Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer: Black “Plantation Politicians” Shouldn’t Be Angry About Three-Fifths Compromise

When Republicans selected an edited version of the Constitution to read on the House Floor, one which left out sections such as the “three-fifths compromise” that says slaves will be counted as three-fifths of a person when assessing the apportionment of “representatives and direct taxes,” Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) charged that the “redacted Constitutional reading gives little deference to the long history of improving the Constitution” through anti-slavery and civil rights struggles. For very different reasons, Glenn Beck slammed the use of the edited version, because in his opinion the “three-fifths compromise” reflects “the genius of the Constitution.”

Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association, on the other hand, managed to both endorse the decision to leave the "three-fifths compromise" out of the reading while also defending the “three-fifths compromise”:

You’d think that the Democrats, with all their bloviation about how the Constitution is a living and breathing document that must change with the times, would be ecstatic at Republican recognition of legitimate changes to our founding document.

But no. The grievance industry, represented by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and other plantation politicians, is royally hacked off that the original part of the Constitution that dealt with representation in the slave-holding states wasn’t read. News flash for Rep. Jackson: the Civil War ended 146 years ago. Wake up and smell the freedom! Get over yourself and get on up into the 21st century while you’re at it.



So the grievance industry, still stuck woefully in the past, desperately wanted the Republicans to read the “three-fifths” clause. The Republicans didn’t, for one simple reason. It’s no longer part of the Constitution.

And here’s the kicker: while the Democrats wanted that read because they erroneously believe that it says that slaves were three-fifths of a person, the Constitution itself says exactly the opposite. The “three-fifths” clause clearly affirms the personhood of slaves.

Check it out. Here is the relevant portion, with emphasis added:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.



Bottom line: the three-fifths clause is not a pro-slavery clause, it is an anti-slavery clause.

And the same clause affirms the personhood of all slaves. You could look it up.

Again, this is the same Bryan Fischer who several prospective GOP presidential candidates shared a stage with at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit last year.

Fischer Wishes US Was More Like China

The AFA's Bryan Fischer positively gushes over the news that the Chinese government shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites last year, saying that the only reason the US government isn't doing the same thing is because of a "distorted, bizarre, grotesque understanding of the First Amendment" as a result of courts wrongly rulings that things like pornography, obscenity, and profanity are forms of free speech.  Fishcer asserts that the First Amendment was intended to protect only political discourse:

Right Wing Leftovers

  • Right wing activists in Texas continue to oppose Joe Straus.
  • Apparently, CNS considers it "news" that "Gen. George Washington approved the dismissal of a soldier for 'attempting to commit sodomy,' with 'abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes.'"
  • Bryan Fischer puts his money on Rep. Mike Pence as the GOP's nominee in 2012.
  • Bob Vander Plaats plans on capturing the momentum.
  • The full list of the CADC's "Top Ten Anti-Christian Events in 2010" is pretty pathetic.
  • Finally, the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition has invited 13 potential GOP presidential candidates to a forum in March.

Random Book Blogging: Old Arguments Never Die

Over the holiday break, I started reading "What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America" by Peggy Pascoe and it is absolutely fascinating - I highly encourage you to pick up a copy and read it, but for now I want to highlight a few passages from the introduction:

When societies decide who can and who can't legally marry, they determine who is and isn't really a part of the family. These inclusions and exclusions take place at such an intimate level that they shape what seems natural and, in turn, what is stigmatized as unnatural.

...

From the 1860s through the 1960s, the American legal system elevated the notion that interracial marriage was unnatural to commonsense status and made it the law of the land. During this period, miscegenation law channeled property, propriety, personal choice, and legitimate procreation into one very particular kind of monogamous marital pair: couples that were made of up one White man and one White woman, whose sameness of race was required by law and whose difference in sex was taken entirely for granted. The more Whites believe that interracial marriage was unnatural, the more they assumed that the marriage of one White man to one White woman was the only kind of marriage worthy of the name - and the more they saw their own marriages as the fortunate result of individual romantic preference rather than the obligatory outcome of a legal system steeped in gendered assumptions about race and heterosexuality.

...

The constitutional fiction of miscegenation law held that laws punishing both partners in an interracial relationship were racially equal rather than racially discriminatory. This, for example, was the position the Alabama Supreme Court put forth in 1881 in Pace v. State, a case involving a White woman and a Black man, when it ruled:

The fact that a different punishment is affixed to the offense of adultery when committed between a negro and a white person, and when committed between two white people or two negroes, does not constitute a discrimination against or in favor of either race. The discrimination is not directed against the person of any particular color or race, but against the offense, the nature of which is determined by the opposite color of the cohabiting parties. The punishment of each offending party, white or black, is precisely the same. There is obviously no difference or discrimination in the punishment. The evil tendency of the crime of living in adultery or fornication is greater when it is committed between persons of the two races than between persons of the same race.

The was also the position the Oregon Supreme Court maintained a half century later when it ruled that its miscegenation law did not discriminate against Indians because it "applies alike to all persons, either white, negroes, Chinese, Kanaka, or Indians."

And let's just compare that to Bryan Fischer's response to the Prop 8 ruling:

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling in the Prop. 8 case is that he claimed to give homosexuals something they in fact already have: full marriage equality.

Homosexuals right now, as you are reading these words, have full marriage equality in America. There is no place in the United States where they don't.

They have exactly, precisely the same right to get married that every other American has: to a non-relative adult of the opposite sex.

Don't let homosexual apologists fool you here. They already have full marriage equality. Nobody anywhere has deprived of them of their right to marry. Period. They have exactly the same right to marry that you and I do, no more, no less.

What they want is not equal rights, but special rights. They want a special exemption carved out for them so that their sexually aberrant relationships can be recognized as marriages, an exemption we don't grant to folks who want to marry a son or a daughter, or a mother or a father, an uncle or an aunt, or a child.

All of those represent sexually aberrant relationships, with all their attendant physical and psychological dangers, and for that reason public policy does not permit such marriages.

So when we say two homosexuals cannot marry, we're not depriving them of marital rights any more than when we say the same thing to a pedophile. A pedophile has the same right to marry that every homosexual does — the right to marry a non-relative adult member of the opposite sex.

So let's end this nonsense that somehow we aren't being fair to homosexuals. You can't get any more fair than seeing to it that the same rules apply to everybody.

Fischer Questions CPAC's Patriotism Over GOProud

Bryan Fischer has a very simple formula: if you don't support "religion" or "morality" as he defines it, then you are unpatriotic.  That is why Planned Parentood and the ACLU are "unpatriotic and un-American" ... and now so is CPAC for allowing GOProud to participate:

Because CPAC has continued its association with GOProud again this year, AFA has once again chosen not to participate. The reason we are not participating is simple: homosexuality is not a conservative value. Period.

...

