The City Club of Cleveland is hosting the hate-designated Center for Christian Virtue on Friday. Here’s how we got here.

The City of Cleveland announced a new forum: “Faith, Policy, and Influence: A Conversation with the President of the Center for Christian Virtue” featuring CCV’s Aaron Baer.

Baer is not appearing as part of a panel with opposing viewpoints, but instead is being given the entire stage, alongside a moderator, Dan Moulthrop, City Club CEO. Moulthrop told The Buckeye Flame that City Club sought out booking Baer given CCV’s “meaningful amount of influence.”

LGBTQ+ Cleveland leaders say they had not heard about the forum until the announcement nor were consulted before the announcement was made.

The City Club added a sentence to the description of the event referencing that CCV had been designated a hate group by SPLC “because of its stance and rhetoric toward members of the LGBT community.”

Moulthrop said the description was updated to include that information after he received feedback from a community member.

More than one hundred LGBTQ+ leaders and organizations across Ohio have signed an open letter denouncing the City Club of Cleveland following the historic free speech forum’s decision to invite the president of an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group to headline an event early next year.

CCV published a fundraising appeal declaring that “Christian free speech is under attack in Ohio” and “this has become a battle for free speech and for the future of our civic engagement.” The appeal asks for donations, ticket purchases to the forum and prayer.

In a post to his personal account on the social media website X, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released a public letter addressed to City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop in support of CCV’s booking. 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.”

In a post to his account on the social media website X, formerly Twitter, Republican U.S.Senator Bernie Moreno voiced support for CCV. “The new, illiberal, left: preventing free speech for the place *they* claim is the bastion of free speech,” the post said.

Conservative, far-right media outlet The Daily Signal publishes a story in support of Baer and CCV. The headline reads: “‘ORGANIZED HATE’: LGBTQ Activists Hound Debate Venue to Cancel Christian Leader”

The Daily Signal is funded by ultra-conservative political think-tank The Heritage Foundation, the primary architect behind the anti-LGBTQ+ presidential transition plan Project 2025.

“We’re not canceling, and we have never had any intention of canceling this,” Dan Moulthrop, the City Club’s CEO, told Daily Signal reporter Tyler O’Neil. “We’re gonna continue to do what we always do, and have done for 113 years, which is convene conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive and do that with the leadership of relevant organizations who are shaping our communities.”

Moulthop’s response to the Daily Signal came before any reply was provided to the requests from the 100 LGBTQ+ leaders. When asked about later about giving a response first to The Daily Signal before Cleveland LGBTQ+ leaders, Moulthrop said, “We try to be responsive to media on deadline wherever we can.”

Daily Signal editor Tyler O’Neil testifies before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

Titled ‘Partisan and Profitable: The SPLC’s Influence on Federal Civil Rights Policy,’ the hearing “examin[ed] the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) coordinated efforts with the Biden-Harris Administration to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

The hearing placed particular focus on “SPLC’s history, funding, and work to silence conservative and Christian Americans for their beliefs.”

Other witnesses included Andrew Sypher, Executive Vice President of Field Operations for Turning Point USA, long-time Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins

Although Chris Quinn dismissed City Club as “stuck in tradition as it struggles to meet new audiences where they are,” he endorsed the CCV forum because CCV “is shaping laws that affect Ohioans’ lives.”

Dan Moulthrop and City Club Board Chair Mark Ross met with LGBTQ+ leaders representing Equality Ohio, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, Plexus and TransOhio, following a request from those leaders to meet. 

During the meeting, Plexus executive director Amanda Cole said Moulthrop doubled down on his decision to personally moderate the forum without a panel.

“I felt disappointed and not reassured on the process, background research done, or that sufficient care and consideration was given to the impact on the queer community,” Cole said.

Cole also told The Buckeye Flame Moulthrop has not reached out with plans to prep for his role as moderator.

Cole said Moulthrop accused LGBTQ+ organizations of “making this a single issue by only focusing on the impacts in the queer organization and failing to see the full impact CCV has on democracy.”

The Cleveland Jewish News published a one-on-one interview with Moulthrop. In that interview, Moulthrop said, “I want to be really clear that that designation of ‘hate group’ is something that is created by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a self-appointed nonprofit organization that has taken it upon itself to identify hate groups based on criteria that I’m not entirely clear on, and motivated by desired outcomes that I’m not entirely clear on nor am I aligned with.”

When asked directly if he thought CCV was a hate group, Moulthrop responded, “I don’t know, OK?”

He concluded by saying, “We deeply understand the pain that this program is causing people in our community.”

The City Club sent an email to subscribers under the subject “Start the New Year with Exciting New Forums! 🔔”. 

The January 16 CCV forum is not mentioned in the email. When specifically asked later that day if the CCV forum was being marketed less than other forums, Moulthrop told The Buckeye Flame, “We have a limited marketing budget. This forum didn’t seem to require any additional marketing spend.” 

He also said that, “Sales are fine” and that tickets were still available.

Amanda Cole, executive director of Plexus, published a response to Moulthrop’s interview with the Cleveland Jewish News. “Dan Moulthrop states that he ‘doesn’t know’ whether the CCV qualifies as a hate group or how the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) defines that designation,” Cole wrote. “This is an unacceptable evasion.”