Category: Religion

Bryan Fischer doubles down on GLBT housing regulations

In a Saturday article, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer told the Christian Post that he believes the Department of Housing and Urban Development should not expand discrimination rules to include sexual orientation and gender identity.  His reasons: gays aren’t really discriminated against and even if they are, they can choose not be gay.

However, in a AFA column today, he adds some reasons which will make the Southern Poverty Law Center even more secure in their decision to place the AFA on their list of GLBT hate groups.

There are two more reasons why this is a perfectly bad idea. (I brought both of these up with the writer of the Christian Post article, but they did not make it into the published piece.) One, many young boys living in HUD housing are already in troubled domestic situations, many with no father presence in the home. The last thing they need is suddenly to be living next door to two males modeling a sexually abnormal lifestyle. Role models matter immensely to young boys, and they don’t need any more adults around them setting bad examples. They’ve already been exposed to enough of that. 

And we know – despite the howls of protest to the contrary – that male homosexuals molest young boys at a hugely exaggerated rate. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, did a study of its own priests who molested children, and found that 81% of the victims were boys. 

The last thing in the world young males in troubled home settings need is to be put in a situation where there is a heightened chance they will be sexually molested by their next door neighbors. These HUD housing projects will become hunting grounds with easy prey for homosexual pedophiles.

Neither of these reasons has any merit. Somehow Fischer knows things that the rest of us don’t know. Conflating pedophilia with homosexuality is a categorical error made by many of the SPLC hate groups. While I can understand the impulse to keep pedophiles away from children, this concern does not apply to GLBT people who have no sexual desire for children. Fischer’s argument is ironic given the fact that ideological fellow traveler, Scott Lively, recently had a sex offender working around teens in his new coffee house.

Bahati “more than confident” bill will pass

As quoted in todays’s Monitor, Ugandan MP David Bahati says not to mix religion and politics but then does so by saying this:

Qn: Of late you have been silent about the Anti -Homosexuality Bill; did the incidents in the US where you were barred from attending a conference scare you?

The Bill is within the responsible committee of Parliament. We have been assured that it will be considered before May; before the expiry of this Parliament. The events in the USA surely exposed the kind of intorelence that is inconsistent with the book values of American People and strengthened me and the Ugandan people in our defence of the children and the family. This Bill provides a God given opportunity for Uganda to provide leadership on this issue and Iam more than confident that it will pass.

Lesley Pilkington tells British radio being gay is about “daddy issues”

According to reports, a threat against a witness for UK reparative Lesley Pilkington has postponed her hearing before the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. I have heard through sources there that the threat is being investigated. Ms. Pilkington is being scrutinized due to her statements about homosexuality made to Patrick Strudwick, a journalist who went undercover to find out how a reparative therapist operated.

On the 17th, Ms. Pilkington went on radio to explain her approach and discuss the situation. Click the link to hear the broadcast.

In it, she refers to the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) as the largest reparative therapy organization in the world. I suppose it is, but she doesn’t mention that there are fewer than 100o members, with a smaller subset actually having advanced mental health degrees.

When asked by the host how one can convert someone from gay to straight, Ms. Pilkington said surveys show that “daddy issues,” namely relationship with father is the main factor involved. She says that the bond is the problem, but then hastens to add that “we’re not blaming parents, I am not blaming any father at all.” Hearing the contradiction, the host asks if Pilkington’s husband failed their son (he is gay), and she answered, “we don’t use words like that.” However, she then says, “there were serious mistakes” and adds that there was “a failure at some level.”

This kind of double speak is typical of my interactions with reparative therapists. Pilkington says reparative therapists don’t use the word fail, and then she uses it in the next breath. Reparative therapists often say they are not blaming the parents, and then proceed to do so.

Mrs. Pilkington then says she seeks to bring healing in her therapy because “there will always be pain.” No doubt in any therapy situation, one can find something that is painful. However, finding pain in the life of someone who is gay does not mean that it relates to the cause of the sexual orientation. Furthermore, many gays with warm, loving parents would have to manufacture problems in order to meet up with Mrs. Pilkington’s expectations.

Finally, Pilkington conflates spiritual healing with the repair of some kind of parent-child break. She believes God can heal the relationship problems which she is sure are at the root of the same-sex attraction. Sadly, when the religious techniques don’t work to effect change, as is often true, the result can be despair and a sense of failure. I know of young men who have become disillusioned with their faith, leaving it since it promised change without delivering on the promise.

Is Bryan Fischer the new kingmaker?

Yesterday, Newsweek’s Ben Adler posted an article featuring Bryan Fischer, Issues Analyst for the American Family Association. In it, Adler portrayed Fischer as a provocative imp who has crafted a media shtick filled with offensive and outrageous positions designed to get ratings and offend liberals. He may or may not mean what he says, according to Adler, but it doesn’t matter because the Christian political business rolls with outrage – requiring a sanctified shock jock to shake things up. Fischer is just doing his job.

To support the tone of his column, Adler referred to Fischer’s protests (oh, the horror!) that “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.” Adler also picked up on some anti-gay, anti-Muslim and yes, the anti-bear comments (you’ll have to click the link for more on that one) but he left out the worst and least entertaining, to wit:

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews. Gays in the military is an experiment that has been tried and found disastrously and tragically wanting. Maybe it’s time for Congress to learn a lesson from history.

