As we noted yesterday, the American Family Association has pulled Bryan Fischer’s recent blog post asserting that Native Americans were “morally disqualified” from exercising control over North America and that Europeans were justified in taking it by force.
So far, the AFA has not offered any statement on why it did so and all we have gotten is Fischer’s side as he claims it was taken down because people are just “not mature” enough to handle the truth and was becoming a distraction because the Left was just too “dim-witted” to understand that Fischer was speaking only for himself and not for the organization.
Now, as Warren Throckmorton reports, a representative of the AFA showed up in the comments to a Throckmorton post on Crosswalk about Fischer’s piece to reject Fischer’s bigotry and claim that his views do not represent the AFA:
Bryan Fischer’s blog runs on the AFA website. His blog does not speak for AFA. His statements about Native Americans were wrong and disturbing. I am posting this as an individual, but provide my job description to illustrate that Bryan’s views were not those of AFA as a whole.
Patrick Vaughn
General Counsel
American Family Association, Inc.
This raises an interesting question: just when does Fischer speak for the AFA?
Fischer claims that when he writes on the blog, he is speaking only for himself. Fine. But what about when he shows up on the radio or in the press? Does he represent the AFA in those situations?
What about when he is given a speaking slot at the Values Voter Summit where he attacks “the dark and dangerous and devious religion of Islam.” Or when he appears in right-wing documentaries?
What about when he is hosting his radio program for the AFA on which he interviews Republican members of Congress and presidential hopefuls? Does he represent AFA then? Does he represent the AFA when he uses his radio program to say that gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism, when he says that Muslims should be banned from the military, or when he claims that Hitler filled the Nazi ranks with gays because they were the only ones capable of being savage and brutal enough to carry out his orders? Did he represent the AFA in any of those situations?
Or finally, what about when Fischer demands a ban on the construction of all mosques in America? He first made the assertion on the AFA blog, which he claims does not represent the AFA. He then made the same point on his AFA radio program. He then defended the statement on a program with Alan Colmes. And then defended it again on CNN.
Did Fischer represent the AFA in any capacity in any of those venues, or was he simply representing himself?
If Fischer doesn’t represent the AFA when he writes on their blog, hosts their radio show, or appears in the press or at a public event as Director of Issue Analysis, just when does he represent the AFA?
And if the AFA doesn’t want to be associated with Fischer’s unrelenting bigotry, why do they keep him on staff and continue to give him venues from which to spew his hatred?
It would be really helpful to the rest of us if the AFA could clarify just when Fischer is speaking on behalf of the organization and when he is spewing his bigotry as a private citizen so that we can know when to hold the AFA accountable for the outrageous and offensive things he says on their blog, radio network, or in public appearances as the Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy for the American Family Association.