Conservatism, of course, is a three-legged stool of strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, and pro-family values. CPAC, by including GOProud, is systematically sawing off the third leg of the stool. The conservative movement, and America along with it, will collapse without third leg being strong and sturdy ... There is nothing conservative about homosexuality or the homosexual agenda, not one single solitary thing.

By giving GOProud a seat at the table, CPAC is lending its name to the endorsement of behavior that is enormously destructive to the people who engage in it, and giving stature to an organization dedicated to destroying the institution of natural marriage. Shame on CPAC for abandoning classic conservatism for something trendy and dangerous.

George Washington said that ‘religion and morality are indispensable supports’ of ‘political prosperity.’ GOProud is laboring to subvert both of these ‘great pillars of human happiness,’ as Washington called them, and CPAC is helping them do it. (Both pillars are being undermined, since the moral issues under discussion here are rooted in religion.) The AFA will resolutely take its stand with the father of our country on this one.

In fact, Washington said that no man could “claim the tribute of Patriotism” who would work to undermine these necessary pillars. I’ll stand with George Washington on that one too. I have absolutely no qualms about questioning the patriotism of CPAC and GOProud. GOProud’s agenda is bad for CPAC and, much worse, bad for America.

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 1/4/11

Mitch Daniels

Social issues: Candidates for RNC Chair pan Daniels's "truce" proposal (GOP12, 1/3).

2012: Claims that a potential presidential bid scares his family "to death" (The Hill, 1/3).

Newt Gingrich

Religious Right: Bryan Fischer of AFA thinks his history of extramarital affairs will doom him among social conservatives (RWW, 1/3).

Fundraising: Confirmed to address, along with Mike Pence, Illinois GOP fundraiser celebrating Ronald Reagan's birthday (Chicago Tribune, 1/3).

Mike Huckabee

Arkansas: Enthusiasm builds for a second presidential run in his home state of Arkansas (Politics Daily, 1/2).

Poll: Two out of three Republicans said that they were "very or somewhat likely" to back Huckabee, leading the field (CBNNews, 1/2).

Jon Huntsman

2012: Still open to presidential bid despite his appointment as Ambassador to China (Newsweek, 1/1).

Sarah Palin

Social issues: Re-tweets Tammy Bruce, who said that "the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed" (Gawker, 1/4).

GOP: Conservative writer George Will and blogger Erick Erickson dismiss Palin's chances of winning the Presidency (Salon, 1/3).

Book: Reviewer of America By Heart finds that "there is no identity she embraces with more alacrity than that of victim" (Religion Dispatches, 1/2).

Tim Pawlenty

2012: With Mark Dayton's inauguration as governor, Pawlenty now "full-time candidate" (The Atlantic, 1/3).

Book: Will begin tour for new book, Courage to Stand (Minnesota Public Radio, 1/3).

Mike Pence

Indiana: Fundraising plans point to potential gubernatorial bid (TPM, 1/4).

GOP: Wins the endorsement of RedState's Erick Erickson (RedState, 1/3).

Fundraising: Confirmed to address, along with Newt Gingrich, Illinois GOP fundraiser celebrating Ronald Reagan's birthday (Chicago Tribune, 1/3).

Mitt Romney

Massachusetts: May have a "Willie Horton" situation from his parole board appointments as Massachusetts governor (UPI, 1/3).

South Carolina: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) calls Romney "the most electable conservative" (Greenville Online, 1/3).

Fischer: Christians Must Always Vote Against Gays

Bryan Fischer dedicated nearly ten minutes of his radio program to his favorite topic: railing against all things gay.

I have edited it to down to highlight Fischer's claim that what America needs is pastors who are willing to instruct their congregations that homosexuality is an ungodly perversion and that, as Christians, they must always vote accordingly and fight any effort to "accept the normalization of homosexual behavior." 

Fischer goes on to assert that you "cannot, cannot, cannot" call yourself a conservative if support equality because homosexuality is "deviant sexual behavior" and an "abomination in the nostrils of God" that "no rational society should ever endorse": 

Fischer Says Leading GOP Presidential Hopefuls All Fall Short

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer takes a look at several of the GOP's presidential hopefuls and declares them all unacceptable and/or unelectable.

Mitt Romney:

Romney will prove unacceptable to genuine social conservatives because of his politics, not his religion. His newfound love affair with the public policy values of the Judeo-Christian tradition has all the marks of a conversion which is based on convenience rather than conviction. Romney knows he cannot win without support from the pro-life, pro-faith, pro-marriage community and so it appears he’s trying to paint himself as a sincere champion for our values. It is unlikely to work.

Mitt single-handedly, by executive fiat, imposed same-sex marriage on Massachusetts in 2004, and toppled the first domino in this disastrous social experiment ... And worse for him, he is the architect of the disastrous RomneyCare, a state-level version of ObamaCare.

Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin is probably unelectable, because of her resignation as governor of Alaska and the savage and contemptible beating she has taken from the out-of-the-mainstream media. She has been successfully demonized by vicious press outlets, who seem determined to obliterate this woman’s electoral viability. And thanks to a gullible population which doesn’t believe anything the media says unless they say it about a conservative, she probably has too steep a hill to climb.

Newt Gingrich:

Newt’s troubled marital history is going to be his biggest problem. He is a brilliant thinker and strategist, and this seems to be his best role in assisting the conservative cause.

But the minimum social conservatives expect in their standard-bearer is someone who doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to family values but walks the walk.

Unfortunately, Gingrich is on his third marriage, and left his first two wives while they were battling cancer and MS respectively. By his own admission, he was carrying on an affair with his current wife while leading the impeachment effort against President Clinton for lying about his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. There likely is simply too much baggage here. If Newt does not run, none of this becomes an issue. The moment he declares, it does become an issue that social conservatives cannot and will not ignore.

Mike Huckabee:

Conservatives remain lingeringly suspicious of his stance on taxes, immigration, and cap and trade. In the past, he’s been on the wrong side on each of these issues, and they are of enormous importance to the Tea Party crowd.

His record of clemencies will also prove to be a problem. He granted clemency to a man who had committed a vicious kidnap, rape, and murder (the killer drove over the girl’s body with his car repeatedly to make sure she was dead and then dumped her body in a swamp) and who then, after receiving clemency from the governor, killed four people in Seattle in cold blood. That’s going to be a tough one for the governor to get past.

We can’t blame the governor for the actions of someone else, but the fact remains that four people would be alive today were it not for this clemency, and this will hurt his campaign to become the chief law enforcement officer in the land.

American Family Association Promotes Extreme “Personhood Amendment” in Mississippi

After efforts to amend the Colorado constitution to give constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses badly failed in November, advocates of so-called “Personhood Amendments” are now hoping that Mississippi voters will back a similar amendment in 2011. The Colorado proposal, called Amendment 62, “would have banned abortion, many forms of birth control and embryonic stem cell research in the state.” Mississippi activists were able to put a similar measure on the ballot in 2011 to coincide with the gubernatorial election.

