American Family Association

American Family Association

The American Family Association (AFA) has been a long-time promoter of "traditional moral values" in the media, particularly television. AFA built its reputation on organizing boycotts against sponsors of TV shows with "anti-Christian" messages and ideas, or against companies it claims support the so-called "homosexual agenda" or marriage equality.

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VCY America Joins JC Penney Boycott, Upset Spokesman Ellen DeGeneres is a 'Flaming Homosexual'

The American Family Association’s division OneMillionMoms is receiving help on its campaign to compel JC Penney to fire Ellen DeGeneres as the retailer’s spokesperson because she is a openly gay. Vic Eliason, the host of Voice of Christian Youth America’s flagship program Crosstalk, today encouraged listeners to stop shopping at JC Penney and also to boycott Starbucks because of the coffee company’s support of a marriage equality bill in Washington. Eliason said that people are “letting Sodom and Gomorrah come walking in the door” and bring in a “corruption that is literally putrefying our families.” “Does it offend you,” Eliason asked, when retailers are “putting icons before you and your kids who are known, and according to some, flaming homosexuals?”

Does it offend you? Are you offended by this or are you kind of just ‘ho hum, so be it’? There comes a time when there needs to be a holy rejection of corruption that is literally putrefying our families. It’s time, long overdue, and too many people are sitting back and just letting Sodom and Gomorrah come walking in the door. Walking in the door? Good grief, it’s already in the door, you can’t even turn your TV set on without being slammed in the face with some commercial with anything from body parts to who knows what all, personal products and things of a nature that weren’t even considered appropriate to be parading in front of our little kids. Now little kids in the first and the second and the third grade are being trained to know that being gay is O.K. and we don’t want to say anything bad about that because that would be bullying.

Does it offend you, when you hear what retailers now—putting icons before you and your kids who are known, and according to some, flaming homosexuals?

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Fischer Claims a Direct Connection between Evolution and the Holocaust

On yesterday's program Bryan Fischer interviewed Dr. Georgia Purdom of the Creationist organization Answers in Genesis where the two discussed the direct line that connects Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution to Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust.

The two things are directly related, explained Purdom, because once you start to start compromising on the Biblical account of creation, it is a step down the path toward full-blown genocide:

Fischer: It seems to me that you can draw pretty much of a straight line from Darwinian Evolution to Social Darwinianism - I mean, if it's survival of the fittest and let's get rid of the weakest members of our society, it makes absolutely logical sense if you believe in Darwinianism, this is how all of life develops, this is how we get increasingly complex lifeforms. So it seems like you can draw almost a straight line between Charles Darwin, Margaret Sanger, Eugenics movement, and Adolph Hitler. In other words, you've got pretty much a broken (sic) line from the theory of evolution to Hitler's Germany. Is that an over-exaggeration?

Purdom: Not it's not, it's absolutely and that's one of the things I will show in the presentation that I'll be doing for the Life Series to sort of show that building, so to speak, from Charles Darwin to Francis Galton to Margaret Sanger to Nazi Germany and all those others in this one big continuum, so to speak. One thing leads to another. When we start compromising on the Bible in one part, like with the ideas of evolution, it's just another step to compromising on other parts, like the sanctity of life.

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Fischer: JC Penney is 'Defining Deviancy Down' by Hiring Ellen DeGeneres

Once upon a time, Bryan Fischer believed that trying to get someone fired from their job was a hate crime.  But that is apparently only the case if the person getting fired is a Christian and the people urging the firing are gay because Fischer and the American Family Association are now trying to get JC Penney to fire Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson solely because she is gay.

On his radio program today, Fischer discussed the effort with Monica Cole of the AFA subgroup One Million Moms, which is responsible for the campaign to pressure JC Penney to fire DeGeneres.  Both Fischer and Cole agreed that the decision by JC Penney to hire a sexual deviant like DeGeneres was an intentional affront to Christians, especially since there were countless heterosexuals that the company could have hired to fill this position instead.

