Tag: native americans

AFA removes article at odds with Bryan Fischer on Native Americans; Update: Original article also removed

I have written a couple of posts about Bryan Fischer’s supremacist views relating to Native Americans. As far as I can tell, I am only one of two conservatives to respond negatively to it. The other one, however, is noteworthy in that he did so on the website of the American Family Association.

One of AFA’s other columnists, 17 year old Elijah Friedeman posted a column criticizing Fischer’s views.  However, you’ll have to read it on Friedeman’s blog since it has been removed from AFA’s. Here is how he started it:

Native Americans were so immoral that they deserved what happened to them? I find the idea repulsive.

Yesterday, Bryan Fischer posted a blog about how American indians disqualified themselves from any claim to land in America by their sexual immorality and violence. I want to officially reject and distance myself from that viewpoint.

His other columns are still available and you can find the link to his rebuttal in the search engine but when you click the link, it fails to appear.

UPDATE: Bryan Fischer’s article has now been removed from the AFA website. However, you can read it in the Google cache for now and here permanently. I wonder if he will explain why it was taken down.

Bryan Fischer prefers European depravity to the native kind

I don’t know where to start, or even if I should, on this op-ed from Bryan Fischer.

Native Americans Morally Disqualified Themselves From the Land (now removed from the AFA website, but archived here.)

In all the discussions about the European settlement of the New World, one feature has been conspicuously absent: the role that the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality of native Americans played in making them morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil. 

International legal scholars have always recognized that sovereign control of land is legitimately transferred in at least three ways: settlement, purchase, and conquest. Europeans have to this day a legitimate claim on American soil for all three of those reasons.  

They established permanent settlements on the land, moving gradually from east to west, while Indian tribes remained relentlessly nomadic.

Much of the early territory in North American that came into possession of the Europeans came into their possession when the land was purchased from local tribes, Peter Minuit’s purchase of Manhattan being merely the first.

And the Europeans proved superior in battle, taking possession of contested lands through right of conquest. So in all respects, Europeans gained rightful and legal sovereign control of American soil. 

But another factor has rarely been discussed, and that is the moral factor.

Apparently, given Fischer’s analogy to “the Canaanites,” he believes Native Americans deserved their fate at the hands of the Europeans. This is absurd, of course, which even Fischer has to explain later in his rant.

Here is a moral factor for Mr. Fischer to expound upon: The Trail of Tears.

What happened on the Trail of Tears?

Federal Indian Removal Policy

Early in the 19th century, the United States felt threatened by England and Spain, who held land in the western continent. At the same time, American settlers clamored for more land. Thomas Jefferson proposed the creation of a buffer zone between U.S. and European holdings, to be inhabited by eastern American Indians. This plan would also allow for American expansion westward from the original colonies to the Mississippi River.

Between 1816 and 1840, tribes located between the original states and the Mississippi River, including Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, signed more than 40 treaties ceding their lands to the U.S. In his 1829 inaugural address, President Andrew Jackson set a policy to relocate eastern Indians. In 1830 it was endorsed, when Congress passed the Indian Removal Act to force those remaining to move west of the Mississippi. Between 1830 and 1850, about 100,000 American Indians living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida moved west after the U.S. government coerced treaties or used the U.S. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3,500 Creeks died in Alabama and on their westward journey. Some were transported in chains.

Those Native Americans who could pass for white did so to avoid the nearly 1000 mile trek across country. Many had to walk the entire distance. Families were uprooted from their homes. Many Native Americans had roots throughout the targeted areas and were not nomadic as Fischer claims. More from the Trail of Tears site:

In December 1835, the U.S. sought out this minority to effect a treaty at New Echota, Georgia. Only 300 to 500 Cherokees were there; none were elected officials of the Cherokee Nation. Twenty signed the treaty, ceding all Cherokee territory east of the Mississippi to the U.S., in exchange for $5 million and new homelands in Indian Territory.