Back in 2008, the American Life League began pushing “Personhood Amendments” to become an integral part of the anti-choice movement; however, many Religious Right groups traditionally resisted “Personhood Amendments” because of their radical nature and tremendous unpopularity. Anti-choice groups in Colorado such as National Right to Life, Americans United for Life, Colorado Citizens for Life, and the Colorado Eagle Forum refused to support the “Personhood Amendment.”

Personhood USA, the leading organization behind such measures, likened President Obama to the “Angel of Death,” and activists in Colorado compared pro-choice laws with Nazism.

Now, “Personhood Amendment” proponents will try their luck in Mississippi, which already has strict anti-choice laws, and they are receiving significant publicity and support from a leading Religious Right group: the American Family Association, which is based in Mississippi.

Matt Friedeman of the AFA’s American Family Radio said that if the proposal succeeds in 2011, he hopes it would lead the way to the criminalization of abortion across the country:

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So what we’re hoping for here is that one of these initiatives will be taken all the way to the Supreme Court and they’ll have to decide at that point what to do with it. And hopefully at that juncture we have a pro-life majority, and you never know from year to year to year what’s gonna happen there, but we hope we have a pro-life majority and we hope the day comes when Roe v. Wade is wiped off the books and we can go back to the states. Maybe even, if God would allow, to get a pro-life amendment for the whole country.

Not to be outdone, AFA Director of Issue Analysis Bryan Fischer said that Mississippi’s “Personhood Amendment” will advance his objective of “aligning” the country’s laws with “the word of God:”

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One of the things we look for from our political leaders is we want to see them work to align the public policy of our country with the standards of the word of God, that’s what we want, we want an alignment. We’re not talking about a theocracy where the clergy rules this country; we’re talking about statesmen, both men and women, who are committed as a matter of moral conviction to align the public policy of the United States with the word of God.

As “Personhood Amendment” advocates hope to find a more favorable electorate in Mississippi in 2011, will more Religious Right groups join the AFA in embracing their radical proposals?

Right Wing Leftovers

  • NOM praises a Tennessee group that made “Marriage God’s Way” billboards to counter the “glorified” gay “alternate lifestyle.”
  • Bryan Fischer and WorldNetDaily freak out about Obama’s support for the UN “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.”
  • Herman Cain talks to The Hill about his possible presidential bid and may use CPAC as a “launching pad” for his candidacy.
  • Mitch Daniels says his social issues “truce” was directed at progressives, not conservatives.
  • Not even a majority of Republicans would support Sarah Palin if she ran for President.

The Perfect Pre-Christmas Post

I cannot imagine a better topic for a final pre-Christmas post than to simply highlight this utterly delightful BBC debate between the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer and Professor Ronald Hutton, a professor of Pagan history at Bristol University, regarding the true nature of Christmas (the discussion begins around the 6:30 mark):

Christmas is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in many countries around the world, even in those whose populations are majority non-Christian.

So what does Christmas actually mean to people in the 21st century?

Has it been secularised in the name of commerce, with people losing the Christian meaning of the festival?

And how many of ancient traditions, both Christian and pre-Christian, are still upheld?

The BBC's Julian Marshall discusses these issues with Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis at the American Family Association, an organisation which promotes the Christian message, and Professor Ronald Hutton, a professor of Pagan history at Bristol University.

If the contrast between Fischer and this erudite, endlessly polite British historian doesn't just make you laugh, then I don't know what will.

Fischer: DADT Repeal Means "Limp-Wristed Enlistees" Now Stuck In the Military

It is getting to the point where Bryan Fischer's obsessive hatred of all things gay has become so fundamentally incoherent that he is now practically cackling with glee that gays have "just lost their 'get out of jail free' card," thanks to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Apparently Fischer believes that gays have been signing up for the military just to, you know, test it out for a few weeks, knowing that if they didn't like it, they could just come out and get discharged.

But now that DADT has been repealed, Fischer wants all these "would-be limp-wristed enlistees" to know that if they sign up for the military now, they are stuck for the duration:

Well, all that’s gone now, both for gays and straights willing to tell odious lies about themselves. If a homosexual signs up now, he’s stuck with the whole magilla. Go to your superior officer now and say, hey, I’m a flaming homosexual, I hate the army, let me out of here, the superior officer will say, tough darts, those days are gone. You’re stuck with us now, Nancy-boy.

So, who’s sorry now?

This may be the silver lining in this whole mess. Conservative groups, simply as a public service, may want to sound this message far and wide out of simple, straightforward compassion, just in order to protect potential homosexual soldiers from themselves and from the distressing discovery that they just kissed off a handy exit option that nobody else had.

The more this message resounds, the fewer homosexuals will want to enlist. It’s one thing to be gay, and say, hey, I’ll give it a few weeks and then bail if I don’t like the food, can’t get enough action in the barracks, or thought I’d enjoy ogling male soldiers in the shower more than I did.

Those days are now shortly to be a distant memory for our homosexual friends. They enlist, they’re stuck with the whole program just like everybody else.

In other words, they had preferential treatment and special privileges, a status and privileges and an exit strategy denied to their honest and straight counterparts. And homosexuals just bargained it away. Now, they will discover to their dismay, they’re back to having equal rights instead of special rights.

Bottom line: be careful what you ask for. You just may get it.

Right Wing Leftovers

  • Pat Buchanan says that with the vote to repeal DADT, "the world has turned upside down."
  • FRC says you should donate to their organization because God "has called us to shape public policy as it pertains to the family and human life, based on Biblical principles [and] He has called FRC to serve and to lead, even when others attack us for speaking the truth."
  • Nobody seems to be able to understand just what Newsweek was thinking when it made its "Faces of the Christian Right" list.
  • Peter LaBarbera says he'd still love his children if they were gay but it wouldn't stop from pursuing his anti-gay agenda.
  • Finally, the quote of the day from - who else? - Bryan Fischer: "President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords."

Donnelly and Kincaid Keep Up “Draft” Drumbeat after Senate Passes DADT Repeal

After expressing hope that efforts to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would ultimately fail, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (who, by the way, is not close to being an expert on the issue) told Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid that the draft is on its way once DADT is scrapped. According to Donnelly, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “could put remaining troops in greater danger, and break the All-Volunteer Force.”

Donnelly joins other right wing activists like Tony Perkins, David Bossie, Frank Gaffney, and Bryan Fischer, in forecasting the return of conscription as a result of the repeal. In 2006, Donnelly also predicted that allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly will lead to “forcible sodomy,” “introducing erotic factors,” and the proliferation of “HIV positivity.”

