What's Up with Mississippi?

In the realms of chutzpah, it was a bona fide keeper. Mississippi Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said he was disappointed that a judge had ruled against House Bill 1523, which would have allowed discrimination against LGBT folks under the guise of religious liberty. Federal judge Carlton Reeves put a stay on the bill, which was to take effect on July 1, 2016.

Gunn said, "We felt like it was a good bill, protecting religious beliefs and the rights of LGBT community."

He did not explain how giving religious people a free pass to discriminate against the gay community would "protect the rights of LGBT community." He also did not explain his aversion to the use of a definite article.

Perhaps he was trying to one-up his boss, Governor Phil Bryant, who received the Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award from the Family Research Council (categorized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), for signing the bill in the first place. During the award ceremony, held in Washington, D.C., Bryant said, "They don't know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don't know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place."

As Judge Reeves noted in his dissent, the bill was clearly a reaction to last year's marriage equality ruling that made gay marriage legal throughout the United States. Bryant and his friends in the Mississippi legislature thought they had come up with an end run around the ruling with a so-called "religious liberty" bill. After all, who doesn't want to protect "religious liberty"? 

Proponents argued that unless the bill was signed, pastors in the state of Mississippi would be forced to marry gay couples whether they wanted to or not. They provided no evidence for this claim, and were apparently unaware that not one pastor or priest or anyone else wearing a funny hat in this country has ever been forced to marry a gay couple against their will. 

Not to be outdone, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer posted this on his Facebook page:

He also said the "homosexual agenda is the greatest threat to religious liberty in our nation's history."

Fischer's overheated and over the top rhetoric is one of the reasons why the American Family Association was also categorized as a hate group  by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The only sensible statement from a public official in Mississippi on this matter came from Attorney General Jim Hood, who said, "The fact is that the churchgoing public was duped into believing that HB1523 protected religious freedoms. Our state leaders attempted to mislead pastors into believing that if this bill were not passed, they would have to preside over gay wedding ceremonies. No court case has ever said a pastor did not have discretion to refuse to marry any couple for any reason. I hate to see politicians continue to prey on people who pray, go to church, follow the law and help their fellow man."

The challenges faced by Mississippi are many and well known. How its opposition to gay marriage and gay rights in general will help the state with these challenges is a complete mystery. HB1523 has actually hurt the state. Many main street groups and chambers of commerce asked the governor not to sign the bill, as did major corporations like Nissan, Toyota, Levis, Tyson Foods and many others. The governor ignored all these folks and signed the bill anyway. 

Now that a stay has been issued against it, there is talk of an appeal. 

Why, Mississippi? What's up with that?

Are the media in Mississippi sitting out another civil rights battle?

As I paid for my newly-printed super-duper press kit announcing the release of my latest book, I knew I was wasting my money - and I was not wrong.

The press release was intended for publications and media outlets in the state of Mississippi where I live. I hoped to announce to my fellow citizens the release of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, a romantic-comedy novel about a gay single father whose deaf son helps him find a boyfriend.

Here's how it works: When a company or an individual wants or needs press attention, one writes a press release and attaches appropriate documents - an author's photo, a photo of the book cover, graphics, whatnot. As a former newspaper editor, I am quite familiar with the flow of press releases that come over the transom. Editors must pick and choose, of course, because there's simply not enough room to print all of them. Some press releases are more newsworthy than others. Some have clearly been put together by deranged lunatics. Others announce new services in the community of interest to readers, company expansions, new restaurants, art shows, the latest releases at the cinema.

I knew, going in, that the competition was fierce, but I had to ask myself: How many Mississippi authors have released a novel lately? Doesn't Mississippi pride itself on its authors? And wouldn't newspapers in my own backyard -- even the one in my home town -- want to share my happy news with their readers about a local who did good and got a book published?

A month has gone by, and thus far, the answer seems to be ... "apparently not."

Does it have anything to do with the main character being gay? Is the great state of Mississippi not ready to cope with the fact that gay people exist? Do these media outlets believe that ignoring the lives, struggles and achievements of gay people will make the whole "gay thing" go away?

I spent a year editing a small newspaper in Mississippi. I know the answers to my questions. Most newspapers and media outlets here are so dependent on advertisers to survive they are reluctant to run stories that might offend people, that might challenge the status quo, that might raise uncomfortable questions or issues. They are extremely cautious and not a little timid.