More than 15,000 Cherokees protested the illegal treaty. Yet, on May 23, 1836, the Treaty of New Echota was ratified by the U.S. Senate – by just one vote.

“Many Days Pass and People Die Very Much”

Most Cherokees, including Chief John Ross, did not believe that they would be forced to move. In May 1838, Federal troops and state militias began the roundup of the Cherokees into stockades. In spite of warnings to troops to treat the Cherokees kindly, the roundup proved harrowing.

Families were separated-the elderly and ill forced out at gunpoint – people given only moments to collect cherished possessions. White looters followed, ransacking homesteads as Cherokees were led away.

Three groups left in the summer, traveling from present-day Chattanooga by rail, boat, and wagon, primarily on the Water Route. But river levels were too low for navigation; one group, traveling overland in Arkansas, suffered three to five deaths each day due to illness and drought.

Fifteen thousand captives still awaited removal. Crowding, poor sanitation, and drought made them miserable. Many died. The Cherokees asked to postpone removal until the fall, and to voluntarily remove themselves. The delay was granted, provided they remain in internment camps until travel resumed.

By November, 12 groups of 1,000 each were trudging 800 miles overland to the west. The last party, including Chief Ross, went by water. Now, heavy autumn rains and hundreds of wagons on the muddy route made roads impassable; little grazing and game could be found to supplement meager rations.

Two-thirds of the ill-equipped Cherokees were trapped between the ice-bound Ohio and Mississippi Rivers during January. As one survivor recalled, ” Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave Old Nation. Womens cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry…but they say nothing and just put heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much.”

Some drank stagnant water and succumbed to disease. One survivor told how his father got sick and died; then, his mother; then, one by one, his five brothers and sisters. “One each day. Then all are gone.”

By March 1839, all survivors had arrived in the west. No one knows how many died throughout the ordeal, but the trip was especially hard on infants, children, and the elderly. Missionary doctor Elizur Butler, who accompanied the Cherokees, estimated that over 4,000 died-nearly a fifth of the Cherokee population.

Is this moral? How Christian was this?

Many Christians opposed this policy and treatment at the time and yet here is a high profile christian celebrating the subjugation of native people. It appears that Mr. Fischer of the American Straight White Christian Family Association prefers the European-American depravity to the native kind.

UPDATE: As of 2/10, the Fischer article has been removed from the AFA website. He also removed it from another website but you can read it here in the Google cache and here permanently.

McCollum contradicted Rekers in gay adoption case appeal

I posted last week that Florida Attorney General and Republican candidate for Governor, Bill McCollum hired George Rekers as an expert in a gay adoption case over the advice of his staff. The state lost the case and the ban on gay adoption was set aside by Judge Cindy Lederman. Lederman took strong exception to Rekers’ work, saying that Rekers’ testimony “was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence.” Despite the apparent harm the testimony did to the case, AG McCollum defended Rekers in a brief filed August 6, 2009 before a Florida state court of appeals seeking to overturn the lower court ruling. More specifically, McCollum defended Rekers’ religious writings and the evidence Rekers presented in defense of the ban on gays adopting children.

However, on one point McCollum contradicts his expert without acknowledging the contradiction. Rekers testified that one might exclude Native Americans from adopting if it could be shown that, as a group, they had higher rates of many distressing conditions. Here is Rekers’testimony:

Q. Well, Dr. Rekers, earlier you testified that Native-Americans have a higher rate of alcohol abuse than the general population does, right?

A. Yes.

Q. It’s a very significantly elevated rate of alcohol abuse, I mean compared to the general population?

A. Yes.

Q. So if Native-Americans have significantly higher rates of alcohol abuse, and if they also have significantly higher rates of psychiatric disorders, and if they also have higher rates of relationship instability, is that enough for you to say that all of a sudden they should be categorically excluded?

The Court: I think you can add violence to that, as well.

The Witness: Yeah, violence, yeah.