Kincaid, though, held out hope that the incoming House Republican majority and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the designated Chair of the Armed Services Committee, would be able to block repeal:

McKeon had told reporters that he wanted to hold hearings that would include rank-and-file service members along with military leaders. “I would really like to hear from battlefield commanders,” McKeon said. “I would like to hear from battalion commanders, I would like to hear from company commanders on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq to see what their feelings are.”



So will Congress approve the changes, knowing that they could result in the return of the military draft?

As the Times indicates, the specific language of the bill is that the repeal must be “consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.”

The burden is on the gay rights lobby to prove that the changes would have no negative effect on any of the above. How can they prove such a thing when the Pentagon has already concluded that the change is risky and faces opposition from as many as 60 percent of our combat troops?

But the Pentagon’s own “Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” found, “In the key areas of military readiness, unit effectiveness, and unit cohesion the risks were all deemed to be LOW” and that “the change in culture and environment in warfighting units will be minimal.” 69% of respondents already claimed to have knowingly served with a gay or lesbian soldier, and of them “92% stated that the unit’s ‘ability to work together’ was ‘very good,’ ‘good,’ or ‘neither good nor poor.’”

But Donnelly and Kincaid continue to discount and distort the clear evidence from the Pentagon's study that the repeal of DADT will have little effect at all on the military, and claim that unless Republicans belatedly block the repeal, a draft is imminent.

Right Wing Leftovers

  • Bryan Fischer continues to rail against the DADT vote.
  • Matt Barber continues to rail against the SPLC.
  • NOM wants questions about marriage asked at the RNC debate.
  • Cliff Kincaid is set to become the director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, presumably so he can write long investigations about how gays plan to infect everyone with HIV-tainted blood.
  • I genuinely hope that Michele Bachmann decides to run for the Senate because I find it unlikely that the state the elected Paul Wellstone would ever elect someone like her.
  • Finally, the quote of the day from Gary Bauer: "It would be wrong to suggest that by stirring up class resentment the Left caused any of these crimes. What seems fairly clear, however, is that the Left is turning the anger and frustration that many struggling Americans feel about the economy into resentment against those who have succeeded."

Reaction to DADT Vote: "The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted"

Today, the Senate voted 63-33 to invoke cloture and bring the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to a final vote later today.  With repeal of DADT all but a foregone conclusion, the Religious Right has begun releasing statements which we are going to chronicle here as they come it.

And judging by the early statements from the likes of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, this vote is literally going to mean the end of America:

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators ... Had the cloture vote failed, we would still have sane moral and sexual standards governing military personnel policy. But sadly those days are gone, perhaps forever.

...

The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours.

They knew they could count on the strength, might, power, and cohesion of the U.S. military to intervene whenever and wherever necessary to pull their fannies out of the fire and squash the forces of tyranny wherever they raised their ugly heads around the world.

Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all.

It’s past time for a litmus test for Republican candidates. This debacle shows what happens when party leaders are careless about the allegiance of candidates to the fundamental conservative principles expressed in the party’s own platform.

Character-driven officers and chaplains will eventually be forced out of the military en masse, potential recruits will stay away in droves, and re-enlistments will eventually drop like a rock.

The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity. What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk?

This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that?

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

Family Research Council:

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins issued the following statement following the vote:

"Today is a tragic day for our armed forces. The American military exists for only one purpose - to fight and win wars. Yet it has now been hijacked and turned into a tool for imposing on the country a radical social agenda. This may advance the cause of reshaping social attitudes regarding human sexuality, but it will only do harm to the military's ability to fulfill its mission.

"It is shameful that the Democratic leadership, aided by Republican Senators, has forced through such a radical change in a lame-duck session of Congress. The 1993 law which is to be repealed was adopted only after months of debate and at least a dozen Congressional hearings. The repeal has been forced through only eighteen days after the Pentagon released a massive report, which raised more questions than it answered on the impact the overturning of this policy will have on our nation's military.

"It is clear why this was done: not to enhance the military's ability to accomplish its mission or to enhance national security. Rather, it is a political payoff to a tiny, but loud and wealthy, part of the Democratic base. They knew that the Congress elected last month would never adopt such legislation - certainly not without a more thoughtful and deliberative process.

"We thank Senators John McCain, James Inhofe, Jeff Sessions and Jim DeMint, as well as all of those who voted to support our troops over advancing a liberal social agenda. These senators fought hard for our men and women in uniform, and their efforts will not be forgotten."

Peter LaBarbera:

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, which opposes the “gay” activist agenda, said today’s vote, potentially clearing the way for repealing the military ban, is the most important homosexuality-related congressional vote ever held: “If the lame-duck Congress succeeds in ‘gaying down’ our military this weekend, it will take a disastrous leap toward “mainstreaming” deviant, sinful homosexual conduct – not just in the military but in larger society — thus further propelling America’s moral downward spiral.

...

Americans are tired of religious phoneys like [Sen. Joseph] Lieberman – politicians who use their religion as a PR prop while actively undermining its moral dictates. Claiming to be an “observant” Jew, Lieberman wears his religion on his sleeve (perhaps he will walk, not drive, on the Jewish Sabbath Day today to cast his pro-homosexuality vote!). Stealing the moral authority of “civil rights” is the only way Lieberman can rationalize his role as a crusader for the ‘Gay’ Lobby on Capitol Hill — when His religion, a form of Orthodox Judaism, condemns homosexual acts as an “abomination”

...

Said Brian Camenker, founder of the pro-family group Mass Resistance, who attends an Orthodox synagogue in the Boston area:

“Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who has the incredible chutzpah to call himself an Orthodox Jew, will desecrate the holy Sabbath to go to work – the U.S. Senate – and vote to force the integration of homosexuality into the U.S. military. He is a shameful disgrace and an embarrassment to Orthodox Jews everywhere.”

Freedom Federation:

Mathew Staver, on behalf the Freedom Federation, made the following statement in response to the Senate’s vote to repeal Section 654, Title 10, U.S.C. (1993), which is usually mislabeled by the subsequent Executive policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT): "Our armed forces should take heart, because the American people will not turn its back on you. This vote happened because opportunistic Senators – only days before Christmas – put political interest groups above supporting our men and women in uniform."

Staver continued, "This action will be overturned in the next Congress because it breaks the bond of trust that must exist between the military and those who command in the Pentagon and Congress. Today’s vote will prove as costly to its proponents as ObamaCare was to its advocates. We promise a full mobilization of faith-based and policy organizations, veterans, and military families in the states of every Senator who voted for repeal of DADT against the advice of our service chiefs and during a time of war. Those Senators – and the Pentagon leaders responsible for this breach of trust – should understand that they will be the object of concerted political action against them."

