Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr.

Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. "is founder and president of Fieldstead and Company, Inc., a private philanthropy working in national and international relief and development, education, the arts, family and children's concerns, and religious freedom issues worldwide. Born in Los Angeles in 1950, Ahmanson, is a graduate of Occidental College in that city and holds a master's degree in linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington.

"Ahmanson is a member of the board of both the John M. Perkins Foundation in Jackson, Mississippi, and The Claremont Institute of Claremont, California. A frequent writer on public policy issues, Ahmanson has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Philanthropy, and Religion and Liberty, among others.

"Recent projects include a four-year series of conferences on holistic development co-sponsored with Food for the Hungry International, held in Thailand, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, and the Philippines; support for Harambee Christian Preparatory School, and inner city school in Pasadena, California; and an international photo exhibit and book on the victims of wary in Nagarno-Karabagh. Among current projects are support for music education for elementary students in public schools in Orange County, California; sponsorship of Stanley Spencer: An English Vision, a retrospective exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City, and the Palace of Fine Art in San Francisco; and funding for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, twenty-eight volumes of patristic commentary on the Bible to be translated into seven languages, e.g., German French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, and Mandarin Chinese." [1]

Married to Roberta Ahmanson.

Reclusive multimillionaire who is the benefactor to numerous right wing causes. This includes the Chalcedon Report, a right wing magazine that has made news with vicious anti-gay articles.

"Howard F. Ahmanson Jr is not a well-known name in the United Kingdom. Indeed, neither is it in his home country, the United States. However, this secretive and extremely wealthy man is, arguably, the most influential Christian religious fundamentalist in the English-speaking world today...

"For years Ahmanson funded Rushdoony and his Chalcedon Foundation and, indeed, was on its board from the mid-1970s until 2001. Ahmanson has never repudiated that he believed in what Rushdoony was promoting. Indeed Ahmanson and his wife were at Rushdoony’s bedside when he died in 2001.

"Admittedly, Ahmanson is on record as saying in 2004 that he had rejected Rushdoony’s view that gays should be stoned to death. However, that was 30 years after his association with Rushdoony started...

"Ahmanson is a member of the secretive Council for National Policy, an elite group of politically conservative national leaders who meet several times a year to coordinate their efforts on a common agenda...

"In 2004 he and his wife co-operated with The Register (a US publication available online) in a five part interview...

"Ahmanson also contributes heavily to the Discovery Institute, the 'intellectual' flagship of the Intelligent Design movement, and the George C. Marshall Institute, which disputes research indicating that human activity contributes to global warming.

"Ahmanson's views are considered controversial enough that two Republican candidates, Linda Lingle, governor of Hawaii and Virginia Congressman Frank R. Wolf returned his contributions to their campaigns...

"Some of Ahmanson's donations are channelled through the Fieldstead Foundation, which is a subspecies of the Ahmanson foundation ("Fieldstead" is Ahmanson's middle name). The Fieldstead Foundation funds many of the travelling and speaking expenses of the DI's shining stars." wiki

• Director, Discovery Institute

External links

• Steve Benen, "From Genesis to Dominion", Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 2000, accessed February 6, 2008.
• Steve Benen, "The Discovery Institute: Genesis Of 'Intelligent Design'", Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, May 2002, Accessed February 6, 2008.
• ”Biography”, Accessed January 2007.