from entitlements and non-defense discretionary spending while increasing defend spending to $5.7 trillion between 2013 and 2022.
In an August 20, 2012 op-ed for Huffington Post, Blackwell advised President Barack Obama to replace Joe Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election, stating, “Imagine if Hillary could be summoned from whatever international conference she's headed to. Envision her State Department jet being re-routed in mid-air for her to appear on the platform next to her onetime rival, just in time to let hubby [former president] Bill [Clinton] announce the new Obama-Clinton ticket to the world. Joe Biden could be put back on that State Department jet as the newly minted Secretary of State. Not a bad shown-the-door prize for the man who is forever stepping on rakes. Now, in all candor, we have already gone on record calling Hillary America's worst Secretary of State. But she couldn't be our worst vice president. As long as Joe Biden's around, that title is safe.”
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In an August 2, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “[President Barack Obama] announced early in his administration that he would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He has done everything he can in the last three and a half years to dismantle the law. It is a process not unlike termites eating away at the foundations of a house. Until just a few weeks ago, he apparently hoped that the law would collapse as he systematically undermined its foundations. It didn't. So President Obama, prompted no doubt by Vice President Biden's blurted out support for counterfeiting marriage, has ‘evolved.’” Blackwell was referring to Biden’s May 6, 2012 appearance on “Meet the Press” where he stated, “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights.” Biden’s statement came several days before President Obama’s public endorsement of same-sex marriage on May 9, 2012. Blackwell continued, stating, “Democrats have announced they will put same sex marriage in their platform when they meet in convention in Charlotte, North Carolina … If the Democrats' platform embraces this radical proposal, they will be voting to end marriage, not change it. If you say a man may marry a man, and a woman may marry a woman, then on what principled basis can you say three men may not marry?”
In a July 23, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about President Barack Obama’s “’covert zeal’ for abortion.” He stated, “Abraham Lincoln faced a similar problem in 1854 when he spoke of the ‘covert zeal’ of President Franklin Pierce and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas for the spread of slavery. These leading Democrats never said they were in favor of slavery. They simply viewed the right of whites to choose slavery for blacks as a ‘sacred principle of self-government’ … President Obama doesn’t talk about abortion much … President Obama has been the most pro-abortion president in history … From his first public office, he has been an advocate for abortion-on-demand. He led the fight in the Illinois State Senate to deny protection for newborn children who survive abortion attempts. These children are U.S. citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. And just as too many states denied ‘equal protection of the laws’ to black Americans under a century of unjust Jim Crow laws, Barack Obama denied protection of Illinois laws to newborns in the Land of Lincoln because they had been targeted for abortion.” Then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama voted against the state’s “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” in 2001, 2002, and 2004, because in his words, “Whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a… nine-month-old…child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.” Blackwell wrote, “From his first day in office until now, President Obama has quietly but vigorously pushed the abortion agenda. He records promotional videos for Planned Parenthood. This group kills 340,000 of the more than1,200,000 unborn children killed each year by abortion. Under Obamacare, they will be able to kill millions more.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
In a July 13, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “[President Barack] Obama announced on July 6 in Ohio that this election is about a ‘clash of visions’ about the role of government in our lives ... If he wins, he will claim a mandate and take federal power to heights we’ve never seen.” In reference to a June 28, 2012 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Blackwell stated, “We can no longer be confident that the Supreme Court will stop him. Liberty endures only when each branch fully and fearlessly checks and balances the other two branches. Abdicating judicial review empowers President Obama to subvert the Constitution with an imperial presidency, and fundamentally transform the United States to the detriment of future generations.”
In a July 13, 2012 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “[President Barack] Obama announced on July 6 in Ohio that this election is about a ‘clash of visions’ about the role of government in our lives ... If he wins, he will claim a mandate and take federal power to heights we’ve never seen.” In reference to a June 28, 2012 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Blackwell stated, “We can no longer be confident that the Supreme Court will stop him. Liberty endures only when each branch fully and fearlessly checks and balances the other two branches. Abdicating judicial review empowers President Obama to subvert the Constitution with an imperial presidency, and fundamentally transform the United States to the detriment of future generations.”
In a July 6, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “We are now told by the Supreme Court of our day that millions have come to ‘rely’ on abortion and therefore we must accept it. But did not millions then ‘rely’ on slavery? Today, 71% of pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. For those who view the fate of unborn children as "above their pay grade," that 71% pre-natal death rate is not enough. Today, Obamacare threatens to trample liberty underfoot in its drive to force acceptance of abortion on Catholic and non-Catholic institutions that try to defend innocent human lives. What was wrong in slavery is what is wrong in abortion: It denies to members of our human family their rightful place at the national celebration of the Glorious Fourth. It says we will celebrate as your lives ebb away … Lincoln said it well: If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. We agree. And if abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” It is unclear where Blackwell got his statistics regarding pregnancies in Harlem—he did not provide any source.
Sources [1]
In a July 6, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “We are now told by the Supreme Court of our day that millions have come to ‘rely’ on abortion and therefore we must accept it. But did not millions then ‘rely’ on slavery? Today, 71% of pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. For those who view the fate of unborn children as "above their pay grade," that 71% pre-natal death rate is not enough. Today, Obamacare threatens to trample liberty underfoot in its drive to force acceptance of abortion on Catholic and non-Catholic institutions that try to defend innocent human lives. What was wrong in slavery is what is wrong in abortion: It denies to members of our human family their rightful place at the national celebration of the Glorious Fourth. It says we will celebrate as your lives ebb away … Lincoln said it well: If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. We agree. And if abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” It is unclear where Blackwell got his statistics regarding pregnancies in Harlem—he did not provide any source.
Sources [1]
In a July 6, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “We are now told by the Supreme Court of our day that millions have come to ‘rely’ on abortion and therefore we must accept it. But did not millions then ‘rely’ on slavery? Today, 71% of pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. For those who view the fate of unborn children as "above their pay grade," that 71% pre-natal death rate is not enough. Today, Obamacare threatens to trample liberty underfoot in its drive to force acceptance of abortion on Catholic and non-Catholic institutions that try to defend innocent human lives. What was wrong in slavery is what is wrong in abortion: It denies to members of our human family their rightful place at the national celebration of the Glorious Fourth. It says we will celebrate as your lives ebb away … Lincoln said it well: If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. We agree. And if abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” It is unclear where Blackwell got his statistics regarding pregnancies in Harlem—he did not provide any source.
Sources [1]
In a July 2012 article for Loop 21 on the pros and cons of “Stand Your Ground” laws, Blackwell was asked why he thought the Commission on Civil Rights was investigating them for racial bias. “Stand Your Ground” laws generated national controversy when unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by concealed handgun permit holder George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012. The National Rifle Association helped to author the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida and promoted it aggressively there and in many other states. Blackwell stated, “Michael Yaki is a member of the commission. Mr. Yaki is an anti-Second Amendment lawyer, who has been pushing for the investigation ... If anything, [the law] benefits racial minorities more.” In June 2012, the Tampa Bay Times identified nearly 200 “Stand Your Ground” cases in Florida and determined that 73 percent of those who killed a black person faced no punishment, compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white person. When asked why he thought “Stand Your Ground” was being challenged, Blackwell responded, “I have no idea why anyone would challenge this point of view, unless they foolishly think we can grow a government big enough to protect all of us, all of the time.” He replied to a question about the cons of the law, stating, “There are none.”