MassResistance:

The U.S. military took its first step on the sexual slippery slope when it admitted women to the military academies in the mid-1970s. Later, women began serving on the frontlines (just one way Bill Clinton ensured the decline of our once proud military and kowtowed to the radical feminists). The denial of reality—that there was no new element of sexual tension acting as a distraction from discipline—began then.

The incorporation of women at least involved normal sexuality. And if a woman became pregnant, she would be discharged. Still, enormous damage has been done.

Now, with the repeal of the ban on homosexuals serving openly, we will see increased tensions, this time with an unnatural and perverted sexuality endangering discipline—and it will be more pervasive in the daily life of a soldier. Where men and women are at least segregated in their housing, bathrooms, etc., this will not be the case with homosexuals.

What a betrayal by our new Senator Brown to vote for the repeal of this important element of discipline. But then, he probably doesn’t have a problem showering no matter who is ogling him:

 Gordon Klingenschmitt:

"A chaplain friend of mine asked God this week, 'why do you allow evil to grow in America, and open homosexuality to be forced upon our military?' To which God answered him from Psalm 92:7: 'When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is so that they shall be destroyed forever.'

"Homosexual sin will always be a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God, an abomination which God condemns and shall punish with everlasting destruction. Even if the Senate had voted 100 to 0 to legalize sin, they could not remove God from His throne of Judgment, before which every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

"I hereby call upon the new Congress to never certify that the military is ready to implement repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and instead pass strong laws protecting the rights of Christian troops (especially chaplains) to openly speak their opinions about what the Bible calls sin, to refuse common showers, sleeping quarters and 'social re-education' without repercussion, guaranteeing religious freedom even outside of chapel services. If free speech and free religion rights of Christian chaplains and troops are not protected, then the military is not ready to certify or implement repeal, and will quickly begin to persecute good people of Christian conscience.

"I also hereby invite my own network of up to 125,000 patriot pastors across America, to whom I have, and shall again fax free voter guides before the November 2012 election, to mobilize Church voters to throw out these 25 pro-homosexual Senators up for re-election in 2 years: Snowe (R-ME), Scott Brown (R-MA), Ensign (R-NV), James Webb (D-VA), Nelson (D-NE), Nelson (D-FL), McCaskill (D-MO), Tester (D-MT), Conrad (D-ND), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Casey (D-PA), Feinstein (D-CA), Carper (D-DE), Akaka (D-HI), Cardin (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Klobuchar (D-MI), Menendez (D-NJ), Bingaman (D-NM), Gillibrand (D-NY), Whitehouse (D-RI), Cantwell (D-WA), Kohl (D-WI), Lieberman (I-CT), Sanders (I-VT)."

Alliance Defense Fund:

The conservative legal group, Alliance Defense Fund, issued a statement after the vote saying "The Senate's cave-in to pressure from activists to impose homosexual behavior on our military will place our troops' religious liberties in unprecedented jeopardy. Indeed, the first official casualty of this hurried vote may well be the religious freedom of chaplains and Service members." ADF Litigation Counsel, Daniel Blomberg, went on to say " no Americans, and especially not our troops, should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs."

The ADF says it stands ready to defend Service members if they are ever unconstitutionally required to choose between "serving their country or obeying their God as a result of this damaging policy decision."

E.W. Jackson:

The unintended consequences on the military are staggering. Does this include transgender and transvestite individuals? What happens if homosexuals are married in one of the states which allow same sex marriage? Will the military recognize those marriages? There are too many unanswered questions.

"What of Christians who believe that homosexuality is sin? Are they to be silenced? Subjected to discipline or discharge? Will they live in close quarters with men or women attracted to the same sex? When homosexuality is given protected status, Christians are muzzled or persecuted for their beliefs, and their First Amendment Rights are trampled. This has happened in corporations all over America. The message is 'be silent or lose your job.' In the military, you cannot merely find another job. If keeping qualified people is the priority, what about the Christians who may be forced to leave the military because the environment is hostile to their faith? The message from Gates and Mullen is, 'Get out.' The repeal of the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' law is a disaster of historic proportions and it must be reinstated. My organization and others will to fight to make sure that happens."

Traditional Values Coalition:

The attack against our military through the repeal of the 1993 law is an organized campaign against religion, biblical morality, and military culture.

A vote to repeal is an assault against the moral foundations of our society, which is based on Judeo-Christian values. This is only part of the total war that LGBT activists are waging against our culture.

LGBT activists are doing a victory dance over conquering our U.S. military – but this is only a skirmish in a long battle to homosexualize our entire culture. I expect to see an effort down the road to include "transgenders" in the military. That should be an interesting debate.

In addition, LGBT activists are now turning their guns on passage of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which will be a disaster for businesses, charitable groups and Christian organizations. Schools will be forced to hire transgender teachers. They'll also be pushing for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

One of the new big guns in the LGBT artillery is called Equality Matters, which is a spin-off of the disreputable group known as Media Matters, run by gay activist David Brock. Guess who will be running Equality Matters? Why none other than Richard Socarides, a Fox News contributor and former gay senior advisor on domestic policy for President Clinton.

Equality Matters just launched its web page today and will be a major force in attacking traditional values in the years ahead.

Media Matters is a George Soros front organization designed to smear conservative journalists and to funnel misinformation into the so-called mainstream media. This Soros front currently has a $13 million yearly budget to assault Fox News and other credible news outlets.

All is not lost, however. With Republicans controlling the House in January, it is likely that conservatives will be successful in holding back at least some of the LGBT objectives until we can change Presidents in 2012. If we can elect a strong conservative, we might be able to reverse many of the current victories achieved by Obama and his LGBT friends.

Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:

After a long and difficult fight, the struggle for maintaining the military policy of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was lost for now. There are some hard truths for those who uphold traditional biblical morality to face. Being able to admit we have a problem is the first step towards making the changes we need to reverse this and other gains made by sexual anarchists and secularists.

The last thing we need to do is surrender biblical moral standards to sexual libertines, as if God’s holy nature has somehow changed with public opinion polls.

Homosexual behavior is intrinsically sinful and we cannot renegotiate God’s moral law. No apologies are necessary for agreeing with Jesus, the Apostles, the Law and the Prophets. History, science, scripture and eternity concur.

Homosexual sin, like every other kind of sin, always results in some kind of death. But sexual sin in general, and homosexual sin in particular, is singled out in the Old and New Testament as particularly deadly. Because of this, the unrepentant person trapped in homosexuality, just like all other sinners, is to be pitied and the object of our compassion.

Spiritually, they are dead to God’s mercy and transforming grace in Christ. Sadly, it was unrepentant homosexual Ellen DeGeneres who emceed the Christmas in Washington TV Show this year with President Obama and family smiling as they blindly celebrated the birth of the Savior. They never saw the incongruence of it all.

...

Ultimately, we must resolve that Providence has ordained the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” for now. It could not have happened if God had willed otherwise. But why?

