The City Club of Cleveland hosts Center for Christian Virtue amid protests. Here’s what we saw.

The City Club of Cleveland held a forum on Friday featuring Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV).

Throughout the forum, Baer employed anti-transgender and LGBTQ+-exclusionary language, including:

• Falsely asserting that there are only two sexes, denying the existence of intersex people.
• Denying the existence of transgender individuals.
• Misgendering young transgender girls, calling them “dudes in girls’ sports.”
• Repeatedly defining “healthy families” as one married mother and father pairing.

Baer’s comments appear to defy the City Club’s own policy regarding hate speech, which says the forum does “not [provide] a venue for anyone who would advance a policy of bigotry or supremacy.”

City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop – who moderated the conversation with Baer – provided the following statement in response to The Buckeye Flame’s questions about post-forum reaction, how Baer’s comments aligned with City Club’s policy above on bigotry and whether the City Club would host Baer again in the future:

“We are grateful to everyone who showed up to participate, engage, question, demonstrate, lift their voices, and listen. This event and the feedback it engendered remind us that our community and citizens across the state deeply care about these issues, and we hope to provide opportunities for more dialogue.”

The room included Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, CCV supporters, and tables filled with LGBTQ+ people and their allies – many wearing lavender as a sign of protest. Some audibly responded to Baer’s many disparaging statements, but did not disrupt the forum. 

Despite previously saying that he would ask Baer about CCV being designated a hate group, Moulthrop never referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center designation, nor was that topic raised during the forum.

Outside of the forum, several dozen demonstrators gathered in frigid temperatures, lining the sidewalk in front of the City Club’s main entrance with rainbow umbrellas and handmade signs supporting transgender youth.

Across the street at Playhouse Square Plaza, the Ecumenical Queer Union for Action and Love (EQUAL) hosted a “counter-gathering.”

‘Love at the Plaza: A Public Celebration of Queer Faith,’ featured several dozen demonstrators, free food and drink, music, warming stations and a slate of faith-based speakers that affirmed and uplifted LGBTQ+ Christians and their identities. 

At least three unmarked police vehicles patrolled the area, along with several Cleveland police squad cars.

Members of the national HIV/AIDS advocacy group the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) also gathered outside City Club’s primary entrance. 

Using the group’s decades-old call-and-response chant – “Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!” – four ACT UP Cleveland members sprayed fake blood across City Club’s front windows.

“These are the same people who want to take away our medicine,” said ACT UP Cleveland president and long term HIV/AIDS survivor Gil Kudrin. “These people want us dead.”

Several minutes after the demonstration, Cleveland police removed one demonstrator from the scene. He was not arrested, but instead ticketed for vandalism. 🔥

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Ignite Action

• 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