Perhaps their survival depends on it. I understand that. What bothers me is the perception created among readers when the news media shies away from controversy. If we don't talk about gay people, it's easy to pretend they don't exist, or they're not important, or that they have nothing to say. If we don't talk about gay people, how are we going to deal with bigotry and prejudice and move Mississippi into the 21st century?

More generally, if newspapers are not allowed to talk about the realities on the ground, how can their readers consider themselves informed? What's the point of buying a newspaper if all it does is confirm the status quo and refuses to educate readers about the issues of the day?  Are Mississippi media consumers content to be spoon-fed this daily diet of the status quo, or do they, perhaps, want something more?

Not all media outlets are so timid, of course. Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB) is a good source for news, and I'm quite fond of the Jackson Free Press and blogs like Deep South Progressive. We need more media outlets like these. A lot more.




I mailed out twenty press packets to media outlets near and far. I also emailed some personal contacts in the media business -- people I've met, people I've worked with, people I've encountered on Facebook.

Thus far, I have heard back from two people.

One fellow somewhat sheepishly told me that the owner of his publication was a fundamentalist Christian who wouldn't touch my press release with a 200-foot ice pick.

The other agreed to have a look at a review copy of my book, which I supplied at my own expense. If this person liked the book, I might hope for a review or perhaps a small mention.

And what of the folks at the newspaper where I worked for a year? They didn't respond at all.






So. 

Is my book, perhaps, so awful, so poorly written, so utterly lacking in any literary merit whatsoever that no decent person would dare mention it in polite company?

Apparently not. Not if the folks leaving reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com are anything to go by. The vast majority of my reviews have been a solid five stars.

Here's what Susan65 on Amazon said:

"Nothing I can say will ever come close to adequately describing the brilliant awesomeness that is this book. I feel like I hit the reader’s jackpot and am a better person, a better reader, and a better reviewer for having the privilege of experiencing the life that is Wiley Cantrell, and by extension, Jackson Ledbetter and their son, Noah. It’s not very often a book gets a strangle hold on me but this one grabbed me from the get-go, and wow, what a strong grip that wouldn’t let go." 

Many readers have gone on in similar veins. Even Jonathan Odell, Mississippi author of The Healing, was enthusiastic:

"I LOVE Nick Wilgus’s touching, hilarious, heart-breaking, over-the-top but totally believable gem of a novel. These characters, and the perfectly lyrical language they speak, won’t quit you just because you finish the book. They’ll move into your heart and take up residence."

The kind souls at The Tipsy Bibliophile were very kind:

"Recommend it completely and it is solidly in my all time favorites list. Wiley, Noah and all their people are unforgettable." 




Since the media in Mississippi are holding their tongues, allow me to use this blog post to announce the release of my new novel, SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, published by DreamSpinner Press. 

Here's a peek at the cover:

Here's the blurb:

Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous—and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving.

Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire.

Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making.

When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is available in both print and ebook formats.

Order here.




Just because my book features a gay character doesn't make it a bad book. SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is all about family, love, needing someone, meeting someone, struggling to survive, raising a special-needs child. It's funny. It's heart-breaking. It's universal.

I don't fool myself into thinking that the publication of one book in the state of Mississippi is an earth-shaking event that demands the attention of the media. It's not. Many books have been published over the years, and have no doubt received the same indifference.

My point is this: Mississippi has a choice. If it wants to know about gay people, it can do what it has always done and tune into Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association and be told how horrible and disgusting we are.

Or -- here's a thought -- it could let its gay residents speak for themselves.

It could pay attention to filmmaker Diana Salameh, who is working on a documentary about gay people in Mississippi called A RAINBOW OVER MISSISSIPPI.

It could write about Papa Peachez, a gay rapper and musician in Jackson who recently released an album called ALLONE.

It could spare a few column inches now and again for Mississippi writers like Kevin Sessums, who wrote MISSISSIPPI SISSY.

And, on the rare chance that a Mississippi writer bases a novel in Tupelo and writes about being a gay parent, it might consider setting aside one of the paragraphs in the news briefs column for a small bit of recognition. It might even want to do a book review.

