Bryan Fischer

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities failed to capture the 2/3 vote needed for ratification in the U.S. Senate today due to fierce Republican opposition. Many Republicans and their allies in the conservative movement claimed that the treaty codifies abortion into law, even though that preposterous claim was rejected by the National Right to Life Committee and Sen. John McCain. Along with the false charges about abortion, opponents of the treaty claimed it will undermine U.S. sovereignty and harm children. Critics like Rick Santorum warned that the treaty may kill his disabled daughter; Glenn Beck said it could create a “fascistic” government and Sen. Jim Inhofe alleged the treaty would help groups with “anti-American biases.”

One of the lesser-known but extremely active opponents of the bill was homeschooling activist Michael Farris.

During an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, he claimed that the treaty will prompt the United Nations to ‘get control’ of children with glasses or ADHD and remove them from their families.

Farris: They’re called living documents, just like the disgraced living Constitution theory, which means the treaty doesn’t mean today what it’s going to mean tomorrow what it’s going to mean ten years from now. So you never know what you’re signing up for, that by itself is a good enough reason to leave it alone and to never enter into one of these things. But in particular, you hit the nail on the head Tony, the definition of disability is not defined in the treaty. My kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled, now the UN gets control over them; my child’s got a mild case of ADHD, now you’re under control of the UN treaty. There’s no definitional standard, it can change over time, and the UN, not American policymakers, are the ones who get it decided.

While speaking with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, the two warned that the treaty could lead to the deaths of disabled children, all the while admitting they have no evidence it would do such beyond their pure speculation.

Fischer: Disabled newborn babies in the UK are being put, oftentimes overriding the wishes of parents, on this death pathway where no matter what the parents want the doctors say this kid cannot live, severely disabled, too many congenital deformities, we think the best thing for this kid is just to be starved and dehydrated to death. It seems to me that although that’s not specifically contemplated in this treaty that could be an outcome.

Farris: Whether they thought about it or not, that’s exactly what Rick Santorum said in our press conference. He was holding his daughter Bella and she’s of the category of child that in Britain they would take that position because her official diagnosis is ‘incompatible with life.’ So when the doctor gets to decide, the doctor empowered by the government—these doctors aren’t doing it on their own, they are doing it because the government says they have the power to do it—the doctor/government deciding what they think is best for the child. It goes to the point of deciding whether the child lives or dies, it is that crazy. If we want to live in a Brave New World like that where the bureaucrats and the government and the UN all tell us what to do, fine, but this is the beginning of the end of American self-government if we go here, it’s just crazy, we cannot let this happen.

After warning that the treaty will kill children, Farris told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that the treaty will create a “cradle-to-grave care for the disabled” and said if the U.S. ratifies it “signing up to be an official socialist nation.” Farris claimed that the treaty will treat the parents of disabled children like child abusers in order to grow government power and implement “coercive socialism.”

“Everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement” if the treaty passes, Farris maintained, “it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law.” Deace agreed and said the treaty will “due in freedom and liberty.”

Farris: Every parent with a disabled child is going to be in the same legal position as if they’d been convicted of child abuse. We are taking away parental decision-making power in that area. The other thing that everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement. The United States resisted all the UN treaties of a certain category that began being proliferated in the 1960s; the first was the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights. Our country said no that is coercive socialism, we’re not going to do that. So we rejected all those treaties ever since 1966. Yet we’re signing up now for our first economic, social and cultural treaty which means as a matter of international binding law that goes to the supremacy clause level in our Constitution, we’re signing up to be an official socialist nation, cradle-to-grave care for the disabled. Maybe Americans want to do that, but I think we’d want to do it as a matter of domestic law, not as a matter of international law. I personally don’t think that’s any business of Congress to do that sort of thing but I certainly don’t want to be doing it when the United Nations tells us to do it. So those are two big ways it will affect every American and there are more.

Deace: Michael Farris is here with us from Patrick Henry College, also from the Home School Legal Defense Association, talking about another attempt to usurp American sovereignty, to essentially do an end-run around the Constitution and then of course due in freedom and liberty through an effort through the United Nations.

…

Farris: If they can get this one through, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, which is the women’s treaty with all kinds of junk in that one, and then a whole host of other UN treaties that the Obama administration wants to send our way, it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law through the use of treaties and they are going to do a full-force attack. We’ve got to stop them now. It’s not like just the camel nose in the tent, it is that too, but we don’t want a camel’s nose in our constitutional system, that’s what we don’t want.

On his radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer made the entirely reasonable and logical argument that communists like President Obama "have a vested interest in keeping as many Americans as poor as possible" and to prevent them from succeeding in order to keep them dependent on the government.

In fact, Obama's push to help more students attend college, said Fischer, is really just an effort to saddle them with massive student loan debt and a worthless degree so that when they can't find a job, they become "helplessly, hopelessly, slavishly dependent upon government handouts." 