In a July 2012 article for Loop 21 on the pros and cons of “Stand Your Ground” laws, Blackwell was asked why he thought the Commission on Civil Rights was investigating them for racial bias. “Stand Your Ground” laws generated national controversy when unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by concealed handgun permit holder George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012. The National Rifle Association helped to author the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida and promoted it aggressively there and in many other states. Blackwell stated, “Michael Yaki is a member of the commission. Mr. Yaki is an anti-Second Amendment lawyer, who has been pushing for the investigation ... If anything, [the law] benefits racial minorities more.” In June 2012, the Tampa Bay Times identified nearly 200 “Stand Your Ground” cases in Florida and determined that 73 percent of those who killed a black person faced no punishment, compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white person. When asked why he thought “Stand Your Ground” was being challenged, Blackwell responded, “I have no idea why anyone would challenge this point of view, unless they foolishly think we can grow a government big enough to protect all of us, all of the time.” He replied to a question about the cons of the law, stating, “There are none.”
On June 25, 2012, Herman Cain, former 2012 Republican presidential candidate, released an advertisement in which he and Ken Blackwell defended a Florida’s Voter ID law. Blackwell asked, “Why is [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder demanding that Florida stop removing illegal voters from their rolls/a>?” Blackwell was making reference to a Department of Justice lawsuit which challenged the Florida law because of allegations that it disenfranchises minorities. Blackwell further boasted, “As Secretary of State of Ohio, I was responsible for the integrity of the vote.” In 2004, while serving as the Secretary of State of Ohio and co-chair of the “Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush,” Blackwell was the defendant in 16 lawsuits that alleged he disenfranchised Ohio voters.
On June 25, 2012, Herman Cain, former 2012 Republican presidential candidate, released an advertisement in which he and Ken Blackwell defended a Florida’s Voter ID law. Blackwell asked, “Why is [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder demanding that Florida stop removing illegal voters from their rolls/a>?” Blackwell was making reference to a Department of Justice lawsuit which challenged the Florida law because of allegations that it disenfranchises minorities. Blackwell further boasted, “As Secretary of State of Ohio, I was responsible for the integrity of the vote.” In 2004, while serving as the Secretary of State of Ohio and co-chair of the “Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush,” Blackwell was the defendant in 16 lawsuits that alleged he disenfranchised Ohio voters.
In a June 19, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In 2010 [Director of the Center for Religious Liberty Ken Klukowski and I] published a book [“The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency”] arguing that Barack Obama was creating an imperial presidency. The past few months prove that prediction was correct.” He continued, “The Constitution vests all lawmaking power in Congress. It vests all executive power to enforce and administer those laws in the president. And it vests all judicial power—including the power to determine whether lesser laws violate the Supreme Law (the Constitution)—in the courts … President Obama has arrogated to himself all of those powers. If Congress doesn't make the laws he wants, he just declares them under the name of ‘regulations.’ If he doesn't like a law on the books, he acts like the judiciary by proclaiming the law unconstitutional, and refuses to enforce it. He effectively makes or abolishes laws at will.” Finally, Blackwell warned, “This president has engaged in a series of unprecedented power grabs during his term of office. The past week's amnesty plan [for the American-born children of immigrants] is just the latest in a long train of imperial abuses. And he's done all this knowing he still has to stand for reelection. Can you even imagine how far he will go if he wins reelection and knows he will never again be held to account?”
In a June 19, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In 2010 [Director of the Center for Religious Liberty Ken Klukowski and I] published a book [“The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency”] arguing that Barack Obama was creating an imperial presidency. The past few months prove that prediction was correct.” He continued, “The Constitution vests all lawmaking power in Congress. It vests all executive power to enforce and administer those laws in the president. And it vests all judicial power—including the power to determine whether lesser laws violate the Supreme Law (the Constitution)—in the courts … President Obama has arrogated to himself all of those powers. If Congress doesn't make the laws he wants, he just declares them under the name of ‘regulations.’ If he doesn't like a law on the books, he acts like the judiciary by proclaiming the law unconstitutional, and refuses to enforce it. He effectively makes or abolishes laws at will.” Finally, Blackwell warned, “This president has engaged in a series of unprecedented power grabs during his term of office. The past week's amnesty plan [for the American-born children of immigrants] is just the latest in a long train of imperial abuses. And he's done all this knowing he still has to stand for reelection. Can you even imagine how far he will go if he wins reelection and knows he will never again be held to account?”
In a June 15, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote “Recognizing same-sex couplings as marriages will mean the end of marriage. That's because saying yes to two men or two women marrying opens the door to polygamy … With same-sex couplings and polygamous arrangements recognized, where would that leave marriage? Ended, that's where. When everyone can marry, no one can marry. There is no marriage left. Advocates for same-sex couplings have never agreed to bar polygamous groups being granted marriage rights. After all, if ‘marriage equality’ is the real goal, then three or four marital partners are even more equal than two.” Blackwell continued, stating, “Much media talk about how young people support same-sex couplings does not translate into votes. There is a silenced minority here. Young people are constantly told it's not cool to be against same-sex demands. With Americans waiting longer to get married, it should not surprise us that the youth cohort is the least supportive of true marriage. They're not married yet.” He urged, “Defenders of true marriage need to be equally bold in speaking with younger audiences. Candidates need to tell the young the truth: that if they support marriage rights for same-sex couplings, they will be voting to end marriage … The young, according to all polls, are disproportionately pro-life … We need to share with the young this hopeful message: Marriage is the best protector for unborn children that we have. Four out of five unborn children who are killed in abortion are the children of single parents. If you really care about unborn children, protect the institution that best protects them.”
In a June 15, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote “Recognizing same-sex couplings as marriages will mean the end of marriage. That's because saying yes to two men or two women marrying opens the door to polygamy … With same-sex couplings and polygamous arrangements recognized, where would that leave marriage? Ended, that's where. When everyone can marry, no one can marry. There is no marriage left. Advocates for same-sex couplings have never agreed to bar polygamous groups being granted marriage rights. After all, if ‘marriage equality’ is the real goal, then three or four marital partners are even more equal than two.” Blackwell continued, stating, “Much media talk about how young people support same-sex couplings does not translate into votes. There is a silenced minority here. Young people are constantly told it's not cool to be against same-sex demands. With Americans waiting longer to get married, it should not surprise us that the youth cohort is the least supportive of true marriage. They're not married yet.” He urged, “Defenders of true marriage need to be equally bold in speaking with younger audiences. Candidates need to tell the young the truth: that if they support marriage rights for same-sex couplings, they will be voting to end marriage … The young, according to all polls, are disproportionately pro-life … We need to share with the young this hopeful message: Marriage is the best protector for unborn children that we have. Four out of five unborn children who are killed in abortion are the children of single parents. If you really care about unborn children, protect the institution that best protects them.”
In a June 12, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote about liberal talk show host Bill Press, who had expressed his distaste for the National Anthem a week earlier. “What is it with liberals that they are forever saying and doing things that lead people to question their patriotism—and then they howl in rage when folks question their patriotism?” Blackwell asked. He continued, stating, “Consider Barack Obama, the most liberal president in history. In 2007, then-Sen. Obama was campaigning in the Heartland. At the famous Iowa State Fair, he raised eyebrows when he failed to place his hand over his heart during the National Anthem … Only in an Obama Nation could the lyrics of our National Anthem be ‘an abomination.’ The Star-Spangled Banner calls us ‘the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.’ Those words inspire us all to action—to keep this Home of Freedom free.”
In a May 29, 2012 speech at the American Religious Freedom Program Conference, Blackwell called a January 2012 Obama administration announcement about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “one of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom.” The administration was declaring that employers would be required to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. Blackwell warned, “Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant … There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation. More tells his prosecutors: ‘I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.’ Thank God, we have not gotten to that point. But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics—this divide-and-conquer strategy—to succeed. If the [Department of Health and Human Services] can that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?”