After all, we're here and we're Mississippians, and our lives, struggles and accomplishments are just as important as our neighbors. And we're perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.

To its shame, Mississippi sat on the back bench during the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s.

Will it do so again as another battle rages? 

It's time to end the American Family Association's one-sided conversation on gay rights

As an openly gay man living in the reddest of the Red States, I can be forgiven for spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association. Headquartered not far from where I work in Tupelo, an omnipresent voice all over the radio, with a daily tsunami of Facebook posts and tweets, Bryan Fischer and the AFA, like magnolia trees and dry counties and Duck Dynasty, are inescapable facts of life in the state of Mississippi.

Bryan Fischer, host of FOCAL POINT

When I moved here three years ago, I could not fathom how it was legal for Bryan Fischer to go on public airwaves and say, on an almost daily basis, the most disparaging and woefully ignorant things about gay people. Comparing them to Nazis, suggesting they were responsible for the Holocaust, calling them a danger to public health, a threat to religious liberty, a threat to the economic well being of the United States, routinely classifying them with pedophiles, deeming homosexuality a “sexual sickness” and just as dangerous as addiction to hard drugs, talking about how we can either have religious liberty or homosexuality, but not both – day after day, the tide of myth,misinformation and just plain foolishness was hard to stomach.

But harder to stomach was the apathy of Mississippians who shrug and sigh and seem to believe there is nothing to be done even though Bryan Fischer and the AFA have earned themselves a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Protected by the right to free speech and freedom of religion, wrapping their myth and misinformation in religious garb and calling American Family Radio programs like Bryan Fischer’s FOCAL POINT a “ministry,” they are a monolithic entity safely removed from the consequences of their actions.

I have watched in disbelief as most local media outlets, when they report on gay rights (rather rare, to be sure), go microphone in hand to the AFA for a comment—as if there were no other religious or spiritual leaders in north Mississippi they could talk to.  I find it incredibly offensive that anyone would care what a hate group would have to say about a complex issue like gay marriage. Even more offensive is the media’s failure to seek out other voices on such issues, as if the AFA alone had some sort of monopoly on the gay rights conversation. But then the AFA has been having a one-sided conversation on gay rights since it was founded back in 1977.

When I inquire as to why no one will speak out against the AFA, I am frequently told that one does not mess with them. It’s as if they were some sort of mafia organization, as if one might wake up one day with concrete boots while being tossed into a swamp for having the audacity to have one’s own point of view.

When I started a Facebook page (Stuff the American Family Association Says) designed to document the hate speech coming out of the AFA, I was warned to be careful.

Why, I wanted to know.

Just be careful, I was told.  

Really? Am I supposed to be afraid of an organization that calls itself Christian? Are they going to break the law, or do something unchristian to me?

How very odd.

Yet I’ve noticed how silent politicians and elected officials are with regard to the AFA. I’ve also noticed that local media outlets don’t mention the fact that the AFA was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as if ignoring that fact of life might make it go away. Or are they afraid of offending and losing advertisers?

My Facebook page has not exactly been a rousing success. As of this writing, only about one hundred and fifty souls have been brave enough to click “like” on my page. Some people have sent private messages stating they cannot “like” my page for fear that people on their friends’ lists will find out. Are we back in grade school? Are we not allowed to have our own opinions?

Last year, a small group of hardy souls organized a protest march in front of the AFA headquarters in downtown Tupelo. We were about two dozen, in all. We were largely ignored by the media – as if a protest against the AFA right on their own front door was somehow not news, or not newsworthy.

While the AFA believes itself protected by free speech and freedom of religion, so are the rest of us. We have just as much of a right to engage in this conversation as they do. As a gay man, in fact, I would argue that I have more of a right to speak my mind than they do. This is an issue that affects me directly. This is an issue I have struggled with for decades.

I listen to American Family Radio frequently, but I have never once heard them talk to a gay man about the issue of homosexuality. What are they afraid of?

No doubt they have enjoyed their one-sided conversation on this issue. But isn’t it time to hear the other side? Isn’t it time for gay Mississippians – and there are many of them – to speak up, to speak out, to tell their stories, to tell the truth about what it means to be gay or lesbian or transgender? Might we not be allowed to hear from other spiritual and religious leaders? Is there no room in Mississippi for alternative points of view?

