COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The son of one of President Bush’s most generous campaign fund-raisers who served as an adviser to the group behind Ohio’s 2004 same-sex marriage ban is credited with helping Bush win the state and take back the White House.

An Associated Press analysis shows Carl Lindner III was among nearly a dozen associates of Citizens for Community Values who donated to Bush heading into the 2004 election, part of a giving pattern that provides new evidence that many supporters of the group had allegiances to Bush and the GOP.

None of the associates donated to Bush’s opponent, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, state and federal campaign data show.

Critics have suggested that the way the Cincinnati-based Christian values group was organized allowed it to avoid contribution limits and conceal donors despite playing a crucial role in the Bush-Cheney victory strategy. Both CCV and the Bush campaign have said the groups never coordinated their efforts.

Exactly who funded the group’s 2004 effort is still unclear, but the elusive list of the group’s advisers and donors obtained by the Associated Press lends some detail to the picture.

Lindner, president of Great American Insurance Companies, is son to Carl Lindner Jr., one of the nation’s top fund-raisers for Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The younger Lindner and 31 other advisers or directors to CCV in 2000, along with their family members, have donated at least $540,000 to Bush or other Republicans since that time, state and federal data show. Theirs were among 51 names listed on CCV letterhead filed in a federal communications case in 2000.

CCV vice president David Miller declined to say whether the younger Lindner remained on the advisory board as the 2004 election approached, or whether he serves today. A message seeking comment was left at the younger Lindner’s office.

Miller said as the group’s activities expanded since 2000 from the Cincinnati area to the statewide stage, backers’ names were removed from the organization’s stationery.