In a May 29, 2012 speech at the American Religious Freedom Program Conference, Blackwell called a January 2012 Obama administration announcement about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “one of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom.” The administration was declaring that employers would be required to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. Blackwell warned, “Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant … There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation. More tells his prosecutors: ‘I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.’ Thank God, we have not gotten to that point. But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics—this divide-and-conquer strategy—to succeed. If the [Department of Health and Human Services] can that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?”
In a May 29, 2012 speech at the American Religious Freedom Program Conference, Blackwell called a January 2012 Obama administration announcement about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “one of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom.” The administration was declaring that employers would be required to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. Blackwell warned, “Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant … There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation. More tells his prosecutors: ‘I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.’ Thank God, we have not gotten to that point. But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics—this divide-and-conquer strategy—to succeed. If the [Department of Health and Human Services] can that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?”
In a May 9, 2012 op-ed for the Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote “Elections are about choices, and 2012's pivotal election showcases two very different visions for America's future.” President Barack Obama’s vision for America’s future, Blackwell claimed, is one in which “government usurps the place of family. Big Brother becomes Big Father who brings home the bacon through government entitlements covering everything from housing, to education, to food (stamps), to government-run healthcare. You need have faith in government alone, as the collective state becomes the god in whom you trust and from whom you receive your daily bread. And they replace the family unit with the state, undermining the foundational unit of civilization.”
In a May 9, 2012 op-ed for World Community, Blackwell accused President Barack Obama of being a “full-blown advocate of abolishing marriage.” He referred to efforts at the state to level to ban same-sex marriage as evidence that “Americans overwhelmingly do not agree that marriage should be ended.” According to Blackwell, that would be the result if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. “Three men marrying?” Blackwell wrote. “Two men and a woman? If everyone can marry, then no one can marry, thus ending marriage as we know it.”
In an April 26, 2012 op-ed for The Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about “the secularization of Martin Luther King Jr,” stating, “So, since Rev. King and religion are inseparable, why are some people so quick to hide Dr. King’s religiosity? We would expect this type of careful ideological manipulation of history in the tyrannical states of the former Soviet Union or North Korea, but how does this happen in America? Sadly, I believe this is another example of how the secular left is winning the culture war. By driving religion out of the public square and re-writing the history books, they are erasing the invaluable role religion has played in our country’s history.” He continued, “By eliminating religion, the secular left is using the force of law to build its own type of warped, unholy church which is highly dogmatic and mandates participation under the threat of force … With the Obama administration’s openly hostile approach to religion, we have a government forcing members of religious institutions to participate in acts that violate their consciences, such as providing contraception and abortion services. All churches in Obama’s America are subservient to the whims of government bureaucrats, who are exercising power far outside the limits of our Constitution.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. The Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
In an April 26, 2012 op-ed for The Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about “the secularization of Martin Luther King Jr,” stating, “So, since Rev. King and religion are inseparable, why are some people so quick to hide Dr. King’s religiosity? We would expect this type of careful ideological manipulation of history in the tyrannical states of the former Soviet Union or North Korea, but how does this happen in America? Sadly, I believe this is another example of how the secular left is winning the culture war. By driving religion out of the public square and re-writing the history books, they are erasing the invaluable role religion has played in our country’s history.” He continued, “By eliminating religion, the secular left is using the force of law to build its own type of warped, unholy church which is highly dogmatic and mandates participation under the threat of force … With the Obama administration’s openly hostile approach to religion, we have a government forcing members of religious institutions to participate in acts that violate their consciences, such as providing contraception and abortion services. All churches in Obama’s America are subservient to the whims of government bureaucrats, who are exercising power far outside the limits of our Constitution.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. The Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.
In a February 26, 2012 web appearance on The Daily Caller, Blackwell said of Democratic President Barack Obama, “What you see is a president that ignores the Constitution, an administration that ignores the Constitution. And he wants to build a federal court system in his own philosophy and in his own image, and thereby give him, and his administration, unbridled power.” Blackwell was then asked why some polls were indicating that African-American support was down for President Obama. He responded, “I remember being in graduate school and I read a work of a psychiatrist in the late 1800s and he was talking about the Antebellum south and slavery. And he said, ‘What people don’t understand is that you have a slave, and you have to worry about that slave running and bolting towards freedom. So your guarding and you put him in chains. And what you have is not a slave, you have a captive.’ He said, ‘When you can take off the chains and you can do away with the guards and that captive will not walk and walk outside of the area of prescription of slavery, you then have converted that captive to a slave.’ And he said, ‘There is a fear of freedom, that slaves, unlike captives, wont take the risk of bolting because all of us, slave and master alike, like homeostasis or equilibrium.’ And so one of the things that I’ve started to notice is that more and more young black people are willing to take the risk of being free, the risk of being not dependent on the government, and that is something, that’s a force that the pill of dependency, you know, cannot overtake by the Obama administration.”
In a February 26, 2012 web appearance on The Daily Caller, Blackwell said of Democratic President Barack Obama, “What you see is a president that ignores the Constitution, an administration that ignores the Constitution. And he wants to build a federal court system in his own philosophy and in his own image, and thereby give him, and his administration, unbridled power.” Blackwell was then asked why some polls were indicating that African-American support was down for President Obama. He responded, “I remember being in graduate school and I read a work of a psychiatrist in the late 1800s and he was talking about the Antebellum south and slavery. And he said, ‘What people don’t understand is that you have a slave, and you have to worry about that slave running and bolting towards freedom. So your guarding and you put him in chains. And what you have is not a slave, you have a captive.’ He said, ‘When you can take off the chains and you can do away with the guards and that captive will not walk and walk outside of the area of prescription of slavery, you then have converted that captive to a slave.’ And he said, ‘There is a fear of freedom, that slaves, unlike captives, wont take the risk of bolting because all of us, slave and master alike, like homeostasis or equilibrium.’ And so one of the things that I’ve started to notice is that more and more young black people are willing to take the risk of being free, the risk of being not dependent on the government, and that is something, that’s a force that the pill of dependency, you know, cannot overtake by the Obama administration.”
In a February 22, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The term ‘Southern Strategy’ was invented by liberals in 1968 to attack their partisan opponents in the Republican Party, then led by Richard Nixon.” In fact, it was Republican President Richard Nixon’s political strategist, Kevin Phillips, who popularized the practice. The “Southern Strategy” involved exploiting white racism against African-Americans to drum up Republican votes, and was first used by Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. Blackwell added, “We who defend true [heterosexual] marriage are equally committed to civil rights. We strongly believe that marriage is a civil right—and that overturning true marriage will cause grave harm to all Americans, not the least to the poor and to minorities.”
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In a February 7, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post where Blackwell urged Israel to immediately launch a military attack against Iran, he also claimed that the administration of President Barack Obama “is outraged by the sight of too many Jews in Jerusalem.”
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In a February 2, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell lamented that complaints by civil rights organizations led retired General Jerry Boykin to withdraw from speaking at the West Point military academy’s annual prayer breakfast. Blackwell wrote, “The Obama administration's hostility toward religion—and especially Christians—continues even to the detriment of our men and women in uniform.” Boykin is an anti-Muslim hardliner who has described the War on Terror as a “Christian battle against Satan” (a statement that was repudiated by President George W. Bush). He has also called Islam “a totalitarian way of life” and has argued that the First Amendment, which protects the free practice of religion, does not apply to Islam. A statement by VoteVets.org alleged that Boykin’s presence at the prayer breakfast would “put our troops in danger.” Blackwell called Boykin “an ideal choice” to speak at a prayer event held at a military academy. He went on to write, “This sad episode is yet another example of the Obama administration's ongoing hostility to people of faith,” despite the fact that the Obama administration played no role in the controversy.
