The White House has invited another gay rights opponent to join its Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office.

Dan Gilgoff is reporting at U.S. News and World Report that former Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy is being considered for the panel.

Obama's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office is an extension of President Bush's Faith-Based Council that delivered funds to church social groups.

On March 20, 2007 Dungy was the VIP attraction at a fundraiser for the Indiana Family Institute (IFI) where he helped raise more than $70,000 for the group.

The IFI is the Indianapolis-based social conservative group that backed a 2007 effort to put a gay marriage ban in the state's constitution. Its anti-gay philosophy is listed on the group's website: “Throughout its 16-year history, the Indiana Family Institute has sought to bring Biblical values and Biblical ethics to the public policy making process in Indiana. To this end, we have opposed all efforts to create or advance special civil or legal rights for homosexuals.”

IFI leaders also opposed an Indiana gay protections law in 2005 and support the notion that gays can be “cured” through prayer.

At the event, which came after weeks of dodging questions over his involvement with the group, Dungy publicly acknowledged his opposition to gay marriage: “I appreciate the stance they're taking, and I embrace that stance. ... IFI is saying what the Lord says. You can take that and make your decision on which way you want to be. I'm on the Lord's side.”

Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, praised Obama's invitation to Dungy.

“Opponents of traditional marriage are seeking to disqualify Coach Dungy simply for believing that marriage is the union of one man and one woman which is a view shared by more than 80 percent of American Evangelicals. Their desire to exclude Tony Dungy from the Faith Council, based upon his religious convictions, provides further evidence of an effort to silence the Church,” Perkins said in a statement.

If Dungy accepts the appointment, he would join at least 2 more anti-gay leaders on the council: Joel Hunter, who once headed the Christian Coalition, the most widely recognized anti-gay and anti-abortion group in the nation, and Rev. Jim Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a Washington-based evangelical magazine, who is a vocal opponent of abortion and gay marriage.