In times like these when our nation defies the moral law of the living God, we must ask, “Is God hardening our heart like he did the defiant Pharaoh?” God did it to show His mighty power in the outpouring of ten plagues on the gods of Egypt and by destroying Pharaoh and his army.

Is God letting America ripen in her rebellion before He wields the mighty sickle of His wrath? It’s worth considering as our nation’s military now serves under a shameful, pink flag.

In the meantime Christian, humbly pray, boldly preach and persevere by the power of the Holy Spirit knowing that God is not mocked and one day His righteousness will prevail.

Richard Land:

"This is a very, very sad day for America," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press. "It is an honor and a privilege, not a right, to serve in our nation's military. There are multitudes of reasons why the military is the most respected national institution in American life. I have heard from privates and seamen all the way through generals and admirals that this will cause significant numbers of people to resign from the military -- in the middle of two wars."

...

"The reality is that in America today, an all-volunteer military is significantly disproportionately from red-state America," Land said. "And the resignations from the military will be disproportionately from red-state America. So, quite rapidly the military will go from an organization in which homosexuals are underrepresented in ratio to a percentage of the population to an institution where they are overrepresented, which will only accelerate the rate of resignation. Legislators who voted for this disproportionately never served in the military. The opposition was led by legislators who have served."

Concerned Women for America:

"Instead of answering questions about the rights of homosexuals in this country, rescinding DADT only serves to further muddy the waters. Will Christian chaplains be forced out of the military if they don't accept the repeal? Will homosexual partners receive preference over heterosexual families for military family housing? These are just the first of many questions surrounding implementation of this impending law, not to mention how it could severely affect our military personnel. We hoped our Congress would focus on the needs of the military and the protection of the country rather than force through this social engineering experiment during the lame duck Congress on the weekend before Christmas.

"For the social conservatives of this country, a good majority of whom voted in this new Congress, the fight over homosexual rights does not end at DADT. In no way does this repeal usher in an acceptance of same-sex marriage. Voters in 31 out of 31 states have voted to protect marriage as between one man and one woman, including supposedly liberal states such as Maine, Michigan, Oregon and California (twice). In Iowa this past election, three Supreme Court justices were voted out of office for legalizing same-sex marriage over the heads of the voters. When voters are fully informed, they reject the extreme homosexual rights agenda."

Right Wing Leftovers

Herman Cain: The Right Wing Sleeper Candidate in 2012?

Politico’s Ben Smith discussed today the unforeseen possibility that right wing activist Herman Cain could be a surprise Republican candidate for president, after he bested all other Republicans in an online straw poll conducted by the conservative blog RedState. Cain, an African American businessman and radio talk show host, even topped Sarah Palin, who came in second, to be the favorite of the right wing blogosphere. Erick Erickson of RedState writes, “I like Herman Cain and, though truth be told I never thought he’d make it past Mike Pence, I am delightfully surprised by the results.”

There is already a Draft Cain movement and he operates his own political action committee, called The Hermanator PAC (seriously). He has received praise from conservative darlings from Bishop Harry Jackson and Bryan Fischer to Joe the Plumber, and Cain himself is talking-up his chances at a presidential bid, telling The Daily Caller: “I will run proudly as a non-establishment candidate. I think the public has an appetite for a non-establishment candidate.” More recently, Cain told Fischer on the American Family Association’s radio program that after Republican gains in November, he is “one step closer” to running for President. When pondering a run, he explained: “No I don’t want to…but I feel like I must run.”

Of course, a 2012 presidential run wouldn’t be Cain’s first foray into politics. Cain is closely involved with Tea Party organizations and co-signed a letter with prominent right wing leaders asking the GOP leadership make “restoring traditional moral values” a key part of their agenda. He also ran for US Senate in 2004 in his home state of Georgia but garnered just 26% of the vote and lost to Senator Johnny Isakson in the GOP primary.

During the 2006 election, Cain was the public face of America’s PAC, a group that used stereotypical language and imagery when calling on Black voters to support Republicans. Cain, who voiced many of the group’s ads, maintained, “The main thing that America’s Pac is up to is it basically is challenging the thesis or the belief on the part of the Republican Party that they cannot attract the black vote.” America’s PAC suggested that Democrats were “decimating our population” by supporting abortion rights:

“Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies,” a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background.

“The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote. Why don't they want our lives?”

Or as put in another ad:

Michael: And if you make a little mistake with one of your ho’s, you’ll want to dispose of that problem toot sweet, no questions asked, right?

Dennis: Naw, that’s too cold. I don’t snuff my own seed

Michael: Huh. Really? (pause) Well, maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican!

America’s PAC was heavily backed by Republican financiers and led by a conservative activist who said that teaching evolution is “tantamount to teaching atheism.” Another one of their ads suggested that Democrats who opposed the Iraq War were treacherously allied with racist and right wing leader David Duke, who also opposed the war:

Now, I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists. They fight voting rights in Iraq, just like he does back home. But what I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke.

According to a report by the New York Sun, “Many of the ads with conservative social themes are sandwiched between hip-hop songs that convey blunt sexual messages. A spokesman for America’s Pac, John Altevogt, said no stations have refused the ads, but a few asked for minor edits, such as the removal of the word ‘cracker’ from the David Duke spot.”

However, the ads failed to produce significant gains for the GOP among Black voters, as nine in ten African Americans backed Democratic candidates in 2006.

Certainly, the Tea Party, the Religious Right, and the GOP will seek Cain’s help to attract Black voters in case his presidential run fails to get off the ground. Judging by his track record at America’s PAC in 2006, they may want to look elsewhere.

 

The Utter Pointlessness of Debating Bryan Fischer

As I stated yesterday, "there is nothing more pointless than trying to have a debate about anything with the AFA's Bryan Fischer" because there is quite literally no amount of refutation and debunking that will stop him from spreading his lies.

Case in point: when the Southern Poverty Law Center released its updated list of anti-gay hate groups, they also released a companion piece entitled "10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked." 

Fischer then responded with a post of this own claiming that the SPLC's "myths" were actually "truths":

TRUTH # 1 - Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.

Absolutely true. Homosexuals comprise perhaps two percent of the population, yet according to the Journal of Sex Research, homosexual pedophiles are responsible for 33% of all child sex offenses. Homosexuals molest children at at least 10 times the rate of heterosexuals.

TRUTH # 2 - Same-sex parents harm children.

Research indicates that children raised by homosexuals experiment with sexually aberrant behaviors at a higher rate than children raised by heterosexuals and at earlier ages, and do worse, according to a 1996 study by an Austrian sociologist, in nine of 13 academic and social categories compared to children raised by heterosexual married couples.

A 2001 article in American Sociological Review reported that children raised by lesbians are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior and are "more sexually adventurous."

...