In a January 30, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President Obama has relentlessly pushed abortion at home and abroad. Obamacare is the most massive expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Under Obamacare, health care coverage will include abortion. Thus, we will all be forced to pay for the killing of unborn children.” In reality, the signing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” did not alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion. Blackwell also added, “The president is concerned, he tells us, about education. We must all share that concern. But he has taken over college loans, an unprecedented power grab. He does this even as his administration is menacing the liberty of every private and religious college in America. If your college does not want to push condoms in the dorms or dispense abortion-producing drugs [birth control] at Student Health, the Obama administration threatens you with action.”
In a January 30, 2012 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President Obama has relentlessly pushed abortion at home and abroad. Obamacare is the most massive expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Under Obamacare, health care coverage will include abortion. Thus, we will all be forced to pay for the killing of unborn children.” In reality, the signing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” did not alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion. Blackwell also added, “The president is concerned, he tells us, about education. We must all share that concern. But he has taken over college loans, an unprecedented power grab. He does this even as his administration is menacing the liberty of every private and religious college in America. If your college does not want to push condoms in the dorms or dispense abortion-producing drugs [birth control] at Student Health, the Obama administration threatens you with action.”
In a December 31, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed support for Voter ID laws that have been accused by the Department of Justice and others of disenfranchising minorities. In a rant on the topic of race, he wrote, “The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he's brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing [sic] with such things, DOJ—is their champion. This is also seen in [Attorney General Eric] Holder's incessant playing of the race card. First he says we're a nation of cowards about race. Now that he's on the ropes for DOJ's scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they're both African-Americans.”
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In a December 31, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed support for Voter ID laws that have been accused by the Department of Justice and others of disenfranchising minorities. In a rant on the topic of race, he wrote, “The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he's brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing [sic] with such things, DOJ—is their champion. This is also seen in [Attorney General Eric] Holder's incessant playing of the race card. First he says we're a nation of cowards about race. Now that he's on the ropes for DOJ's scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they're both African-Americans.”
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In a December 24, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Nothing so threatens the middle class in America as Obamacare. If this is not repealed, middle income Americans will find themselves shackled to a government-provided health service that gets worse and worse and costs more and more … Worse, Obamacare forces middle income Americans to subsidize the killing of millions of unborn children. These children are the best hope of getting us out of this debt spiral.” In reality, the signing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” did not alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion. Blackwell also expressed amazement “that the canny TR [Teddy Roosevelt] invented” the phrase “the lunatic fringe” “101 years before the Occupy Wall Street crowd appeared on the scene.”
In a December 9, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act—a piece of legislation that allowed the residents of those states to determine whether slavery would be allowed inside their borders—“the original ‘pro-choice’ legislation.” He also added, “A year before his acceptance speech at Denver. Mr. Obama went before Planned Barrenhood and shackled himself to their sterile ideology of abortion-on-demand.”
In a December 9, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act—a piece of legislation that allowed the residents of those states to determine whether slavery would be allowed inside their borders—“the original ‘pro-choice’ legislation.” He also added, “A year before his acceptance speech at Denver. Mr. Obama went before Planned Barrenhood and shackled himself to their sterile ideology of abortion-on-demand.”
In a December 8, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Mr. Obama and his administration keep Planned Barrenhood in business—shoveling billions to their lethal efforts. Because of them, six in ten pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. There is no hope in that dread change.” In reality, only three percent of services provided by Planned Parenthood are related to abortion, with 90% of services aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancy
In a November 23, 2011 op-ed for the Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote, “Mr. Obama, as a candidate, had to bat away accusations that he was close, too close, to Rashid Khalidi, a radical Palestinian Arab intellectual.” Khalaidi is actually a Palestinian-American Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. President Barack Obama was acquainted with Khalaidi, but never consulted with him on matters of foreign policy. Blackwell also harshly criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement, writing, “the Occupy Wall Street crowd quickly descended to anti-Semitism. They are protesting income inequality, they say, but their cry of 99% against the 1% is a veiled reference to American Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the U.S. population.” Turning back to the President, he concluded, “Barack Obama's intellectual world is one in which [anti-colonialist Franz] Fanon, [linguist Noam] Chomsky, [historian Howard] Zinn, and those neo-Marxist thinkers hold sway. Only free societies can create enough surplus wealth to support such dissident scholars and their ‘myrmidons’ [hired ruffians] in the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their midst.”
Writing about Iran, Blackwell authored a November 12, 2011 op-ed for the American Thinker in which he declared, “For three years, Mr. Obama has tried to appease the world's number one terrorist regime. … Even the anti-Semitic Richard Nixon was there for Israel, when the chips were down during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Barack Obama's record makes him unmistakably the first anti-Israel president in our history.”
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Due to ongoing tensions between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands Islands, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in March 2010 that the United States will “facilitate them talking to each other.” “We’re not interested and have no real role in determining what they decide between the two of them, but we want them talking and we want them trying to resolve the outstanding issues between them,” she added. In response to Clinton’s statement, Blackwell authored a November 11, 2011 op-ed for the Huffington Post in which he stated, “By raising the subject of ‘talks’ about the Falklands, Mrs. Clinton is threatening a renewed war. We know Bill Clinton has lamented he did not have a war to assure his presidential greatness. Is Hillary hoping to be called upon to negotiate the Falklands matter so she, too, can cop a Nobel Prize? If she wins one for this, let's make it tin.” Blackwell also compared the Argentine military dictatorship that ordered the invasion of the Falklands to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests addressing income inequality in the United States by writing, “Think ‘Occupy Buenos Aires.’”
In a November 4, 2011 op-ed for World Magazine, Blackwell claimed that the “Respect Marriage Act,” which would repeal the “Defense of Marriage Act,” would “abolish marriage.” He also said of the bill, “While calling for ‘respect’ in the Orwellian sense, it would offer true marriage the same ‘respect’ President Obama showed to the body of Osama bin Laden—a hasty burial at sea after summarily being put to death.” Blackwell also claimed that legalizing gay marriage would lead to polygamy.
In a November 4, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell made a number of unverified claims about President Barack Obama’s policy towards Iran and claimed that the President “even sent Persian New Year greetings to the Iranian people and their dictatorial rulers.” In fact, President Obama sent a greeting only to the people of Iran. In that greeting, he compared the political situation in Iran to populist uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and stated, “Just as the people of the region have insisted that they have a choice in how they are governed, so do the governments of the region have a choice in their response. So far, the Iranian government has responded by demonstrating that it cares far more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people.”
In an October 29, 2011 op-ed for American Thinker, Blackwell cast doubt on the legitimacy of recent populist uprisings in the Middle East by writing, “It is a profound misunderstanding of democracy to think that merely by staging elections and showing off purple fingers of voters we can bring on a new order in Muslim lands. Edmund Burke said it well: ‘Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.’ Intemperate minds are what we see at work in the Arab Middle East. Opinion surveys throughout the region confirm that, by overwhelming majorities, the ‘voters’ for these sham democracies believe that those who convert from Islam must be put to death. As long as this grim reality exists, there will be no democracy in the region.”