Adler said Fischer was both threatening and entertaining – I call it “hatertainment” – but Fischer’s reference to the Holocaust doesn’t seem very entertaining to me. Neither do disparaging remarks about Catholic Latinos and Muslim inbreeding (click the links to be hatertained).

To me, Adler’s article points to a new low in the culture war. Is the AFA cynically putting out shocking positions in a manipulative effort to entertain an audience? If that’s true, that is scandalous. If it is not true, then he and the AFA really mean all of those things and deserve the scrutiny given to them recently by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Either way, the audience is clearly there. According to Newsweek, right wing politicians have taken notice:

Fischer’s program, “Focal Point,” reaches about two million listeners and has featured guest appearances from a number of prominent Republicans such as Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, and Mike Huckabee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who on Wednesday told Fischer he would be in favor of reinstating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

All of those guys are or have been at various stages of positioning for a run at the GOP nomination. Herman Cain, who just declared his intent to run for the nomination, was just on the show as well. Does this mean that the road to the GOP nomination runs through Bryan Fischer’s radio show?

I hope not.

It is certainly possible that none of Fischer’s GOP guests know of the outrageous positions he promotes. However, that was little defense for John McCain when he was endorsed by megachurch pastor John Hagee in 2008. Catholic groups were outraged. Why? On one occasion, Hagee accused Catholicism of being “a godless theology of hate” which during the Nazi’s reign, promoted “a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.” Over time, reporters dug up more statements by Hagee which embarrassed McCain. McCain said he didn’t know Hagee’s views and if he had known, he would not sought his endorsement. After months of being dogged by the matter, McCain explicitly rejected association with him.

To date, Fischer has given his stamp of approval to Herman Cain and Mike Pence. However, those not inclined to support these candidates are already questioning the wisdom of even appearing on Fischer’s program. For instance, Andrew Sullivan asked about Fischer yesterday:

More to the point: is embracing a man who believes this kind of bile now essential to being viable as a primary candidate for president in the current GOP? If a Democrat had gone on a radio show with anyone as far out on the left as Fischer is on the far right, his or her career would be over.

Talk about burying the lead: Now I have come to the question which is the title of this post and which echos Sullivan’s question – is Bryan Fischer the new GOP kingmaker? Let me add some questions for discussion – is it fair to evaluate candidates based on friendly appearances with people who express incendiary views? Is Sullivan correct about a Democratic candidate who made a comparable appearance?

These questions are political but I am also interested in reader feedback on the religious matters involved. Applying Bryan Fischer’s evaluation of the President (“either he means what he says or he is a bald-faced liar”), how should we evaluate the positions promoted by the AFA? Is being shocking as a means to an end good practice for a Christian ministry?

Oh, so that’s why Bryan Fischer says the darndest things!

Newsweek has it all figured out. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has been getting in touch with his inner imp. Zany? Wacky? Outrageous? Nah, it is all a ploy to get ratings and irritate the opponents.  According to Newsweek:

You might think that attention in the form of mockery is not what a public-policy organization would want. But when your business is waging a culture war, there is no such thing as bad publicity for ideological or rhetorical extremism. Being criticized by liberals in the media raises the profile of a socially conservative organization, and burnishes its credibility among the base. Just ask Sarah Palin, or her fans. Fischer’s critics also benefit from the twofer of his being both entertaining and threatening.

Call it “hatertainment.”

But he doesn’t really mean it, does he? Here is Newsweek’s take on that question.

Getting attention from a perch so far off the mainstream media radar screen requires ingenuity. And Fischer is able to shock even jaded journalists and pundits. But does he really believe his most widely circulated statements? Yes and no. A Dec. 21 blog post earned Jon Stewart’s mockery on The Daily Show when Fischer asserted, “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.” All Obama had done is express approval for the nonbinding U.N. Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples which contains one passage affirming land rights. Does Fischer honestly believe that Obama is going to turn your home over to a Native American tribe? Not really, but by pretending he does—which he defends as “taking Obama at his word,”—he gets to make a ludicrous claim. “Either Obama meant what he said or he’s a bald-faced liar,” says Fischer. “I don’t think Obama meant what he said.”

Clever. Since Fischer is just pretending, let’s try that in reverse.

When Fischer says things, either he means what he says or he’s a bald-faced liar. You pick.

Maybe President Obama could be a talk show host on the AFA radio network. According to Fischer, the President has got the formula down.

According to Newsweek and Newsweek’s experts, the whole shtick is more business than conviction. 

“Like all Christian political groups [AFA] has leaders who are entrepreneurial,” says Green. “In the past [Christian conservatives] have sometimes been controversial on purpose, to get attention from the rest of us and to raise money for their organizations. It’s not that they are insincere, but there are organizational motives.” So if Fischer shocks or horrifies coastal media elites by expressing views that they consider bigoted or simply baffling, he is just doing his job.

So if there are “organizational motives,” then saying goofy, offensive stuff you don’t really mean is not insincere but just part of the biz. Glad that’s all cleared up.

After reading the Newsweek piece, I am not sure which more offensive – what Fischer does with his platform or Newsweek’s cynical regard for what they portray as business as usual for Christian ministry.