Q. And violence, as well.

A. Yeah, if it turned out that a majority of the individuals in the Native-American population, that a majority of them were high risk for one of these things happening, as a lifetime prevalence, there could be a parallel rationale for excluding them, as adoptive parents, because it would be not only them, they would tend to hang around each other. So the children would be around a lot of other Native-Americans, who are doing the same sorts of things, you know. So it would be a high risk, and, in fact, since you can’t perfectly predict human behavior, the best you can do and the best the State can do is to look at risk levels, and if a particular kind of household poses multiple high risks for condition that would be detrimental for children, then that would be a rationale for excluding that group.

Perhaps, with hindsight, Dr. Rekers would reconsider his testimony. However, there is no indication that it was ever amended or directly addressed by the state of Florida. However, here Rekers provides a rationale for excluding Native Americans along with homosexuals.  The line of questioning seems as though it was designed to get Rekers to make some sort of distinction between sexual orientation and race.  However, at least in this instance, he did not.  

As I have looked into this, I have been puzzled about why Mr. McCollum would not dismiss his witness at that point or seek to distance himself from the testimony. I have also been puzzled about why Native American groups did not speak out when this was first repored in May. One representative of a Native American advocacy group, speaking on condition of anonymity said that such criticisms of Native Americans are made frequently and they do not take them seriously.

Perhaps one reason they do not take such arguments seriously is because such arguments would likely be dismissed in a real public debate or in a court proceeding. When arguing racial issues, courts take a more strict review of any governmental action to discriminate on the basis of race. Generally, on matters of race, if a government policy burdens an individual due to racial category, the government policy will not survive. AG McCollum argues in the 2009 appeal that the adoption case should be decided on a rational basis test. In this test, the government is generally given the benefit of the doubt in crafting laws when no fundamental rights or suspect classes are involved. McCollum argues and all agree that adoption is not a fundamental right and he also argues — and this is where the disagreement comes — that homosexuals are not a class worthy of the strict scrutiny test.

On page 8 of the appeal, McCollum discusses the matter of Native Americans and adoption.

McCollum here contradicts Rekers by saying that the category of Native American “would likely fail strict scrutiny.” This means the Florida legislature would have to have a much higher burden of proof as to why violation of the equal protection clause — e.g., excluding Native Americans — would serve a compelling state interest. What surprised me here, and perhaps it is because I am not a lawyer, is that the appeal narrative does not mention the testimony of Rekers in this section, even as Rekers is defended in the other sections of the appeal. Rekers clearly testified that the basis for exclusion in his opinion was the higher rates of distressing conditions. In the appeal, McCollum addresses the theory but does not address the fact that his own expert failed to make categorical distinctions.

The ways that some conservatives think about gays confuse me. On one hand, gays are considered a cohesive enough group with characteristics so common that they can be lumped together. When viewed this way, Rekers-style testimony is offered about the high rates of distressing problems and thus, how the entire group of people should be viewed negatively. However, on the other hand, some social conservatives do not consider homosexuals  to be related enough to be a suspect class. Some go so far as to say there is no such thing as a homosexual, rather heterosexuals with homosexual behavior or problems.

McCollum then continues his argument that sexual orientation does not warrant a strict scrutiny standard.

McCollum here continues to argue that one distressing condition is not sufficient, or else only Asian males could adopt. However, McCollum wants the appeal court to know that the lower court did not demonstrate any other group like homosexuals, who have as many problems. Without acknowledging it, McCollum disagrees with his expert to further serve his case.

In this situation, I don’t think there is a fundamental right to adopt or be adopted so I am not sure how this case will turn out.  However, a troubling thing here is the reasoning which invalidates individual rights due to membership in a particular group. It should make everyone a little nervous when individual gays are judged due to rates of distressing problems among larger groups of gays. Even on a practical level, such stereotyping can become the basis for predjudice and discrimination. Christians complain about this and we have freely chosen our beliefs. We don’t like it when such logic is used against us, and we should be very careful about where such thinking can lead.