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On October 27, 2011, Blackwell appeared on MSNBC host Chris Matthew’s Hardball show to express support for a Mississippi ballot initiative that would confer “personhood” at conception, a designation that would outlaw all abortion. In defense of the measure, Blackwell said, “I am not a doctor and I am not a lawyer, but I am one who believes in the human dignity of the human life no different than the Pope, no different then—God bless him—Jerry Falwell.” Falwell was a controversial televangelist who once noted, “As a Christian who has a theological perspective, I do not feel that rape and incest are moral grounds for abortion. I do not think that two wrongs make a right.”
In an October 20, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the United States government’s support of the ouster of Egyptian dictator Honsi Mubarak meant that, “American taxpayers [are] aiding the slaughter of Egypt's Christians.” He went on to call President Obama “the most anti-Israel president in our history and also, de facto, the most anti-Christian.” Blackwell’s claim was based on a tragic October 2011 event where Coptic Christian protesters threw molotov cocktails and fired weapons at the Egyptian military, which retaliated with deadly force. In the wake of the violence, Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf addressed the nation, saying, “I call on Egyptian people—Muslims and Christians, women and children, young men and elders—to hold their unity.” Blackwell also claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood—an organization that was a key component of the nonviolent uprising against Mubarak—“is known to use terror against its opponents.”
In an October 20, 2011 op-ed published by the Family Research Council, Blackwell addressed allegations of racial bias in SAT questions by writing, “Some fringe activists who push the test-optional approach denigrate the exams, claiming they are biased against minority groups, a false assertion that has been debunked thoroughly and is not accepted by mainstream educators and psychologists.” In contrast, a 2010 study published in the Harvard Educational Review found, “The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test and, consequently, all decisions based on its results. All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance—and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success—appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge.” The study confirmed earlier research that the SAT favors whites over African Americans who share a similar educational background and skill set.
In an October 20, 2011 op-ed published by the Family Research Council, Blackwell addressed allegations of racial bias in SAT questions by writing, “Some fringe activists who push the test-optional approach denigrate the exams, claiming they are biased against minority groups, a false assertion that has been debunked thoroughly and is not accepted by mainstream educators and psychologists.” In contrast, a 2010 study published in the Harvard Educational Review found, “The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test and, consequently, all decisions based on its results. All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance—and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success—appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge.” The study confirmed earlier research that the SAT favors whites over African Americans who share a similar educational background and skill set.
In an October 1, 2011 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell claimed that imposing a federal mandate that requires health care plans to cover contraceptives upon Franciscan University of Steubenville would destroy the institution. He added, “Chai Feldblum [an official in the Obama administration] is a tenured professor at Georgetown University Law School. This is the oldest Catholic university in the country. Ironically, Feldblum, is also a homosexual legal activist … The Obama administration is also the most anti-Catholic administration in American history. Never before have tens of millions of Catholic Americans been forced to subsidize the killing of unborn children with their taxes—as they are under ObamaCare. But now they are also forcing Catholic institutions to take part in the destruction of innocent human lives and the maiming of others by paying for abortifacients and sterilizations.”
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On September 22, 2011 it was announced that Blackwell, along with former Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, would serve as the two vice presidents for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA). Commenting on his selection, Blackwell said, “The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.” One month later, the NFRA endorsed former Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for president in the 2012 election.
On September 22, 2011 it was announced that Blackwell, along with former Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, would serve as the two vice presidents for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA). Commenting on his selection, Blackwell said, “The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.” One month later, the NFRA endorsed former Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for president in the 2012 election.
In an op-ed for the Patriot Post published on September 15, 2011, Blackwell called Palestine “Terroristan” and challenged science that supports the conclusion that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. Blackwell praised a Danish scientist who found a connection between solar activity and the earth’s temperature, adding, “It's worth noting that the Danes stood up to China on human rights, even when the Communists in Beijing threatened to crush Denmark ‘like a little bird.’ The Danes published those cartoons of you know who [Muhammad] that set off riots throughout the world by followers of the religion of peace.”
In an op-ed for the Patriot Post published on September 15, 2011, Blackwell called Palestine “Terroristan” and challenged science that supports the conclusion that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. Blackwell praised a Danish scientist who found a connection between solar activity and the earth’s temperature, adding, “It's worth noting that the Danes stood up to China on human rights, even when the Communists in Beijing threatened to crush Denmark ‘like a little bird.’ The Danes published those cartoons of you know who [Muhammad] that set off riots throughout the world by followers of the religion of peace.”
In a September 13, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell repeated sexist characterizations about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writing, “Mrs. Clinton has even been derided in liberal blogs as Barack Obama's ‘Saudi wife.’ Feminist editor Tina Brown went so far as to say she's been put in a ‘foreign policy burka.’ We don't have to follow the Washington Post's annual In/Out listings. Fashions come and go in the ‘Style Section,’ even burkas.” Blackwell also accused the Secretary of State—without evidence—of anti-Semitism—by stating, “Perhaps most offensive of all is Hillary Clinton's assignment of counting Jews in Jerusalem. Old Washington hands may remember that President Richard Nixon bitterly ordered one of his aides to count the Jews in the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The good man who took on that odious assignment has long since apologized and done penance. And the world has heard on the White House tapes Nixon's foul-mouthed rants and lashings out against the Jews.”
In a September 13, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell repeated sexist characterizations about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writing, “Mrs. Clinton has even been derided in liberal blogs as Barack Obama's ‘Saudi wife.’ Feminist editor Tina Brown went so far as to say she's been put in a ‘foreign policy burka.’ We don't have to follow the Washington Post's annual In/Out listings. Fashions come and go in the ‘Style Section,’ even burkas.” Blackwell also accused the Secretary of State—without evidence—of anti-Semitism—by stating, “Perhaps most offensive of all is Hillary Clinton's assignment of counting Jews in Jerusalem. Old Washington hands may remember that President Richard Nixon bitterly ordered one of his aides to count the Jews in the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The good man who took on that odious assignment has long since apologized and done penance. And the world has heard on the White House tapes Nixon's foul-mouthed rants and lashings out against the Jews.”
In a September 8, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that Congressman John Lewis (D-GA)—who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech—intended to incite violence within the crowd with his original planned speech. In the actual speech Lewis delivered that day, he called for the crowd to nonviolently support the civil rights movement by “march[ing] with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today.” Blackwell’s editorial portrayed a nonviolent, pro-union rally on Labor Day 2011 as “an incitement to riot.”
In a September 1, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell commented on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the foreign policy of President Barack Obama by writing, “She had to smile a forced smile and pretend there was nothing amiss. That's not a role that comes naturally to a miss like Hillary. Correction: A Ms.”
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In 2011, Blackwell appeared “Online with Terry Jeffrey.” Of President Barack Obama, he said, “I think the President is one who believes in collectivism. I think his preferred path is European-style socialism.” He also said, “The foundation [of the United States government] started with Moses receiving the Decalogue.” Blackwell added, “Tell me, in all of human history, tell me of any authoritarian government or regime, totalitarian government or regime, big welfare state government or regime, that hasn’t run God and faith out of the public square and hasn’t destroyed the family. When you destroy the family and when you and silence the church you create a void that is filled by the authority and totalitarianism of Big Government.” Speaking on his opposition to gay marriage, Blackwell said, “It goes back to one, not only our moral and biblical foundation of this country, it goes back to common sense economics and sociology. What we know, whether it was Patrick Daniel Moynihan or modern day economists like Walter Williams, the fact of the matter is that when you have strong families and you have role models of men and women in that marriage for young children [then] young children do better educationally, they do better economically, as does the family.” When asked whether it is wrong for married same-sex couples to have children, Blackwell said, “I think so. Do I think that having children experience the well-being and love of an adult community is better than having kids abandoned? Yeah. But I don’t think that should be mistaken for what is, one, the preferred, and two, the Biblically-sanctioned family. [Pope John Paul II] understood that equating any other coupling [other than man and woman] was wrong, and counterproductive, and ultimately destructive of a culture and a society. Even the Ancient Greeks, where they celebrated homosexuality, were not so stupid as to attack the bedrock of culture: the union between one man and one woman in holy matrimony.”