Bryan Fischer hides behind his microphone and religion. I wonder how comfortable he would feel if challenged to a public debate on the issue of homosexuality. Since the man talks about homosexuality almost every single day, surely he would relish the opportunity to demolish an articulate gay rights advocate like John Shore or Dan Savage.

No?

And that’s the point.

Fischer and the AFA are, in my opinion, cowardly bullies who hide behind religion and radio dials and Facebook posts and tweets. They are interested only in a one-sided conversation. They do not seem to realize they are talking about real people, a great many of whom live next door to them, in their own communities, people who attend their churches, who rub elbows with them at the grocery store. They seem oblivious to the harm caused by their hate speech and demonization of others.

I will continue my no doubt woefully inadequate efforts to document their hate speech and provide an alternative point of view and I will do so because it’s important for young members of the LGBT community to realize that Bryan Fischer does not speak for everyone in this state.

I am not afraid of the AFA; neither should you be. We have the right to decide our own religious beliefs. We have the right to free speech and we are entitled to our own opinions. We do not live under a fascist dictatorship where the AFA talks and the rest of us do nothing but listen.

We live in a free country.

Don’t we?

We’re Americans.

Aren’t we?

Our fathers and forefathers did not fight for our freedoms so that organizations like the American Family Association could run roughshod over the rights of fellow citizens. They fought, and many times died, to preserve our right to hold our own religious beliefs and to speak our minds on issues that matter to us.

I do not believe the AFA speaks for everyone in the state of Mississippi. They may be a powerful organization and there may be good reasons to fear their retaliation. And they may well run the table on the gay rights conversation in the magnolia state. But they are not the only ones with a point of view.

It is way past time for Mississippians to shake off the dust of apathy and indifference in the face of this massive and daily assault on the rights and dignity of fellow Mississippians.

Gay people are not child-molesting, goat-buggering, disease-ridden threats to religious life and limb. We are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, created by the same God and entitled to the same rights and dignities as everyone else in this great country.

It’s high time we acted like it.

The hate speech of Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has told listeners to his radio program that President Obama is preparing the U.S. military to kill Christians. 

Speaking last Friday, he said, “The military is being conditioned to use weapons on the American Family Association. The soldiers are being conditioned in their brains to think of evangelicals, Tea Partyers, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as domestic enemies that may have to be neutralized by lethal force. The people you got to watch out for, you may have to turn your tanks on, are American Family Association.”

Fischer warns that the military may "surround the hotel" at next year's Values Voter Summit and ... well, use your imagination.

Fischer was upset that the American Family Association was included on a list of hate groups at a recent army training session. 

So: Is the AFA a hate group? 

It has been listed as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which provides an excellent summary of the group's hate-filled past. The reason for its designation as a hate group was not because of the group's religious beliefs, which are similar to most religious groups on the subject of homosexuality, but because of its constant demonization of members of the LGBT community.

Fischer claims the designation is unfair. 

Is it?

Consider the following states made by Fischer:

• Has repeatedly called for an Underground Railroad to "deliver innocent children from same-sex households."
• Has said gay people must be criminalized and treated "like drug addicts."
• Said "We should discriminate against unnatural and aberrant sexual behavior, whether pedophilia, bestiality, or homosexuality."
• Said Boy Scouts would be better off "drowned in the sea" than to allow gay scouts.
• Said "In the wake of what we've seen at Penn State, that alone out to be enough to say that, look: we are not going to put children in same-sex households—we are not going to adopt them into same-sex households. We are not going to give custody, if somebody goes into the homosexual lifestyle after siring children—bringing children into the world with an opposite-sex partner—they are not going to get custody of these children. If they have visits with those kids, they are going to be supervised visits. We cannot trust the sexual integrity and innocence and purity of those kids with those who have same-sex preferences. The risk is far, far too high.
• Claims "The homosexual agenda represents the single greatest modern threat to freedom of religion and conscience.”
• Says "The real haters are homosexuals. The real venom is coming from those that support the homosexual agenda, either homosexual activists, homosexuals, or those that support the homosexual agenda. They are the real haters. There is a heterophobic hatred, there is a Christophobic hatred that is just seething, there's a dark, venomous, demonic hatred that is in the homosexual community."
• Said "The homosexual agenda represents a clear and present danger to virtually every fundamental right given to us by our Creator and enshrined for us in our Constitution."
• Said “[Gays] are Nazis ... Do not be under any illusions about what homosexual activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They’ll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany.”
• Said "So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn't the Germans, didn't the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals."
• Said "If We Want to See Fewer Students Commit Suicide, We Want Fewer Homosexual Students"
• Claimed homosexuality is a form of "domestic terrorism."
• Famously said "Homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."
• Said allowing gay adoption is a form of sexual abuse.
• Constantly refers to gay marriage as "sodomy-based marriage."
• Said Hillary Clinton could be "our first lesbian president."
• Claimed "3/4ths of all lesbians are obese."
• Said "Parents and churches should abandon Boy Scouts like they were running out of a building house."
• Has openly admired Putin's anti-gay stance and said "It's time for us to be more like Russia."

