Tony Perkins Knew A Star Candidate Was A Perv And Covered It Up (VIDEO)


By now, most of the nation knows that Roy Moore, one of the longtime stars of the religious right, is under fire for allegedly pursuing and harassing girls young enough to be his daughter and for molesting women in his office. What most of us may not know is that another religious right luminary has some explaining to do–only it involves crimes of omission, not commission.

On Tuesday, Wes Goodman, a freshman Republican member of the Ohio state house, abruptly resigned after being caught in “inappropriate behavior” in his office. Watch coverage from WCMH-TV in Columbus here.

It turned out that a few months earlier, someone had seen Goodman having sex with a man in his state office. However, it was only last week that word of the incident got to state house speaker Cliff Rosenberger, who called Goodman in and told him to resign. He had no choice. A state legislator having sex in his office would be a big problem–even if it involved a man having sex with a woman.

Goodman billed himself as an ardent Christian conservative on his now-deleted campaign Website, so at first blush it appeared to be a classic case of a fundie leading a double life. But in recent days, details have come up that involve matters far worse than merely having sex in the office.

According to The Washington Post, the Council for National Policy, a secretive religious right group , thought enough of Goodman that it held a fundraiser for his bid to represent a state house district in west-central Ohio, between Toledo and Columbus. Perkins serves as president of the CNP, in addition to his better-known post as president of the Family Research Council. The fundraiser took place at a Ritz-Carlton near Washington in October 2015. Goodman was already well-known to the CNP; he’d served as director of its Conservative Action Project from 2013 to 2015 after spending six years working for Congressman Jim Jordan.


On the night of October 17-18, a college freshman who came to the fundraiser with his parents came to Goodman’s room after being pressed to stop by and share his bed. According to the student, he woke up around 4 a. m. to find Goodman unzipping his pants. He ran out of the room and told his mother and stepfather, who immediately demanded that Perkins take action. The stepfather emailed Perkins to say that endorsing people like Jordan would make the fundraiser look like a “charade.”

Perkins emailed the stepfather to promise that this incident would not be “ignored or swept aside,” and asked the young man to send a full statement about the incident. A number of CNP members were outraged at this and asked that their donations be refunded. Later in October, CNP executive director Bob McEwen, himself a former Ohio congressman, wrote the parents to say that “strong action is about to take place.”

There matters stood until December, when Perkins wrote Goodman to tell him that he was being suspended from the CNP. Perkins congratulated Goodman on admitting what he did and seeking counseling, but also expressed disappointment that he had still decided to run for the state house given that he had “only begun the process of restoration.” He also referred to a number of other incidents prior to the October incident.

However, it doesn’t appear that Perkins disclosed these incidents to anyone outside the CNP. Needless to say, this didn’t play well in Ohio. Thomas Zawitowski of Ohio Citizens PAC bluntly stated that if anyone knew, “they had an obligation to say something.”


That’s being kind to it. Unless Perkins has a really good explanation for why he thought he could keep this in house, his time in politics, like that of Moore, has run its course.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.