Fischer later went off about how this decision makes the company now the "leading voice for defining deviancy down" because it is promoting behavior that just a generation ago was shameful and illegal:

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American Family Association Redoubles Efforts to Get JC Penney to Fire Ellen DeGeneres

JC Penney quickly shot down the American Family Association’s campaign through its subgroup One Million Moms to have the retailer fire Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson because she is openly gay, but that hasn’t stopped the organization’s efforts. Instead of calling JC Penney’s corporate office, now OMM is telling activists to call local managers. OMM accused the corporate office of “insulting” them by not bowing to their anti-gay pressure campaign, and now hopes that store managers will be easier targets:

OMM began contacting JC Penney after the store announced that comedian Ellen DeGeneres would become the company's new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of its customers are traditional families. As consumers, what we find tragic is a corporate office and customer service department that not only transfers customers to voicemail, but even hangs up on them rather than verses hearing their concerns.

It is absurd to think that a company would find treating customers in this fashion an acceptable behavior. Our members stated their concerns in a kind, professional manner. Insulting customers by ignoring us will not be tolerated. OMM members can shop elsewhere if JC Penney does not appreciate our business. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war and listen to customers in a considerate fashion, their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.

Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families who shop at the retailer. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales by offending the majority.

Since JC Penney won't listen to us nationally, it is time we let them hear from us locally!

Since the corporate office doesn't consider your call important, please call your local store manager. Local managers are more likely to listen to your concerns and pass them along to the corporate office.

Please be kind when you ask them to tell corporate that Ellen DeGeneres is a poor choice for spokesperson and should be replaced with someone who more represents your family values.

OMM spokeswoman Monica Cole, last seen attacking Glee, told the AFA affiliated OneNewsNow that DeGeneres doesn’t make a good spokesperson because of the small size of the openly gay community:

But Monica Cole, director of American Family Association's advocacy groupOneMillionMoms.com, tells OneNewsNow the campaign might backfire since only an estimated 1.7 percent of the population is homosexual.

"Yes, DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store," says Cole. "And they're going to be gaining a very small percentage of liberal customers. This will not satisfy or offset their loss in sales. They will be losing more than they'll be gaining."

In hiring a lesbian to sell the public on the idea of shopping at J.C. Penney, the company is making the mistake of turning its back on its base of customers, says Cole.

"[We're] asking J.C. Penney to hire a spokesperson who's more representative of the type of the customers that shop in their stores, such as traditional families," she concludes.

OneMillionMoms is asking people to call J.C. Penney to politely ask that DeGeneres be replaced -- and that instead of "jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon," the firm take a neutral stance in the culture war.

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Obama Cites Jesus and the Right Loses Its Mind

It seems like all we ever hear from the Religious Right is how important it is for our political leaders to let their faith influence their public policy decisions.  But apparently that only applies when it leads politicians to support the conservative political agenda because when President Obama cites Jesus, it seems to make the Right lose their minds.

Yesterday, during the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama cited a passage from the Book of Luke to support his view that the well-off should be expected to contribute more:

And when I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe that in a time when many folks are struggling, at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income, or young people with student loans, or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone. And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense.

But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.”

And now right-wing leaders and Republicans are outraged, with Sen. Orrin Hatch lashing out about it on the Senate floor and Rep. Phil Gingrey walking out in protest while Ralph Reed, of all people, is saying that Obama went "over the line":

Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition said that for the president to tie his tax policy to Jesus’s teachings “is theologically threadbare and straining credulity.”

“I felt like it was over the line and not the best use of the forum,” Reed said. “It showed insufficient level of respect for what the office of the president has historically brought to that moment.”

And of course Bryan Fischer, who thinks the Bible ought to be the foundation for all our public policy, including putting animals to death, was incensed that Obama would dare to claim that the teachings of Christ support his agenda when, in fact, his agenda "is in the spirit of Joseph Stalin" and Karl Marx:

As we have said before, it is amazing President Obama even bothers to talk about his Christian faith because nothing he says will ever be acceptable for the "real" Christians in the Religious Right.

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Is the AFA Censoring Bryan Fischer Again?

The American Family Association’s spokesman and Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fischer keeps finding that his own organization censors articles he posts to the AFA’s website, including one where he claimed that welfare encourages African Americans to “rut like rabbits” and one in which demanded that all immigrants must “convert to Christianity.”

Now, Fischer is finding himself in trouble for an article condemning Newt Gingrich, which the AFA has yanked from its website.

Why? Because AFA founder and chairman emeritus Don Wildmon endorsed Gingrich and is a member of his Faith Leaders Coalition, and claims that only a Gingrich presidency can save Western civilization and the human race.