See this article from GLAAD for more.

More choice quotes from Fischer, taken from my Stuff the American Family Association Says page on Facebook:

So ... is the American Family Association a hate group? When activists such as myself push back against this constant tide of myth and misinformation, are we persecuting the AFA and infringing on their right to religious liberty and freedom of belief? 

Or does the Southern Poverty Law Center have it right?

Fischer is welcome to his religious beliefs. But where, pray tell, are they? Comparing gay people to Nazis is not a religious belief. Slandering them as dangerous to society, as diseased, unhealthy, as the same as drug addicts and pedophiles ... where is the scriptural authority to back up such statements? What do such statements have to do with religion or religious belief? 

To find out what Fischer is up to, let's recast the same statements, but direct them against Jewish people instead of gay people:

• "The Jewish agenda represents a clear and present danger to virtually every fundamental right given to us by our Creator and enshrined for us in our Constitution."
• Said “[Jews] are Nazis ... Do not be under any illusions about what Jewish activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They’ll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany.”
• Has repeatedly called for an Underground Railroad to "deliver innocent children from Jewish households."
• Has said Jewish people must be criminalized and treated "like drug addicts."
• Said "We should discriminate against unnatural and aberrant sexual behavior, whether pedophilia, bestiality, or Judaism."
• Said Boy Scouts would be better off "drowned in the sea" than to allow Jewish scouts.

It's not about religion.

It's about hate. 

It's about demonizing an entire group of people over a biological fact of life that cannot be changed. 

There is nothing specifically Christian about any of Fischer's statements. There is, in fact, nothing specifically religious about them. Unless he told you he was a Christian, you would have no way of knowing. 

The American Family Association calls its a Christian ministry. It also calls American Family Radio, its radio programming that goes out on public airwaves all over the South, a "ministry" of the American Family Association. 

A ministry ... in what sense? 

Since when did telling outright lies about a certain group in society become a "ministry" protected by freedom of religion? Since when did "ministry" become something that involves persecution and hatred of people one doesn't like?

If the AFA is allowed to carry out this "ministry" against gay people, will other groups of "sinners" be targeted? Will we see ministries against drunks and murderers, against fathers who incest their daughters, against business people who exploit the poor and refuse to help the widow and the orphan? Will there be a ministry against masturbators? Will boys who masturbate be publicly shamed and excluded from the Boy Scouts? Will fornicators find themselves described as a clear and present danger to American society and the Constitution itself?

***

I live in Tupelo, Mississippi. which is also the headquarters of the American Family Association, and  I have yet to meet a single person in Mississippi who supports the AFA. Most of the people I have talked to over the last two years that I've lived here view the AFA as an embarrassment. They do not leap to defend it. They do not talk about the the many good works done by the AFA, the needy people helped, the hungry stomachs fed, the spiritual needs met. They sigh and shrug their shoulders the same way they do when the subject is slavery, or civil rights, or any of the other bits and pieces of Mississippi's unfortunate past. I have not met a single person who is proud of the AFA. 

If it engenders any feelings at all, they are feelings of fear. When I attended a sparsely-populated protest against the AFA several months ago, carried out in front of the AFA headquarters itself, I learned that many people would not come because they were afraid of retaliation, of losing their jobs or their standing in the community. 