Blackwell authored an August 19, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, criticizing President Barack Obama’s role in the death of Osama bin Laden. He wrote that what was missing from the raid (ordered by President Obama) was “presidential leadership.” Blackwell further opined that, “The real reason why President Obama has hurriedly put the bin Laden raid behind him is the same reason why George McGovern could not point to his wonderful combat record, or even let others point to it: The Democratic Party houses a large and influential pacifist element.”
Blackwell authored an August 19, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, criticizing President Barack Obama’s role in the death of Osama bin Laden. He wrote that what was missing from the raid (ordered by President Obama) was “presidential leadership.” Blackwell further opined that, “The real reason why President Obama has hurriedly put the bin Laden raid behind him is the same reason why George McGovern could not point to his wonderful combat record, or even let others point to it: The Democratic Party houses a large and influential pacifist element.”
In an August 7, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Not Just Whistlin’ Dixie!” Blackwell wrote, “I'm especially proud of my home state of Ohio. In 2004, Buckeye voters approved a state constitutional amendment protecting [heterosexual] marriage by a thumping 62%. As the Ohio secretary of state at that time, I had to fend off attempts by liberals to throw the measure off the ballot … There is one region of the country where marriage is even more strongly supported: the South. In the ten states of the Old Confederacy where Americans have voted thus far, [heterosexual] marriage initiatives have averaged a stunning 71.44% support. North Carolina has just advanced a marriage initiative. If we are successful there, Tarheel voters will give new meaning to the Solid South.” The “Solid South” is a term for the southern states that voted as a bloc to preserve segregation.
In an August 7, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Not Just Whistlin’ Dixie!” Blackwell wrote, “I'm especially proud of my home state of Ohio. In 2004, Buckeye voters approved a state constitutional amendment protecting [heterosexual] marriage by a thumping 62%. As the Ohio secretary of state at that time, I had to fend off attempts by liberals to throw the measure off the ballot … There is one region of the country where marriage is even more strongly supported: the South. In the ten states of the Old Confederacy where Americans have voted thus far, [heterosexual] marriage initiatives have averaged a stunning 71.44% support. North Carolina has just advanced a marriage initiative. If we are successful there, Tarheel voters will give new meaning to the Solid South.” The “Solid South” is a term for the southern states that voted as a bloc to preserve segregation.
Blackwell believes that the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review process, which produces reports assessing human rights conditions in all member countries, is being used by European countries to diminish United States sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere by imposing human rights conditions on Latin American countries. In an August 6, 20011 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “has done nothing to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and nothing to defend our Latin American allies from this new form of European imperialism … Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on the side of the European imperialists.”
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On August 2, 2011, Blackwell commented on the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis, writing, “The only thing being terrorized by tea partiers is the tyranny of the status quo.”
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On July 12, 2011 Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted requested $332,000 in taxpayer money to pay for attorney’s fees for plaintiffs who sued then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over his conduct during the 2004 presidential elections. The plaintiffs, who alleged that Blackwell violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, settled the lawsuit with the state in 2009.
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In a July 1, 2011 op-ed for The Daily Caller entitled, “Blacks Don’t Need Same-Sex Marriage,” Blackwell wrote, “The first same-sex unions anywhere on earth appeared less than a decade ago … The ideal remains. Two parents—one man and one woman—raising their children in a loving and supportive marriage gives children the best chance to become happy and successful.”
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In a June 12, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed—without any evidence—that “San Francisco gay activists” were behind a local ballot initiative to ban infant circumcision.
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In June 2011, Blackwell suggested that watching Sesame Street could influence children to become homosexuals.
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In an April 12, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that President Obama was involved in orchestrating the populist uprising in Egypt, writing, “What was the point of going to a nest of Muslim Brotherhood activity to deliver that 2009 Obama address if not to puff up their stature and their influence? Osama bin Laden tells us that Arabs like to go with ‘the strong horse.’ Did Mr. Obama saddle up Mubarak or the Muslim Muslim [sic] Brotherhood as the strong horse with that Cairo speech?”
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In April 2011, Blackwell expressed support for a piece of Ohio legislation that would have banned abortion—for any reason—as early as 18 days after conception. Ohio Right to Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group, opposed the bill in the face of criticism that the legislation was clearly unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade.
In a March 23, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell, upset that a book about the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan focused too little on Reagan’s policies as president, wrote, “Just imagine if Hinckley had so grievously wounded Jimmy Carter. Can anyone believe that that would have made 18% mortgage rates go away, forget ‘America held hostage’ in Iran, chill out while lining up for gasoline, or learn to enjoy the era of limits and malaise?” The book in question, “Rawhide Down,” was critically acclaimed and well received by reviewers with diverse viewpoints, including Bill O’Reilly and Bob Woodward.
After President Obama said that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was “on the wrong side of history,” Blackwell wrote a March 17, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post asking, “Where does that ‘wrong side of history’ idea come from? President Obama was at pains to tell the National Prayer Breakfast of his conversion experience. He certainly sounded sincere. But ‘The Wrong Side of History’ trope is drawn from Karl Marx. It presumes that there is a dialectic—a great impersonal, inevitable force moving through time and space. It presumes that history is going one way. Thus, to Marxists, you can be ‘on the wrong side of history.’”
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In a March 10, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed his belief that democracy would never be established in the Middle East because “democracy requires not only religious liberty, but representative institutions, a vibrant civil society, respect for property rights, the rule of law, and a free and open press. The Middle East has no history of these building blocks of democracy. There are other cultural practices that bode ill for democracy.” Blackwell also claimed that “84% of Egyptians say anyone who departs from Islam should be killed … And there is a real danger they will come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.” He concluded by describing Middle Easterners thusly: “Edmund Burke said it well: ‘Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.’ There's a reason no state in the Middle East—except Israel—has been free thus far.”
In an interview with the radio program “NRA News” on February 11, 2011, Blackwell remarked, “We have to be thankful as a people to our internal alarm clock that has gone off in the form of the Tea Party, in the form of those who love our Constitution, and the brakes that it puts on the big and long reach of government.”
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Blackwell tweeted “I am disappointed with ACU's decision to team up with GOProud” and re-tweeted “homosexuality is not conservative” in response to news that the American Conservative Union (ACU) would allow the GOProud organization to participate in the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
In a January 19, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the U.N. Population Fund “aids and abets China's government as it brutally enforces its one-child policy.” Claims that the Population Fund encourages women to have abortions have been thoroughly debunked.
In a January 11, 2011 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “The Constitution Did Not Condone Slavery,” Blackwell claimed, “There was no mention of slavery in the Constitution. The framers were unwilling to admit in the federal charter there could be property in men.” To the contrary, the Constitution contained the three-fifths compromise that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for representation and tax purposes. Additionally, Article 1, Section 9 and Article 5 allowed the continued importation of slaves and prohibited the Congress from banning slavery until twenty years after ratification of the Constitution. Finally, Article 4, Section 2 prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaped slaves (before being superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery).