Fischer, who is not one to apologize, began his radio show last month to by offering “my apologies for yesterday” for the “intensity” of his attacks on Gingrich over his marital affairs, and had his post labeling Gingrich “a serial adulterer” had been pulled off the AFA’s homepage.

For a radio host who constantly complains that Muslims, liberals and gays and lesbians are trying to suppress his views, it seems that the only one actually censoring Bryan Fischer is none other than his own employer.

Here’s the original article before the AFA took it off their website:

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Perkins: 'The Islamists and the Homosexuals Work Out of the Same Playbook'

Yesterday on Today’s Issues, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins claimed that “Islamists and the homosexuals work out of the same playbook” in their attempt to “marginalize” and “silence” critics. Perkins told his cohost, American Family Association head Tim Wildmon, that both Islamists and gays and lesbians attack critics because “if what they do and what they subscribe to is scrutinized, people will turn away from it.” Wildmon wholeheartedly agreed with Perkins and said that Islamists and the gay community want people to “suspend common sense.”

Listen:

Perkins: The Islamists and the homosexuals work out of the same playbook. They knew that if what they do and what they subscribe to is scrutinized, people will turn away from it, so what they want to do is they want to marginalize and eventually silence anyone who challenges their ideology and their agenda.

Wildmon: That’s called political correctness.

Perkins: Yup.

Wildmon: What you have to do there is you have to deny reality and you have to, you know, you have to suspend common sense.

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Bryan Fischer Hails Roger Ailes for Running Fox News with 'Exactly the Style that Jesus Taught'

In a column, “Jesus explains the success of Fox News,” American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer claims that Fox News president Roger Ailes’s “leadership style is exactly the style that Jesus taught.” Fischer credits Ailes’s Jesus-like behavior for Fox’s success and says “the key to success in a capitalistic system is to do things Jesus’ way.”

For Fischer, it is “Jesus’ way” to encourage someone to lie under oath, threaten the elderly publisher of a small newspaper, introduce a series of political dirty tricks, including racially charged campaign strategies and television ads, and manage a media outlet which lies and foments extremism on a routine basis.

An interesting story on Politico this morning, explaining the success of Fox News, which has double the audience of CNN and MSNBC. The brainchild of Fox is Roger Ailes, and the Politico piece quotes Shepard Smith about his leadership style:

“We have one dad in this family,” said Shepard Smith, a star anchor who was a correspondent in the Los Angeles bureau at launch. “He makes all the decisions, and you know exactly who you have to go to, and you know when to stop asking. If you get an answer from Mr. Ailes’s office, that’s the answer; it’s time to move on.”

Smith said that when he leaves Ailes’s office, “the last thing he asks me is, ‘What can I do for you?’ And the last thing he tells me is he loves me. That’s not going to work everywhere, and most people will hear that and go, ‘You are full of crap.’ That’s exactly how it is here, and I love it.”

In other words, whether Ailes realizes it or not, his leadership style is exactly the style that Jesus taught.

Remember that Jesus said, in Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.” Ailes is successful not because he can throw his weight around, but because he uses his weight to serve the people who work for him. By serving them rather than spending all day ordering them around, he gives them the opportunity to succeed and in turn he receives the considerable reward of their talent and effort.

Bottom line: the key to success in a capitalistic system is to do things Jesus’ way. Who knew?

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Fischer: Let Hospitals Refuse Treatment to Emergency Room Patients

It seems that Bryan Fischer considers himself to be something of an expert when it comes to the issue of medicine and healthcare.  

For example, just last week he has informed us that Bill Clinton was responsible for a rise in oral cancer.  And before that, he was explaining that AIDS is not caused by HIV , but rather by rampant drug use and promiscuity among gay men and that if they would only stop having sex, God would be able to cure the disease.

So it only stands to reason that he would also have some thoughts on how to get healthcare costs under control by allowing hospitals to refuse treatment to those who show up in the emergency room:

I submit that we will never get health care costs under control until the federal law is repealed that mandates - there's that word again - that emergency rooms treat everybody who shows up regardless of ability to pay.

Hospitals should be allowed to set their own policies for services just like all other businesses, none of whom are forced to sell cars, food, or clothes to people who can't pay for them. Hospitals can develop a fund to which generous members of the community can contribute to cover genuine health care emergencies for the indigent.

Many people are now using emergency rooms like corner medical clinics, for routine, non-emergency care, because they know they can get care that somebody else will be obligated to pay for.

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