When I started my Facebook page (Stuff the American Family Association Says) highlighting the outrageous and just plain wrong statements made by Fischer and others about the gay community, I was warned by several people to be careful. That I might be sued. That they might retaliate. That I might lose my job. 

My response to that was, and still is, that silence in the face of evil is not an option. The only reason the AFA gets away with their constant demonization of gay people is the fear and silence they engender among good people who know better but are afraid to speak up and speak out. And since when does a supposedly Christian group need to rely on fear and intimidation to get its message out? 

***

Anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship will recognize the signs: 

• Abusers are selfish and self-involved, thinking only of themselves, their status, their standing, what they want. They do not care who gets hurt because of their actions.
• Abusers almost always view themselves as the victims while demonizing the people they hurt as somehow or other deserving of what they got. 
• Abusers never take responsibility for their actions. When we protested the AFA, the general manager came out to speak to us. When confronted about Bryan Fischer, he was quick to note the AFA is "not responsible" for the content of its own programming, that Fischer's view "don't necessarily reflect" those of the AFA itself. They even run such disclaimers on-air.
• Abusers are always right. They will not tolerate the idea that they might be wrong. They go to great lengths to rationalize and justify their behavior, willfully and willingly blind to its consequences in the lives of others.  
• Abusers create a climate of fear and intimidation to keep victims quiet. 
• Telling the truth is a crime among abusers. Anyone who tells the truth about them will be punished, and often very severely. 

Have a look at these signs of an abusive relationship over at HelpGuide.Org.

Do I, as a gay man:

• feel afraid of the AFA?
• avoid certain topics out of fear?
• feel that I can't do anything right?
• feel that I deserve to be mistreated?
• feel emotionally numb or helpless?
• wonder if I'm crazy?

Yes. To all of them. That's the way the AFA makes me feel.

Does the AFA:

• humiliate or yell at me?
• criticize me or put me down?
• treat me badly so that I'm embarrassed for my family and friends to see it?
• ignore my opinions and accomplishments?
• see me as a sex object rather than as a person?

Yes. Yes to all of it. Yes, exactly.

Do I feel threatened by the AFA?

Yes. 

Does the AFA threaten to take my children away?

Yes.

Does the AFA want to control me and what I do?

Yes.

***

What, exactly, is going on here? 

If the American Family Association is a Christian ministry, why do I feel abused? Why does its programming leave me feeling dirty and embarrassed? Where is the "good news" in the AFA gospel? Why must I constantly defend myself against a torrent of untrue accusations and slander?

If the AFA is a Christian ministry, to whom is it ministering? What is its message? What is it trying to say?

If the AFA is a Christian ministry, how does its behavior compare to its founder, Jesus Christ? Is its behavior Christ-like? 

What, exactly, is the AFA?

Who, exactly, is Bryan Fischer? 

The answers are increasingly obvious.

Protesting the American Family Association

Carla Hale (Photo Credit: Brooke LaValley, Columbus Dispatch)

Joining the ranks of the recently unemployed is Carla Hale. She was fired from Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio after 19 years for the crime of listing her lesbian partner as one of the survivors in an obituary for her mother.

The American Family Radio's Bryan Fischer is proud of the school district for taking this action. He believes it's time to "reclaim the D-word" - discrimination. 

“They were absolutely right to do it…. It is right to discriminate against people who engage in aberrant sexual behavior, we should discriminate against people like that.”

He compared this form of discrimination to the way we discriminate against shoplifters, as though listing your life partner in an obituary for your mother was criminal.

Fischer has a long history of bigotry against the gay community, which is why a small group of us recently protested the American Family Association. On April 19, 2013, we gathered outside the AFA headquarters in downtown Tupelo, Mississippi. 

AFA Protest on April 19, 2013.

One of our members informed the general manager that we were there to protest Bryan Fischer's inflammatory and often inaccurate remarks about gay people. Specially mentioned was the discredited research that Fischer uses to give weight to his claims.

One part of that discredited research is the so-called "ex-gay" movement, led by Evangelicals who believe homosexuality can be cured. One of those leaders was John Paulk, the former chairman of Exodus International, who has just released a statement apologizing for his misguided efforts to "cure" gay people.