TRUTH # 4 - Homosexuals don't live nearly as long as heterosexuals.

According to an extensive study of the homosexual community in Vancouver, B.C., active participation in the homosexual lifestyle will rob an individual of a significant portion of his life span. Say the researchers, "[L]ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men." In fact, they observe that participation in the homosexual lifestyle knocks life expectancy for a Canadian male back to what it was in 1871.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that homosexuals are 50 to 60 times more likely to become infected with AIDS than other groups. AIDS, of course, is often a fatal disease and thus has a dramatic impact on life expectancy. We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to keep children from taking up cigarette smoking because it will shorten lifespans by six or seven years. If we're going to spend that kind of money, it's time we spend some of it to stop children from taking up homosexual behavior as a habit, and for the same reason: it will kill you.

This piece prompted the SPLC to respond at length to, once again, point out that Fischer was completely full of it:

Fischer displays the sly predilection of anti-gay activists to cite legitimate research as supporting their claims when the researchers themselves explicitly reject them. Fischer is referring to a 1989 Journal of Sex Research article by the late researcher Kurt Freund, who concluded that homosexuals were not any more disposed to pedophilia than heterosexuals — a finding exactly opposite to what Fischer suggests.

Fischer constructs the 33% figure from Freund’s research by assuming that every case of men molesting boys is committed by a “homosexual” man — a conclusion rejected by virtually all legitimate sex researchers. As Freund said, since most pedophiles have no sexual interest in adults of either gender, terms like “homosexual” and “heterosexual” don’t apply at all. It is the child’s prepubescent nature, not his or her gender, that attracts this type of “fixated” pedophile, most of whom will prey on children of either gender. Freund and other researchers have found that those pedophiles who are capable of forming sexual relationships with other adults — so-called “regressive” pedophiles who only resort to pedophilia when under stress — overwhelmingly identify themselves as heterosexual.

Or consider SPLC’s myth No. 2, “Same-sex parents harm children.” Fischer wrote: “Research indicates that children raised by homosexuals experiment with sexually aberrant behaviors at a higher rate than children raised by heterosexuals and at earlier ages, and do worse, according to a 1996 study by an Austrian sociologist, in nine of 13 academic and social categories compared to children raised by heterosexual married couples. A 2001 article in American Sociological Review reported that children raised by lesbians are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior and are ‘more sexually adventurous.’”

Fischer identifies neither report by name — and for good reason.

In the first instance, he is referring to an obscure 1996 study by Sotirios Sarantakos, an Australian, not Austrian, researcher. Anti-gay groups frequently cite this article — yet the article, the journal that published it, and Sarantakos himself, are all but impossible to locate online.

Other social scientists have reviewed Sarantakos’ study. Richard Redding, associate dean for academic affairs at Chapman University School of Law, writing in the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, warned that its conclusions “must be viewed with caution, however, as they are based on a qualitative study involving the reports of teachers who were not blind as to whether children came from heterosexual or homosexual households.” In other words, accounts were gathered from the observations of teachers who knew in advance which students came from which households — and thus could have been influenced by that knowledge. Jenni Millbank, a professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, was more blunt. Testifying before an Australian parliamentary committee, Millbank described Sarantakos’ work as “a perfect example of almost everything that you can do wrong with methodology.”

The other study Fischer cites was conducted in 2001 by professors Timothy J. Biblarz of the University of Southern California and Judith Stacey of New York University (pdf). Fischer neglects to mention that Stacey became so annoyed by how anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family, then headed by James Dobson, were misrepresenting her research, that she publicly denounced them in a video posted online in 2007. Fischer also ignores that the authors updated their research in 2010 (pdf), concluding that “At this point no research supports the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for child well-being.”

In an E-mail to Hatewatch this week, Stacey blasted Fischer’s misuse of her research. “They are misrepresenting our 2001 article … by cherry-picking out of context one finding we mentioned that came from one very small British study,” she wrote. “Even so, their claim that children raised by lesbians are more sexually adventurous is also inaccurate. In the small study we mentioned … it was only the daughters who were sexually active a bit earlier than daughters of straight moms. Boys raised by lesbians were less sexually active than sons of straight moms! Our interpretation was that IF this tentative finding were to be replicated, it suggested that lesbians were transmitting a more egalitarian, single standard of sexual behavior to daughters and sons compared with the conventional double standard of sex being more permissible for boys. Moreover, it turns out that the … finding has NOT been replicated. In fact, a new study finds kids raised by lesbians from birth to be less sexually active!”

In response to SPLC’s myth No. 4, “Homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals,” Fischer wrote: “According to an extensive study of the homosexual community in Vancouver, B.C., [Canada] active participation in the homosexual lifestyle will rob an individual of a significant portion of his life span. Say the researchers, ‘[L]ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men.’ In fact, they observe that participation in the homosexual lifestyle knocks life expectancy for a Canadian male back to what it was in 1871.”

Again, Fischer ignores that the authors of that 1997 study updated it in 2001, pointing out that advances in treatment of HIV-AIDS even at that point had significantly improved the expected longevity of those infected, which would inevitably narrow any gap between gay and straight life spans caused by the disease. Moreover, the authors explicitly rejected the attempts of anti-gay organizations to construe the 1997 observations to justify denigration of gays.

“These homophobic groups appear more interested in restricting the human rights of gay and bisexuals rather than promoting their health and well being,” the authors wrote in their 2001 update. “It is essential to note that the life expectancy of any population is a descriptive and not a prescriptive measure. Death is a product of the way a person lives and what physical and environmental hazards he or she faces everyday. It cannot be attributed solely to their sexual orientation or any other ethnic or social factor.”

“I am aghast that the misrepresentation of these data continues,” Steffanie Strathdee, associate dean of global health sciences at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the authors of the two reports, told Hatewatch in an E-mail this week.

So how did Fischer respond?  By writing a new post accusing the SPLC of engaging in the "propagation of known falsehoods" about homosexuality ... and simply restating the very same points that the SPLC had already debunked:

I hate to be the one to break this to them, but if this is the criterion, the folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center need to add their own name to the list.

Why? Because they peddle 10 myths about homosexuality right on their own website. They tell ten blatant lies about the nature of homosexual behavior right out there in front of God and everybody.

In other words, they promote the very "propaganda" that qualifies them for their own list. If anybody is guilty of the "propagation of known falsehoods," it's the SPLC itself.

I've gone to considerable lengths in another place to quantify that what the SPLC says are "myths" about homosexuality are in fact truths about the lifestyle, everyone of them.

Here in brief are the "known falsehoods" the SPLC propagates.

1. The SPLC falsely claims that homosexuals do not molest children at higher rates than heterosexuals. But according to the Journal of Sex Research they do. Roughly one-third of all sex offenses against children are carried out by homosexuals despite the fact they comprise just three percent of the population.