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After actor Liam Neeson said that the Aslan lion character from the “Chronicles of Narnia” series could serve as an allegory for both Jesus Christ and other religious figures, Blackwell wrote a December 21, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “A Fatwa on Liam Neeson?” In it, he suggested: “Liam Neeson is certainly not stupid. He is, unfortunately, a dhimmicrat. A dhimmicrat is one who uses his social, cultural, or political position to smooth the path of sharia, the law they have in Saudi Arabia … Liam Neeson's fawning attempts may prove dangerous. He did, after all, publicly compare Mohammed to an animal. No matter that it's an allegory. It can still be taken up by Muslim rioters as ‘blasphemy.’”
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In a December 17, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell urged the Senate to not ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, because “President Obama has never disavowed his socialist convictions. Even the Washington Post refers to him as a socialist. Isn't it time we had a full airing of all of this before we ratify a treaty with the rulers of the Kremlin?”
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In a November 2, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell—who does not believe in man-made climate change—claimed that “Cap and Trade” legislation would “nationalize all American enterprise.” “It would have the federal government control all decisions about what to produce, where to produce it, when to produce, where to market it, and how,” Blackwell wrote.
In an October 22, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Today, tragically, nearly 40% of our children are born out-of-wedlock. And big government consumes nearly 40% of our Gross Domestic Product. I don't believe the 40/40 link is imaginary? [sic]”
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Commenting on a controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero, Blackwell wrote an October 20, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post asserting: “Imam Rauf has been seeking funding for this mosque throughout the Middle East. He's in league with some of the most repressive and brutal regimes on earth. It makes no sense to fight a war on terrorism abroad while allowing Islamists to do a victory dance at Ground Zero. Just because Imam Rauf is soft-spoken doesn't mean he’s ‘moderate.’ What he says in his soft-spoken voice is that the U.S. had it coming.” What Rauf actually said was the following: “There's going to be a dedicated prayer space for Muslim, which we do need. And we want to have prayer space for Christians and for Jews. As I said, we have to build on our common platform.” Rauf also indicated that the project will disclose all donors and reject any money offered by organizations that advocate violence.
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Commenting on his support of Delaware Republican candidate for Senate Christine O’Donnell in a September 16, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “It should not go without mention that [Republican candidate Mike] Castle was the co-author of the Castle-DeGette bill. Under this measure, Americans would be taxed to create embryonic human beings. Taxpayers would then have to fund experiments upon those embryonic human beings, including cloning humans. Finally, the taxpayers would have to pay for the killing of these cloned humans and other embryonic human lives. This is a nightmare scenario for pro-life Americans.”
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In an op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Obama’s Mosque at Ground Zero” published on August 20, 2010, Blackwell wrote, “Only their [Muslim] beliefs are respected by President Obama … To allow a mosque within spitting distance of Ground Zero is to allow a triumphal arch for our jihadist enemies. It will be a recruiting poster for jihadists worldwide…Do we want sharia law here? That’s the law they have in Saudi Arabia. [Community center proponent] Imam Rauf is all out for sharia. If he succeeds in his life quest, Americans will lose every liberty—starting with our religious liberty.” Rauf actually has said the following about the center: “
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In a July 28, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that the Obama administration promotes abortion in Third
World countries because the administration “wants fewer of them.”
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Commenting on the abortion and LGBT rights debate in America in a July 7, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell complained, “Let Chastity Bono, the daughter of Sonny and Cher Bono, go through surgery and hormone treatments and is there a liberal publication on the planet that will not call this person Chaz and refer to this person as a man?”
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In a May 31, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “What’s a dhimmicrat, you say? It’s not the same thing as a democrat. A dhimmicrat is a person who, while not Muslim himself, nonetheless clears the path for shariah law to be adopted and incorporated into otherwise free nations …. Eric Holder is a leading dhimmicrat in government today.”
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In an April 27, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “When Mr. Obama bowed low before Emperor Akihito, it was a tacit apology for [the use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II].”
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Commenting on his belief that the United States promotes abortion in Kenya in an April 16, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post,
Blackwell flirted with “Birther” rhetoric by writing, “The Obama administration doesn't want to raise any questions about why it's pushing for fewer birth certificates in Kenya.”
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In a March 24, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called President Barack Obama, “The Abortion President.”
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Commenting on the administration of President Barack Obama in a March 19, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “What about jobs? Don’t hold your breath. No, wait, do hold your breath. That’s because Obama’s EPA just issued an ‘endangerment’ finding on carbon dioxide. So, when we exhale, we are polluting. Or so the Obama administration says.”
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In a March 9, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could incite a second Falklands War. Blackwell was incensed that Secretary Clinton referred to the Falkland Islands by their Spanish name. “But
now, we face another possible crisis over the Falklands. And all because of Hillary Clinton’s clumsy attempt at “even-handedness”—which is in fact ham-handedness,” wrote Blackwell. “Think we’re having trouble with Latin Americans now? Try to imagine U.S. Naval vessels called in at the last minute to block an Argentine invasion of the Falklands.”
In a February 26, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed “If it is passed, ObamaCare will greatly increase abortions in this country by making them free.” In reality, in conjunction with the health care reform bill, President Obama issued an Executive Order preserving the restriction on the use of federal government funds to pay for abortions.
In a February 23, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that homosexuals “created” the AIDs epidemic and worried “Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?” Regarding the potential repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, Blackwell wondered, “What would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic ‘less than 3% figure?’”
In a February 23, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that homosexuals “created” the AIDs epidemic and worried “Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?” Regarding the potential repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, Blackwell wondered, “What would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic ‘less than 3% figure?’”
In a February 23, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that homosexuals “created” the AIDs epidemic and worried “Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?” Regarding the potential repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, Blackwell wondered, “What would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic ‘less than 3% figure?’”
In a February 8, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed outrage about the order in which President Barack Obama listed religions in his Inaugural Address, writing, “When President Obama took the oath of office last year, he made a stunning rhetorical shift in his Inaugural Address. He described America as a nation of ‘Christians and Muslims, Jews, Hindus and nonbelievers.’ Where did that come from? This was the first time in U.S. history that the Jews had been so displaced.”
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In a January 19, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that TWA Flight 800, which crashed in 1996 killing all 230 persons aboard, was downed by a terrorist attack. A FBI investigation revealed no evidence of terrorist involvement.
In a January 7, 2010 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In the 1960s, many developing nation’s had nearly wiped out malaria, but it came back after DDT was banned. It did not matter that DDT was harmless to humans—and actually saved lives—the Left attacked it, ultimately causing 50 million preventable deaths.” Medical research has linked human exposure to DDT to diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and reproductive problems, including miscarriages, developmental disabilities, and premature births. DDT is also a “probable human carcinogen,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In 2010, Blackwell, along with Family Research Council colleague Ken Klukowski, published “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.” According to the authors, President Obama’s goal is to “transform the United States of America into a militant, secular welfare state dominated by an overbearing central government” by using tactics “such as changing voting laws, politicizing the census, coercing corporations into adopting its policies, planning to destroy talk radio, and seeking to make millions of illegal aliens into voting citizens.” They also claimed that Obama “shut down media outlets that expose the truth, and co-opt[ed] the rest of the media to parrot his daily messages.” On the subject of race, the book had this to say: “For affirmative action, the victims are blacks or Hispanics. (We can’t say all minorities, because the tremendous overall success of Asians and Indians proves that there’s no systemic racism that keeps all minorities down.)…Whoever you are and whatever you do, if you are not a wealthy white male with a great education and a great career, a stable family, and in fine health, then Barack Obama says you are a victim of something and will tell you who to blame.”