Paulk says:

"For the better of ten years, I was an advocate and spokesman for what’s known as the 'ex-gay movement' where we declared that sexual orientation could be changed through a close-knit relationship with God, intensive therapy and strong determination. At the time, I truly believed that it would happen. And while many things in my life did change as a Christian, my sexual orientation did not. Today, I do not consider myself 'ex-gay,' and I no longer support or promote the movement. Please allow me to be clear: I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people."

The whole point of our protest was exactly this: Anti-gay bigotry "does great harm to many people."

I asked the general manager why, if he was so concerned about the family and the moral fabric of society, they didn't target fornicators and adulterers, and murders and thieves on their radio programs. I received little more than an embarrassed smile.

If gay people are fair game because of what the AFA considers sinful sexual behavior, why not target fornicators, couples living in sin, adulterers? Fornication and adultery are clearly sinful, according to the scriptures that the AFA claims to follow.

If Bryan Fischer is allowed to rejoice that an older lesbian woman was fired from her job for listing her partner in the obituary for her mother, why not "out" known adulterous teachers and have them fired? What sort of moral example are they setting for school children?

Why is it okay to target one group of "sinners" and not others? Why the hypocrisy?

Consider the following:

The AFA was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for its "propagation of known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda."

• The SPLC says: "For years, until 2010, the AFA had a section on its website that supposedly exposed 'The Homosexual Agenda.' There, a reader could find articles and other AFA publications that claimed LGBT people were trying to force the acceptance of homosexuality on children through sex education programs in schools; condemned companies like Disney for supporting LGBT rights and programming; and, also until 2010, featured a particularly noxious booklet the AFA had published in 1994. That booklet, Homosexuality in America: Exposing the Myths, included the bogus research of thoroughly discredited psychologist Paul Cameron as a source. One of the publication’s authors, Richard Howe, used Cameron’s 'research' to claim that LGBT people don’t live as long as heterosexuals, that they’re more promiscuous and that the 'disgusting details of the homosexual lifestyle explain why so many diseases are present in the homosexual community.' Another claim was that '[p]rominent homosexual leaders and publications have voiced support for pedophilia, incest, sadomasochism, and even bestiality.'"

Previous statements by Bryan Fischer and the AFA:

• “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.” — Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, 2010
• "Now the Bush Administration is opening its arms to homosexual activists who have been working diligently to overthrow the traditional views of Western Civilization regarding human sexuality, marriage and family… AFA would never support the policies of a political party which embraced the homosexual movement. Period."— Don Wildmon, AFA Press Release, April 16, 2001
• "Over the years, AFA has consistently addressed the homosexual movement's obsession with infiltrating the public school system. Its eye-opening video 'It's Not Gay', which presents a heartbreaking look at the physical and emotional consequences of the homosexual lifestyle, has been the most popular video ever produced by AFA." ("Homosexuals push for control of schools," May 2001)
• "Nothing disappointed the [American Family Association] more than Disney's enthusiastic embrace of [the homosexual] movement that rejects everything that is sacred to Christians about human sexuality, marriage and family." ("Why the Disney Boycott Shouldn't Go Away," April 2001)
• "Under homosexual activists' political agenda, our children would face a future in which traditional marriage and families have been legally devalued, while state government— despite the severe threat it poses to personal and public health— not only legally endorses but uses our tax dollars to subsidize deadly homosexual behavior."— Gary Glenn, Director of AFA Michigan (Press Release, February 17, 2001)

Wikipedia says:

