In 2004, Exodus International board member Phil Burress put an anti-marriage constitutional amendment on the Ohio ballot and drew thousands of Ohioans to the polls to support the re-election of George W. Bush for president.

Until recently, Burress — the powerful leader of Ohio’s anti-family organization Citizens for Community Values, an affiliate of Focus on the Family — has withheld support from 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Just a month ago, Burress had told the Los Angeles Times that while he might vote for McCain,

he will not work directly for McCain, and he suspects that many conservatives will stay home on election day.

“They think we have no place to go [other than the Republican Party], and in some respects, that’s true,” Burress said. “But it’s going to take a whole lot more than that for him to win.”

Last week, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCain met with Burress in a bid to secure far-right votes as McCain’s rival, Democratic candidate Barack Obama, wins over religious centrists and the religious left.

“We told [McCain] that if he didn’t come out and share his pro-family stances on these issues, then he can kiss Ohio goodbye,” said influential anti-gay Ohio activist Phil Burress, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Instead of pursuing a moderate presidential course that might unite Americans behind shared family, community, and national values, McCain pandered to the forces of paranoia and division: He announced his support for an initiative in California to ban same-sex marriage, even though a similar initiative in his home state of Arizona failed.

Burress was impressed:

“It was obvious there were a lot of changed hearts in the room,” said Burress. “We realized that he’s with us on the majority of the issues we care about.”

McCain still hopes to meet with James Dobson, the leader of Focus on the Family. Dobson has said he would not vote for McCain and claimed that neither candidate gives “a hoot about the family.”

Meanwhile, Burress — along with other social conservatives — is pressuring McCain to recruit Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as his vice-presidential running mate.

Burress characterized the Huckabee overture as a “suggestion, not a demand.”

“This is a man you don’t threaten,” Burress said of McCain. “His principles are his principles. The last thing you want to do is try to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do because he’d probably do the opposite.”

Burress said that while Huckabee is a favorite of Christian conservatives, the most important thing is that McCain’s running mate be “pro-life and pro-family.” Huckabee isn’t a favorite of all evangelical leaders, either; some dislike his populist message, emphasis on the environment and economic positions.

The leaders meeting in Denver included Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum; “Left Behind” co-author Tim LaHaye and his wife, Beverly, founder of Concerned Women for America; David Barton, founder of WallBuilders; Rick Scarborough of Vision America; and Don Hodel, a former interior secretary and former president of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, according to [Liberty Counsel chairman Mat] Staver.

Burress asserts that the Bible commands evangelicals not to vote for Obama:

“The only evangelicals that will support Obama are the ones who haven’t read their Bible,” Burress said. “The more and more we learn about Obama, the closer and closer we get to McCain.”

Does this Exodus board member feel sufficiently holy that God has permitted him to rewrite the Bible? Or does this Exodus leader feel that merely saying the word “Bible” in a sentence makes the sentence true?

After claiming last week that the ex-gay network had stepped back from public policy, Exodus admitted otherwise this week — but without admitting the apparent deception.

President Alan Chambers acknowledged to Ex-Gay Watch that his organization will continue as an active member of the Arlington Group, a political alliance of most major religious-right organizations that coordinates members’ policy choices and priorities.

Chambers claimed last week, “There isn’t anyone on staff that has policy in their job description and we don’t plan to spend money there.” On its 2006 filing of an IRS 990 form (PDF via Guidestar), Exodus reported a $5,000 donation to the Arlington Group; Exodus donations for 2007 are yet to be disclosed.

Chambers announced last week that Exodus’ withdrawal from public policy began in “August, 2007. 2008, however, marked a complete refocus on ministry.”

But as TWO has noted since then, Exodus board member Phil Burress (pictured), youth activist Mike Ensley, and speaker Ken Hutcherson continue to actively campaign for antigay and partisan political causes.

Just two days ago, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas boasted of his ongoing, expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to provide political “friends” with ex-gay rhetoric and support.

And on Friday, board member Burress sued to hold taxpayer-subsidized church services in an Ohio public library. Burress’ self-led Citizens for Community Values (another Arlington Group member) opposes anti-bullying, tolerance, and sex-education programs in schools, and it is largely responsible for a 1993 Cincinnati vote to overturn local antidiscrimination law. A 2004 vote reversed the earlier vote.

In reaction to Exodus’ commitment to the Arlington Group, former ex-gay Peterson Toscano finds Exodus violating Biblical values under Chambers’ leadership.

• Exodus board member Phil Burress, speaking as the leader of Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, says nominee-in-waiting John McCain has failed to mobilize so-called “values voters” (conservative Christians). Disappointed at the defeat of Southern Baptist former pastor Mike Huckabee in the GOP presidential race, Burress spells out what he thinks McCain must do to win support: “apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years” and “strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.”
• Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson prays for God’s help to hinder a woman’s right to visit her lesbian partner in the hospital — and to deny other basic rights to certain types of Americans who do not self-identify as African-American.
• Ex-gay activist groups including Abiding Truth Ministries and Stephen Bennett Ministries have mobilized to scare conservative Christian parents into keeping their kids home from school when antiviolence advocates commemorate an annual Day of Silence. Watchmen on the Walls, an organization co-led by Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson, also is joining the campaign to stop antiviolence efforts in schools. Two gay and gender-variant youths were killed last month, one of them in an Oxnard, Calif., classroom. Since then, youths and young men have been assaulted in Florida and Georgia.