John
Kenneth Blackwell is the erstwhile mayor of Cincinnati (from 1979 to 1980),
Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007, and later gubernatorial candidate in
Ohio. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee's Platform
Committee and senior fellow for family empowerment at the Family Research Council,
as well as several other positions such as this one,
and this one.
He rose
to national fame for his attempts at voter disenfranchments during the 2004
election (he has, in fact, been sued a number of times, often successfully,
given his careless attitude toward the law when it does not serve his interests,
and even by American standards his activities would be counted as borderline corrupt.
In particular, Blackwell lacks the ability to grasp the fact that he and his
organizations do not have a constitutional right to tax exemption.
He did
lead the campaign for the 2004 Ohio Constitution Amendment banning state
recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions, and did not shy away from
comparing gay people to arsonists and kleptomaniacs,
and same-sex couples to barn animals.
Although
he originally said that abortions were defensible when the mother’s life is at
risk, he has since gone rather more extreme; his attempts to evoke science in this
regard have been sorely pathetic,
apparently being unable to apprehend the fact that ”I want to believe X” does
not analytically imply ”science supports X”.
There’s a
fine Blackwell resource here.
His defense of Rand Paul is … noteworthy as well,
as is this one.
Diagnosis:
A surprisingly lowkey fellow, though one does not have to look too hard to find
Blackwell revealing himself as blithely denialist. In any case his association
with the Family Research Council is a dead giveaway. Blackwell must be
considered very dangerous.
(Honorable
mention also to Prescott, Arizona’s Steve Blair for this one, though I'm less sure he deserves a separate entry).