Shortly before the election, gay radio talk-show host Michelangelo Signorile got into a discussion with a gay Mitt Romney supporter who called into the program to defend his vote for Romney, which prompted Signorile to tell the caller that he would be better off committing suicide than "waiting for the slow, painful death that Mitt Romney will bring you."

Signorile apologized the following day, saying there was no excuse for what he said and admitting that it was a "total botch up."

But that apology means nothing to Bryan Fischer, who has literally never apologized for any of the hundreds of bigoted things he has said on air because he means every word of it, and is instead proof that, unlike himself, Signorile approves of the death penalty for homosexuals:

• Despite two years of constant pressure, it looks like Janet Porter's effort to get the Ohio legislature has failed.
• Mona Charen is mad that Democrats have refused "to be magnanimous in victory" following the election.
• But wait, maybe the election isn't over and Romney can still win! 
• Conservative Christian talk radio host Frank Pastore is in a coma following a motorcycle accident.
• Personhood USA calls on the GOP to purge John McCain and "all of the Republican candidates who want to maintain the status quo on abortion."
• Finally, Bryan Fischer channels David Barton as he asserts that our three branches of government came directly out of the Bible:

• Rob Boston @ Wall of Separation: Short-Sighted Sentence: Okla. Judge’s Church-Attendance Mandate Is Wrong.
• Amanda Terkel @ The Huffington Post: Pentagon Prayer Breakfast To Feature Discredited Pastor Ray Giunta.
• Zack Ford @ Think Progress: NOM Now Warning Against Young People Having Gay Friends.
• Evan McMorris-Santoro @ TPM: Trump Calls On GOP To Be More Appealing To Minorities.
• Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones: The Bizarre Apocalyptic Vision of Right-Wing Fundraisers.
• Warren Throckmorton: Scott Lively and Bryan Fischer Laud Uganda as Christian Nation; Support Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
• Meenal Vamburkar @ Mediaite: Norquist Responds To Pledge Backlash: ‘We’ve Had Some People Discussing Impure Thoughts On National TV.'

• After two weeks, former Rep. Allen West has finally conceded in his election.
• Joseph Farah says that people like Jim Daly of Focus on the Family are why conservative Christians are losing the culture wars.
• Frank Gaffney wants the crisis in the Middle East to be referred to as "Obamawar."
• Despite having just been re-elected, apparently "the American people have demanded that Barack Obama be impeached."
• Finally, Bryan Fischer comes to Sen. Rubio's defense with a bunch of "evidence" that the earth is only a few thousand years old.

• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: Rubio Leaves Science to the Theologians, or the Free Market. Or Something.
• Towleroad: Anti-Gay Pastor Ken Hutcherson Says Equally Anti-Gay NOM Too Much Like The GOP, 'Old And White.'
• HRC: NOM Sees One-Third Decline in Contributions for 2011; Two Donors Provided 75 Percent of Funding.
• Jeremy Hooper @ NOM Exposed: Dear Hollywood: Never let Brian Brown cast a David and Goliath film.
• Joe.My.God: Linda Harvey Wants To Boycott Everybody.
• Pam Spaulding: Bryan Fischer’s cornucopia of hate: anti-gay exorcisms work, no one is born gay, and gay parents=bad.
• Zack Ford @ Think Progress: Conservative ‘Justice’ Group Encourages Clerks To Discriminate Against Same-Sex Couples.

• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Petraeus takes the wind from conspiracy theorists' sails.
• Jeremy Hooper: James Dobson claims he, Gary Bauer, and Tony Perkins met with Mitt Romney; were denied.
• Meenal Vamburkar @ Mediaite: Virginia GOP Official: When Obama ‘Goes To Hell,’ He’ll Say, ‘This Is All Bush’s Fault.’
• Timothy Johnson @ Media Matters: Ted Nugent Accuses Obama Of Waging "Liberal Jihad" Against America.
• Adam Peck @ Think Progress: Arizona Gun Store Refuses To Sell Guns To Anyone Who Voted For Obama.
• Warren Throckmorton: Bryan Fischer and the Cultural Unity of the United States.

• Anita Staver explains how conservative women felt about Mitt Romney: "Romney was like the unwanted suitor at our high school prom. We danced because we didn't want to turn him down and make a scene. Our reluctance was warranted, because as we danced, he talked about his economic plan."
• ALIPAC's William Gheen has big plans to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2014, which is interesting seeing as he's spent the last week sending out frantic emails warning that ALIPAC is on the verge of permanently shutting down.
• Is Rick Santorum already laying the ground work for another presidential run in 2016?  We hope so! 
• FRC is seeking donations so it can work to "prevent radical homosexual activists from making further gains in the U.S. military and placing service members and our nation at even greater risk" and "stop the Employment Non-Discrimination Act from forcing people to deny their moral convictions in the workplace."
• Finally, it seems that Bryan Fischer is now simply trolling for attention with ridiculous segments like this: