U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s reelection campaign cut a $1,500 check to the Center for Christian Virtue, a Columbus-based political lobbying organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.
The payment, listed as an “event sponsorship,” appears on a Schedule B itemized disbursement filed with the Federal Election Commission by the Husted for Senate committee. The disbursement is dated April 7, 2026.
CCV is headquartered at 62 East Broad Street in Columbus, directly across from the Ohio Statehouse.
The Southern Poverty Law Center first listed CCV — then operating under the name Citizens for Community Values — as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group in 2015. According to The Buckeye Flame, the civil rights watchdog reclassified the group as a hate group again in 2023 following publication of its Project CAPTAIN report on what SPLC described as “growing anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience and its primary manufacturers.”
The Buckeye Flame, in a July 2025 report on the designation, described CCV as a primary driver behind anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the Ohio Statehouse, including House Bill 68, the state’s ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. The group’s annual revenue has grown from roughly $480,000 to more than $4.37 million in recent years.
CCV President Aaron Baer has rejected the SPLC designation, calling the civil rights group “corrupt” and its hate map “heinous” in posts to X, according to The Buckeye Flame.
The April 2026 disbursement caps a yearslong pattern of public alignment between Husted and CCV.
A March 2025 investigative report co-published by ProPublica, The New Yorker and the Ohio Capital Journal documented Husted’s appearance at a CCV-organized “Prayer at the Statehouse” event in May 2024, when Husted was lieutenant governor. As CCV’s Christian Engagement Ambassador introduced him, Husted spoke about faith-based prayer meetings in the governor’s office and tied them directly to legislative wins for the group.
“We bring appointed officials and elected officials together to talk about our faith in our work, in our service, and how it can strengthen us and make us better,” Husted said, according to the report. “When we do that, great things happen — like advancing school choice so that every child in Ohio has a chance to go to the school of their choice.”
The same report included a photograph showing Husted speaking with Baer outside the Statehouse during the October 6, 2023 Ohio March for Life rally — a CCV-coordinated demonstration aimed in part at opposing that November’s Issue 1, the constitutional amendment that ultimately enshrined reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution.
After Husted was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by JD Vance in January 2025, CCV issued a statement including a photograph of Husted and his wife Tina speaking on stage at the group’s 2023 Ohio March for Life. Baer praised Husted as “a champion for Ohio’s children and families” and said Ohio under his leadership “has become a national school-choice leader.”
On April 3, 2025, Husted posted on X about an office visit from a CCV staff member, writing: “While in our Nation’s Capital to speak up for children and families, Ruth Edmunds of Citizens for Christian Virtue stopped in to see us. Ruth has given so much of her heart to fight for the lives of children, born and unborn.” Ruth Edmonds is CCV’s director of Christian engagement, according to her bio on the group’s website.
A month later, Husted and Ohio’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Bernie Moreno, delivered keynote addresses at CCV’s Columbus Gala on May 10, 2025. CCV billed the dual-senator keynote as part of “an elegant evening featuring a catered dinner, the latest updates on Ohio politics, and CCV’s strategic efforts to address the breakdown of marriage and family.”
Husted, who served as Ohio secretary of state from 2011 to 2019 and as lieutenant governor from 2019 until January 2025, was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by JD Vance after Vance became vice president. Husted officially launched his 2026 campaign on Dec. 12, 2025, in Columbus and faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the November special election.