The Family Research Council (FRC), where Blackwell works as a Senior Fellow, has made a number of controversial statements about homosexuality, leading it to be designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
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After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage, Blackwell wrote a December 21, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post suggesting that the new law would allow polygamy and incest. “Remember, we’ve all been schooled in that LGBT formulation. That means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. The advocates of counterfeiting marriage cannot leave out their B and T. So, what will that mean? How can they deny ‘marriage equality’ to a bisexual person who wants to marry two significant others? Or what about a person who has attempted through surgery and drugs to change his sex? Should such a person, if married, be denied the right to marry another person? If love and commitment make a marriage, why cannot brothers and sisters marry? Or fathers and daughters? What the District Council has done is to open the door to polygamy, to incest.”
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In a December 19, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “When someone repeated to [author Malcolm] Muggeridge [economist John Maynard] Keynes’s famous dictum—in the long run we’re all dead—Muggeridge shot back, ‘Well, he would think that wouldn’t he? He was a predatory homosexual.’ That line was considered below the belt. But there is more than an element of truth in it.”
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In a December 16, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell worried that the recent Copenhagen climate change summit was a step towards the “implementation of Chinese-style population control” around the world. “China has for more than thirty years been engaged in a ruthless campaign of forced abortions. Beijing’s one-child policy, were it to be enforced world wide, would lead not only to totalitarianism and massive human rights violations, it would lead to infanticide, as well … Could Americans ever be forced under such an inhuman regime? Is this what Global Warming alarmism leads to? … There is one thing we could do that would make a small contribution to lowering temperatures: We could bury, not burn, the bodies of unborn children who have been aborted under Mr. Obama’s health care takeover. Currently, the practice is to incinerate the hundreds of thousands of bodies cruelly of those denied the right to life,” wrote Blackwell.
Comparing the Department of Justice’s decision to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court to the role of then-Attorney General Janet Reno during the Waco siege, Blackwell wrote a December 5, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, stating, “Attorney General Janet Reno thought she might have to prove her toughness by transferring dozens of women and children from a Waco cult headquarters to eternity. Really bad idea.” Blackwell also wrote, “Eric Holder’s decision to try the terrorists in Manhattan may not be simply the worst decision of this administration, it bids fair to stand with Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade as being among the three worst decisions in American history.”
In a December 4, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In turn, [former Kansas Governor] Sebelius vetoed bills that might have put a crimp in [George] Tiller’s sales. While we denounce Tiller’s murder and his murderer, it’s interesting that liberals have not really been able to make Tiller a martyr. He didn’t donate those abortions.”
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Blackwell compared the presidency of Jimmy Carter to the slave trade in a November 25, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, writing, “More Africans lost their freedom during Jimmy Carter’s four years than at any other time in history.”
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In a November 20, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed “more than 90 percent” of Democrats “never go to church.”
Blackwell called President Barack Obama “the world’s Number One enabler of China’s forced abortion policy” in a November 14, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post.
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In a October 30, 2009 opinion piece, Blackwell attacked the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin, by writing, “Would you rather not have a receptionist or customer service representative of your company who has tattooed his or her face with fierce Maori markings? You could be forced by the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] to make that hire.” Blackwell also worried about the EEOC’s effect on “employers who would prefer not to hire or promote employees who dress as members of the opposite sex.
In an October 22, 2009 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “I was elected statewide as secretary of state. Believe me, I know the corrupt influence labor-backed groups are on the ballot box.”
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Expressing his belief that homosexuality is a choice at the 2009 Republican National Convention, Blackwell said, “I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else, I could have in fact suppressed that urge.” Blackwell further stated that the only two sexual orientations are “male” and “female.”
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In a May 27, 2008 op-ed for Townhall, Blackwell wrote about the decision of the Philadelphia City Council to increase the Boy Scouts of America’s lease of a city owned building from $1 per year to $200,000 per year because of their discriminatory policy barring homosexual members. Blackwell stated, “Ever since 1910, Scouting has taught that part of being a committed Scout is a traditional understanding of sexuality. Though Scouting respects adherents of various faiths, it has always had a Bible-based morality as the foundation of its values. The Boy Scouts of America believes expressed homosexuality is inconsistent with its credo. They believe their ‘duty to God’ and promise to be ‘reverent’ requires fidelity to that traditional faith. As a result, the Scouts do not allow openly homosexual individuals in their adult leadership ranks. But the Philadelphia City Council has bought into a radical homosexual agenda lock, stock, and barrel. Not only does the Council provide full recognition of special homosexual rights, they also will obviously attack any organization that does not adopt its newfound agenda. The Council is utterly intolerant of any person or organization that does not embrace its new ‘tolerance,’ and is seeking to drive the Scouts from the city. One consequence of democracy is if elected leaders, in a city, state, or nation, choose to embody a radical agenda and attack traditional values, they can usually get away with it. There is nothing to stop government from enacting wrong policy.” Philadelphia officials explained that city law does not permit government subsidies of groups that discriminate.
While serving as Ohio Secretary of State, a state audit revealed that Blackwell illegally paid out over $80,000 in bonuses to staff in December 2006 just before the switch from a Republican to a Democratic administration.
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During the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial election, Blackwell was accused by his Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland, of using innuendo to imply that Strickland had a homosexual relationship with a former aide. During a debate, Blackwell also made the shocking accusation that Strickland was associated with the pro-pedophile North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Strickland defeated Blackwell by a large margin.
On two separate occasions, Blackwell was blamed for the release of the social security numbers of millions of Ohio residents. In 2006, while serving as Ohio’s Secretary of State, Blackwell’s office sent CDs to 20 political parties that contained records of 7.7 million registered voters in Ohio. This followed an earlier incident in which a lawsuit was filed against Blackwell for publishing the social security numbers of thousands of Ohio residents on state websites.
In 2006, Blackwell said that he favors legislation that would outlaw abortion in the case of rape, incest, and even to save the life of the mother.
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In 2006, Blackwell co-wrote a book with Jerome Corsi, who is well known for his role in the “Swift Boat” campaign against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the “Birther” accusations against President Barack Obama. Blackwell and Corsi’s book called for eliminating all federal welfare benefits.
While overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, Blackwell was accused by the Democratic Party and others of implementing policies that disenfranchised minority and young voters. Numerous lawsuits were filed against Blackwell, who was at the time an Honorary Co-Chair of President George W. Bush’s Ohio campaign. One lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party alleged that Blackwell’s policies violated the Help America Vote Act, passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election fiasco.
In October 2004, prior to the presidential elections, Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell sent a letter to conservatives to encourage them to vote on a gay marriage ballot issue. Democrats contended that it was inappropriate for the person in charge of overseeing the election to rally voters to vote a specific cause. Marion County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Slagle compared Blackwell’s conduct to “allowing the manager of the New York Yankees to also serve as the chief umpire in the World Series.”
Blackwell received the John M. Ashbrook Award at the CPAC convention in 2004. The award is named after one of the founders of the ACU who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 21 years as a Republican from Ohio.
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Blackwell owned shares of Diebold, a voting machine manufacturer, while he was responsible for overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio as Secretary of State. While Secretary of State, Blackwell also directed Ohio to purchase Diebold voting machines. Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold and a fundraiser for George W. Bush, famously sent a letter to Ohio Republicans stating that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [George W. Bush in 2004].”
Blackwell called himself “the lead spokesman” for a 2004 ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in Ohio.
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In 1980, Blackwell wrestled a soda-drinking bear named Victor as part of a charity event during his tenure as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. The bear broke Blackwell’s finger. By 2006, Bear wrestling had been banned in 20 states. The practice is accused of being cruel because of the harsh physical and psychological training the bear receives.