Ken Campbell (evangelist)

Ken Campbell
Ken Campbell circa 2003
Leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada
In office 1990–1993
Preceded by	Harvey Lainson
Succeeded by	final leader
Personal details
Born	January 15, 1934
Died	August 28, 2006(2006-08-28) (aged 72) Delta, British Columbia

Kenneth Livingstone (Ken) Campbell (January 15, 1934 – August 28, 2006) was a Canadian fundamentalist Baptist evangelist and political figure. He was the final leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada from 1990 to 1993.

He became prominent in the Toronto area in the 1970s as a crusader against homosexuals and a pro-life advocate, founding "Renaissance Canada" in 1974 to promote his views, particularly in education. He held frequent rallies against gay rights and regularly took out full page ads in newspapers, campaigning against the homosexual agenda and secular humanism. Many such ads were printed following court decisions on gay rights, such as the 1998 Supreme Court ruling in Vriend v. Alberta. In 1979 outside the Toronto mayor's office, Campbell organized a protest rally against the gay publication The Body Politic alongside Christian television talk-show host David Mainse in response to an article it had published by Gerald Hannon in the December 1977/January 1978 issue (reprinted in March/April 1979) entitled "Men Loving Boys Loving Men." [1]. While being interviewed by the media during the rally, Campbell stated, "when a group advocates the molestation of children one has to question the social constructive nature of the whole cause they represent." In 1980, Campbell published a book entitled No Small Stir: A Spiritual Strategy For Salting and Saving A Secular Society, with a forward from Jerry Falwell.

Campbell ran in elections at all levels in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the provincial riding of St. George—St. David, which included the centre of Toronto's gay community clustered around Church and Wellesley streets. In 1984, following the acquittal of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, he founded a group called Choose Life Canada which picketed abortion clinics in Toronto and other Ontario cities. On one occasion, he attempted to conduct a "citizen's arrest" against provincial Attorney General Ian Scott, after Scott refused to shut down an abortion clinic run by Morgentaler . Campbell later ran against Scott in St. George—St. David as a candidate of the Family Coalition Party in the 1990 provincial election. He campaigned as a fringe candidate for Mayor of Toronto the following year, but urged voters to support June Rowlands rather than himself to prevent Jack Layton from winning.