Patrick Hickey (politician) had only recently been founded. Hickey worked in the Unification Church as a state leader and regional spokesperson. In 1978 he was matched with his wife, Shin Myung-hee of South Korea, by church founder Sun Myung Moon. They were married in 1982 in a Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church, held in Madison Square Garden in New York City, along with over 2000 other couples. They now have four grown children. Hickey moved to Nevada in the 1990s and worked as a reporter as well as founding a house painting company. In 1996 he was elected to the Nevada State
Sun Myung Moon World Peace Academy, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in Geneva to debate the theme "The situation in the world after the fall of the communist empire." In April 1990, Moon visited the Soviet Union and met with President Mikhail Gorbachev. Moon expressed support for the political and economic transformations under way in the Soviet Union. At the same time the Unification Church was expanding into formerly communist nations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, some American conservatives criticized Moon for his softening of his previous anti-communist stance. In 1991, Moon met with Kim Il