Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost penned an open letter Wednesday regarding recent backlash around The City Club of Cleveland’s decision to host the president of an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.
Addressed directly to The City Club CEO Dan Mouthrop on his official letterhead with the seal of the Attorney General, Yost’s letter expressed overwhelming support for the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) – an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group whose president Aaron Baer is scheduled to appear at The City Club next month.
Yost’s public statement comes after more than 100 LGBTQ+ leaders and organizations from across the state signed an open letter requesting changes to the forum including The City Club placing Baer on a panel with opposing viewpoints and using an independent moderator in place of City Club of Cleveland CEO Dan Moulthrop, who is currently scheduled to interview Baer during the Jan. 16 event.
“We have received messages of support from stakeholders across the political spectrum, and we appreciate hearing from the Attorney General on this,” Moulthrop told The Buckeye Flame via email.
CCV first appeared on the national civil rights watchdog’s list of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups in 2015 and 2017, while the group still operated under the name Citizens for Community Values.
Following a six-year absence from the list, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reclassified CCV as a hate group in 2023, following the publication of Project CAPTAIN – “an in-depth report on anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience and its primary manufacturers.”
The Ohio-based political lobbying group was the primary source of financial and political support for Ohio House Bill (HB) 68, the state’s ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, which Yost also publicly supported.
Ohio Attorney General weighs in
In a post to his personal account on the social media website X, Yost said that LGBTQ+ activists “are demanding the City Club of Cleveland CANCEL the Jan. 16 speech,” and confirmed he knows Baer “both personally and professionally.”
Yost used the letter to criticize and discredit the SPLC, calling the watchdog’s list of hate groups “libelous.”
Yost rejected the legitimacy of SPLC, their list and CCV’s appearance on the list:
“The Center for Christian Virtue orthodoxy includes a commitment to the preeminence of God and His commandment to love one another. In the various CCV events I have attended, I have never encountered hate from any of the speakers.”
Hate group methodology
“To land on SPLC’s list, a group need only offend progressive orthodoxy,” Yost said.
However, the SPLC outlines specific methodologies for identifying and categorizing hate groups, which include monitoring and reviewing “hate group publications and reports by citizens, law enforcement, field sources and the news media, and conducting our own investigations.”
SPLC currently defines a hate group as “an organization that vilifies a class of people due to immutable characteristics, often through official statements, leader’s comments, or activities.”
Today, the group’s Hatemap includes more than 1,300 designated hate groups, with subcategorizations based on 21 different ideologies – including Anti-LGBTQ+, Anti-Muslim, Christian Supremecy, White Supremecy and Neo-Nazism.
“The organizations on the SPLC list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity,” the group said via their website.
‘We’re not canceling’
The City Club of Cleveland CEO Dan Moulthrop told reporters with conservative publication The Daily Signal the forum does not plan to cancel the event.
“We’re not cancelling,” he told the far-right, conservative Christian publication, which is published by The Heritage Foundation – the conservative think-tank responsible for authoring Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation has been ranked by Forbes among the most influential think-tanks in the world, and Project 2025 has been widely considered a conservative policy blueprint for Republican Donald Trump’s second presidential term.
According to The Daily Signal, Moulthrop “confirmed that he has no intention of changing” the forum, presumably including its structure.🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- The City Club of Cleveland will host Aaron Baer on Friday, January 16 at 11:30 a.m. To buy tickets, click here.
- To submit a question for Baer, text The City Club at 330-541-5794.
- To access SPLC’s 2024 Hate Map, click here.
- To access The Center for Christian Virtue (CCV)’s GLAAD accountability profile, click here.
- If you are a young LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact the Trevor Project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are an transgender adult in crisis, please contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
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