• "In May 2010, Bryan Fischer, the AFA's director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy, wrote a blog post on the AFA website detailing purported allegations that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual, and concluded by claiming that the Holocaust (which actually included gay victims of Nazi persecution) was caused by homosexuals in the Nazi German military: "Nazi Germany became the horror that it was because it rejected both Christianity and its clear teaching about human sexuality. These are mistakes no sane culture should ever make again."
• "In August, 2012, AFA Director of Issue Analysis Bryan Fischer compared the children of gay parents to slaves, tweeting that "we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households".
• "The Southern Poverty Law Center, through its Teaching Tolerance program, had encouraged schools across the U.S. to hold a "Mix It Up" day in order to encourage children in schools to break up the cliques that tend to dominate children's school lives and to prevent bullying. The program, started 11 years ago, has been held in more than 2,500 schools. But in the autumn of 2012, the AFA falsely branded the project "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools," even though the program makes no mention of homosexuality, and urged parents to keep their children home from school on October 30, 2012, and to call their children's schools to protest the event. "I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is," Maureen Costello, the director of the center's Teaching Tolerance project, which organizes the program, told The New York Times. "It was a cycnical, fear-mongering tactic." Severson, Kim (2012-10-14). "Seeing a Homosexual Agenda, Christian Group Protests an Anti-Bullying Program". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2013-02-10.
• "Former AFA California leader Scott Lively is a co-author of The Pink Swastika, which claims that many leaders in the Nazi regime, including Adolf Hitler himself, were homosexual, which drew criticism from historians. He has since co-founded Watchmen on the Walls.
• "Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in a 2005 report, stated that the AFA, along with other groups, engaged in hate speech to "help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade." Mark Potok of the SPLC determined that the turning point was 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court struck down Texas's anti-sodomy laws. After that, the Christian right spent millions on advertisements, and on pastor briefings organized by activists such as born-again Christian David Lane. Lane helped AFA put constitutional opposite-sex marriage amendments on the ballots of 13 states.
• "In November 2010, the SPLC changed their listing of AFA from a group that used hate speech to the more serious one of being designated a hate group. Potok said that the AFA's "propagation of known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda" was the basis for the change." 

I've listened to Bryan Fischer on the radio myself. One day he stated that there was absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to suggest that homosexuality was anything but a choice. He was quite clear: There is absolutely no scientific, genetic, medical or biological evidence to suggest that homosexuality is anything but a choice. Therefore, because it's a "choice" and not a matter of genes and biology, it is perfectly okay to discriminate against homosexuals just as we would discriminate against drug addicts or murderers who make the choice to take drugs or murder other people.

This is astonishing ignorance. Contrary to Fischer's claims, there are mountains of evidence to suggest that homosexuality is NOT a choice. There are millions of gay people Fischer might have spoke to who would tell him quite convincingly that no one makes a choice to be gay. And there are numerous studies and copious amounts of research in all sorts of fields suggesting that homosexuality is a natural condition that occurs quite consistently in a small percentage of any population, anywhere in the world, at all times throughout human history.

How can someone go on the radio and make such blatantly false statements? Has Fischer never heard of "Thou shalt not bear false witness"?

The general manager of the AFA was quick to point they take no responsibility for Fischer's statements. He reminded us that they run a disclaimer at the end of his radio program stating that the AFA is not responsible for the content of Fischer's program.

While they may not take responsibility for his statements, they seem to have no trouble using his homophobia and falsehoods to prop up ratings and earn money.

Doesn't seem very Christian to some of us.

A SMALL BEGINNING

There were only about a dozen of us at the AFA protest, which included LGBT activists, family members, and heterosexual supporters of LGBT rights.

The only media attention we received was this report by the Daily Journal, which noted:

Activist Amelie Hahn of Tupelo chose AFA as the site for the demonstration on the claim that the organization is one of the biggest bullies toward the gay community.

“AFA is a religious organization and that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be able to discriminate,” she said.

She accused AFA of using debunked studies and falsified reports to back up its claims against homosexuals. Among them are claims that same-sex parenting is a detriment to children and the Nazi war machine of Adolph Hitler was made up of gay officers.

“More than anything I hope we can impact the listeners of AFA’s programs and encourage them to check the facts, not just take in what they hear,” she said. “Because these people say they are Christian, listeners can’t believe they would lie.”

Like other protesters that day, I expressed the idea that the AFA has every right to its spiritual beliefs concerning homosexuality. I told them as much that day. This is not, and has never been, in dispute. If they believe the Bible speaks against homosexuality, they are completely free to hold that belief. No one is suggesting they abandon their beliefs. What we are suggesting is they get the facts straight and stop knowingly and willingly misleading their listeners with myth and misinformation.

We are suggesting they stop using discredited research and needlessly inflammatory statements, such as comparing homosexuality to shoplifting, or suggesting that the children of gay couples should be kidnapped and spirited away to "save" them. It was for these sorts of statements that the AFA was classified as a hate group. It is these sort of statements we will continue to protest until the AFA gets the message.

And we will protest the AFA again. Next time, I hope many more people show up to tell the AFA that their bigotry and falsehoods are disgraceful and will not go unchallenged.