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.
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| 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.
