Skeletons in the closet
Ohio enshrining abortion rights into the Constitution has tipped the Statehouse's Holy Roller groups into disarray.
One year ago yesterday, the Ohio Hog Voter Social Club started its rebellion against decades of anti-abortion work by the gerrymandered State Legislature.
In a Special Election that Secretary of State Frank LaRose—still under the delusion he would become a United States Senator one day—said was “100% about abortion,” the voters rejected the Republican Party’s request to dilute the power of their vote at the ballot box.
Three months later, the Hog Voter Social Club ran wild again when we enshrined abortion rights into the State Constitution with a resounding 13.5-point victory. The broad, bipartisan coalition also legalized recreational weed as an added F-U to the state’s puritanical class.
Seemingly overnight, Ohio was transformed from a state trying to ban abortions before most people know they’re pregnant, to an abortion safe haven. It was the kind of makeover white men sometimes go through after marrying Black women in the viral TikTok trend you might have seen.
There were no bigger losers in those cataclysmic elections than the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) and Ohio Right to Life (ORTL).
Given their shared religious values, these two anti-abortion groups would seem to be allies, despite CCV largely being seen as the more conservative group. But as I’ve written before, the one thing to know about the Republican hobgoblin junta that runs the Statehouse is that they all hate each other since their only shared goal is the pursuit of power.
Take ORTL president Michael Gonidakis and CCV president Aaron Baer. On the surface, they are two of White Jesus’ holiest soldiers and you’d think they would be friends.
But I have heard from multiple sources that privately, these two beautiful boys are praying on each other’s downfall, which doesn’t seem very Christian to me!
The feud isn’t that surprising if you think about it through the lens of money, power and prestige. These two groups are both competing for the same finite resources because they each feel specifically chosen by God to force the reactionary Evangelical agenda upon the rest of us.
To compound their abortion amendment woes, the Ohio Hog Voters are poised to enact actual legislative redistricting reform in November, which would all but end the Republican supermajorities by which these holy rollin’ groups impose their theocratic worldview.
As one House Republican recently told The Rooster, these two organizations were recently must-have endorsements in GOP primaries. But with the abortion amendment passing, and especially with actual redistricting reform on the ballot, they will transition to advocacy groups, which are much less influential in the dog-eat-dog world of the Statehouse.
That world got a shakeup last weekend when Peter Range aborted his position as CEO of ORTL under what appeared to be surprising circumstances:
The truth is, Range’s exit had been in the works for weeks. Reading between the lines of some of his tweets, Range appears to have been disillusioned with ORTL dropping its fight against In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and refusing to campaign for a national abortion ban.
Here, for the sake of brevity, are two examples:
Donald Trump, Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, and Senate candidate Bernie Moreno are three prominent Republicans that, at least publicly, have embraced IVF treatment as “pro-family.”
They have also distanced themselves from past support of national abortion bans, which are the kind of tactics that happen with politicians of all stripes in general election season, where the goal isn’t to score morality points but to win the damn game.
That softening rhetoric apparently didn’t sit well with Range. However, like most Evangelical operatives who are privately disgusted by having a serial adulterer atop the Republican ticket, he continues to support President Business Deals in public.
On Wednesday, I spoke to a House Republican about Range’s exit. They had been told that Range was saying he had a problem with ORTL’s “reporting structure”— i.e., working under an obtuse, self-aggrandizing turd like Gonidakis—and didn’t enjoy commuting from Toledo to Columbus, which would be totally fair as it’s my pick for “worst drive in Ohio” by a wide, wide margin.
Range didn’t stay out of the Evangelical game for long. He took his talents to CCV, which, again, is viewed on Capitol Square as the more hardline anti-abortion group.
As first reported by Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com:
Peter Range is starting Monday as a senior fellow at the Center for Christian Virtue, an influential and expanding conservative evangelical Christian advocacy organization in Columbus.
Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, said Range’s new job will involve helping the organization promote a “culture of life” in the state after voters approved a sweeping amendment last November enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. Baer, who worked with Range last year as leaders of the unsuccessful campaign to defeat the amendment, said the group quickly offered Range a job once he became available.
“That was a significant loss for us last year,” Baer said. “We need to change hearts and minds long-term to curb the effects of the abortion amendment.”
Other than this being another example of hiring a man to rail against an issue largely affecting women, Range’s new role is also an interesting case of water finding its own level.
CCV was originally founded as Citizens for Community Values. Its first culture war calling card was fighting pornography.
Phil Burress, one of the group’s first leaders, was a self-described porn addict who did a totally normal thing and enlisted his wife to digest adult films so that he could speak about them to prosecutors and legislators:
In 1991 CCV of Ohio became officially affiliated with Focus on the Family, and the Wisconsin branch became affiliated with American Family Association.[7] Phil Burress, a self-described former "porn addict", became head of the organization in 1991. Saying that his addiction made him unable to safely consume pornography, Burress's wife examined pornographic movies and magazines on her husband's behalf, writing summaries for him so that he could speak about them to legislators and prosecutors.[15]
The anti-porn crusade would be the first of many losing cultural fights for the organization.
But with the hiring of Range, CCV is getting back to its self-described recovering porn addict roots.
In 2018, Range pursued an appointment to then-Ohio House District 3, which had an upcoming vacancy thanks to its former representative, Theresa Gavarone, earning an appointment to the rancid retirement home that is the State Senate.
Range, given his career of anti-abortion work in Northwest Ohio, was a formidable candidate. At least on paper. According to one former ally of Larry Householder, however, the interview took a hilarious detour after a standard screening question about potential skeletons in Range’s closet.
According to the source, Range clicked his tongue, sighed, and looked down at the table before looking back to the committee and admitting that he used to suffer from chronic addiction to pornography.
The room, I’m told, wasn’t especially taken back by the confession. It certainly wouldn’t be the most heinous thing in the past of a State Legislator or even a prospective one.
But they were seemingly baffled about how this revelation could become public. Were there leaked receipts? Had his wife caught him? How, exactly, could that addiction come to light?
Range, God bless him, apparently confessed that he had never told anyone and that Jesus had since stopped him from incessantly cranking his hog. Not in those exact words, but you get the point.
The committee, according to the source in the room, basically hit him with an “Okie dokie” and sent him on his way. The vacant seat eventually went to current State Representative Haraz Ghanbari (R-Perrysburg), a decorated military veteran and talented photographer.
I have to admit that I’m fascinated by the porno-to-Holy-Roller pipeline, especially when science has revealed that so-called “porn addiction” is a social construct invented by Holy Rollers as a way to shame people with their wildly unpopular worldview that involves stripping women of bodily autonomy.
Range, unfortunately, did not return multiple requests for comments about this story.
THOSE WMDs. The most powerful environmental groups are helping greenwash Big Meat’s impact on climate change… Not God in the machine: The pitfalls of AI worship… She’s the new face of climate activism, and she’s carrying a pickaxe… The charming, eccentric, blessed life of Lee Maxwell… $10 million cash withdrawal sparked probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt.
"Burress's wife examined pornographic movies and magazines on her husband's behalf, writing summaries for him so that he could speak about them to legislators and prosecutors."
she matched his freak 😭😭😭
Why am I not surprised that Peter Range also can't spell.
Another extremely enlightening article - thank you and keep up the good work!