2. The SPLC falsely claims that same-sex parents don't harm children. But according to an Australian sociologist, children raised by homosexual parents did worse in nine of 13 academic and social categories compared to children raised by heterosexual married couples ...

4. The SPLC falsely claims that homosexuals live just as long as heterosexuals. But the International Journal of Epidemiology says homosexual behavior knocks "8-20 years" off normal life expectancy, and a gay activist group in Canada, the Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition, declares that the "health issues affecting queer Canadians include lower life expectancy than the average Canadian."

The New York City Health Commission (note: not the research arm of FRC or AFA) has produced a PSA that is so hard-hitting and so devastating for the homosexual agenda that gay activist groups are trying to get the thing pulled down altogether. The text warns homosexuals of the "dozens of diseases" they can contract through homosexual behavior in addition to HIV, including osteoporosis and dementia. Chillingly, it warns gays that they are "over 28 times more likely to get anal cancer" than the general population. The reason for that particular elevated risk factor is obvious.

If this doesn't perfectly encapsulate the utter ridiculousness of trying to have a reasonable debate with Bryan Fischer, I don't know what does.

Allow Me To Quote Bryan Fischer Verbatim: "That's Not Misrepresentation, That's Quotation."

I have long maintained that there is nothing more pointless than trying to have a debate about anything with the AFA's Bryan Fischer, but I have to give credit to David Pakman for this recent interview he conducted with Fischer in which he repeatedly pointed out that the authors of the studies that Fischer routinely cites to justify his anti-gay bigotry have made it clear that Fischer and other anti-gay activists are intentionally misrepresenting their findings to support the right-wing agenda.

Of course, Fischer just laughs it off (scroll ahead to the ten minute mark):

Pakman: You have a track record of getting people who do research on these issues saying "I need Bryan Fischer to stop misrepresenting my research."

Fischer: No, I'm not butchering their research, I'm quoting them verbatim, David. How can you distort somebody or misrepresent somebody when you are quoting them verbatim, using their own words? You're not changing the words, you're not twisting their words, you are quoting them. That's not misrepresentation, that's quotation.

It is especially ironic to hear this coming from Fischer considering that every time he writes some ridiculous piece that sets off a round of controversy, his standard response is to complain that people are misrepresenting his words when they are, in fact, quoting him verbatim.

  • It was his response to the outage over his "feminization of the medal of honor" piece.
  • It was his response to outrage over his "gay sex = domestic terrorism" statement.
  • It was his response to outrage over his "God is obviously looking for is more Phinehases in our day" claim.
  • It was his response to outrage over his call for the whale at Sea World to be put to death.
  • It was his response to outrage over his call to ban Muslims from the US.

Amazing, isn't it, how when Fischer intentionally misrepresents the findings of scientific research, he is merely quoting it verbatim ... but when people quote his bigotry verbatim, they are intentionally misrepresenting his words? 

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Bryan Fischer Posts Archive

Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 04/05/2012, 10:20am
Earlier this week, Brian posted audio of AFA 's Bryan Fischer proclaiming that President Obama does not believe that the Constitution has any "moral authority and therefore it does not need to be obeyed." This is a theme that Fischer has been hammering away at all week and yesterday he played a radio interview Obama gave back in 2001 in which he said that while the Constitution is a remarkable document, it is also an "imperfect document" as it contained "an enormous blind spot" when it came to the issue of slavery. Which, for Fischer, means that Obama "... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Tuesday 04/03/2012, 12:15pm
Breitbart.com commentators boasted last month that they had uncovered a “smoking gun” that could take down President Obama once and for all. However, the much-hyped release of the video showing then-Harvard law student Barack Obama introducing Harvard professor Derrick Bell at a demonstration in 1991 fell flat and whatever “controversy” that ensued has since died down. But Bryan Fischer at the American Family Association has been on the case, and yesterday on Focal Point maintained that President Obama thinks he can “utterly ignore the constraints of the... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Friday 03/30/2012, 12:55pm
American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, after warning that “Imam Obama” is imposing “secular Sharia” by “fatwa,” specifically against Rush Limbaugh, has now discovered the “Ten Commandments of Secular Sharia,” as written by the “secular imams at the ACLU.” Unsurprisingly the commandments deal with the supposed persecution of Christians and advancement of Islam, environmentalism, “the lazy, shiftless and irresponsible” poor, “the homosexual agenda” and even “polygamy and pedophilia.”... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 03/27/2012, 10:46am
Bryan Fischer generally begins every daily radio program with a reading from, discussion of, and prayer based on a few verses of the Bible.   On Friday, as he was reading from the book of Deuteronomy, he explained that God preserved the books of the Old Testament so that we can understand on He deals with nations that have entered a covenantal relationship with Him, as the United States did with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution: When we look at these books of history of the Old Testament, one of the things we need to recognize is God has preserved these for us... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 03/22/2012, 10:20am
Bryan Fischer was on vacation last week when GLAAD unveiled its Commentator Accountability Project, so he didn't get a chance to officially weigh in on the project or his inclusion among the commentators GLAAD is tracking until he returned to the studio yesterday. And responding was among the first things he did, calling it McCarthyism and a black list and proof that the AFR Talk is the most feared and most dangerous radio network in America because it represented the greatest threat to the "gay agenda."  Fischer eventually weighed in on some of the past statements he had... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Friday 03/09/2012, 4:06pm
Filling in as host for the "AFR Mornings" program today, Bryan Fischer brought on anti-gay activist Michael Brown to discuss his recent column defending Kirk Cameron from a tweet by Roseanne Barr in which she said Cameron was “an accomplice to murder with his hate speech” by claiming that Michelle Obama must then also be "complicit in the suicides of kids who were bullied because of their obesity." Fischer loved that line of reasoning, adding that it was "just ridiculous on its face" to think that being mocked, ridiculed, and condemned would... MORE >
Josh Glasstetter, Thursday 03/08/2012, 6:06pm
Rick Santorum has demonstrated, yet again, his willingness to associate with people whose views are repugnant to most Americans. This afternoon he appeared on one of the most extreme Religious Right programs in the country – American Family Radio’s Focal Point with Bryan Fischer. Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, has been accused of crossing the line against “decency and civility” and of using “poisonous language” – by none other than Mitt Romney at the Values Voters Summit, who was trying to cautiously... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 03/08/2012, 4:57pm
The majority of Bryan Fischer's interview with Rick Santorum on his radio program today revolved around a discussion of the fact that social issues and "the fact that you have been so unwavering in defending Judeo-Christian values" has been the key to his campaign's success. Santorum spent most of his time asserting that East Coast liberal media elites "recoil" at anyone like him who not only talks about social issues and faith, but is willing to stand up for them and has "shown where my heart is."  The media, Santorum says, seeks to portray him as someone... MORE >