Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer

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Not to be confused with Becky Fischer or Bobby Fischer.

Bryan Fischer (1951–) is a Fundamentalist Christian pundit. He formerly served as "Director of Issues Analysis" for the American Family Association (AFA), until he was stripped of that title without explanation in early 2015. Fischer still hosts a weekly talk radio program, Focal Point, which is syndicated by the AFA's radio network, American Family Radio, to an audience of over 1 million listeners on more than 180 stations nationwide. He is also active on Twitter and writes frequently for the AFA's blog, Rightly Concerned. He appears frequently on Right Wing Watch.

Fischer is best known for his especially "colorful" views and comments on abortion, feminism, universal health care, war, religion, science, evolution, reality, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, race, and politics, and has a long history of making controversial statements without the slightest hint of self-awareness, a combination that makes even the most cuckoo-bananas conservative talk radio pundits seem sane and reasonable in comparison. Although the AFA recognizes him as a spokesperson, the organization is generally ambivalent about endorsing his columns and has even expunged some of his more rabidly insane statements from their website. However, many in the organization not only tolerate Fischer’s rants but actively encourage him; according to Buster Wilson, the General Manager of American Family Radio, Fischer says “things that a lot of people on the conservative side of things think but they won’t say.” The Southern Poverty Law Center cited Fischer's controversial comments on racial and ethnic minorities as a reason for their designation of AFA as a hate group.

Background

Fischer is a native of Boise, Idaho. He has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a graduate degree in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. Fischer served as director of Cole Community Church (now known as River Valley Community Church) in Boise for thirteen years, where he founded the Cole Center for Biblical Studies. He left the organization due to a dispute over the role of women in the church leadership and administration. Fischer then founded Community Church of the Valley in Boise and was senior pastor there for twelve years. Before joining the board of directors of American Family Association, Fischer was also executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, an affiliate of Reach America, an evangelical ministry and political advocacy organization. From 2000 to 2005, he served as a commissioner for the City of Boise's Park and Recreation Department, and in 2004, he co-founded the Keep the Commandments Coalition, a group dedicated to keeping a Ten Commandments monument in a Boise park.

Religion and politics

As a dominionist, Fischer sees politics and religion as two sides of the same coin.

His political views are most succinctly illustrated by the fact that he thinks Anders Behring Breivik's "analysis of cultural trends in Europe and the danger created by Islamic immigration and inflitration [sic] is accurate." Fischer added that he disagreed with Breivik's violent actions, actions that according to Fischer show that Breivik is not a Christian but should instead be considered a "jihadist"; apparently he is not a Christian since terrorists cannot be Christian but are by his definition Muslim.

His solution of the increasing costs of health care is for the government to stop demanding that hospitals treat everyone who shows up, so that the poor can die in the streets instead. If this sounds harsh, Fischer claims, remember that most hospitals "were started by Christians", so they will most likely help those who cannot afford treatment anyway. How he thinks that this will stop the increase in health care costs is thus a little unclear, but at least he got the opportunity to say what was on his mind regarding the sick and the poor.

Fischer has claimed that Federal income tax is "flatly unconstitutional" despite being explicitly authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment, but has unfortunately not attempted to try out this assumption in practice.

Freedom of religion

Fischer believes there is no freedom of religion for non-Christians, and particularly not for Muslims. As such, he has called on the U.S. military to ban all Muslims from serving, and raised questions as to whether Muslims should be allowed to immigrate to the United States at all. Anyone who opposes Christian influence in the United States is automatically a traitor.

Fischer has also argued that:

• First Amendment protections do not apply to Muslims or Mormons. As he puts it, "[t]he First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam," which of course just takes for granted the breathtakingly wrong assumption that the First Amendment is supposed to give special rights (rather than equal protection) to Christians. "[T]he Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment."
• Individual states have the right to regulate religious expression. He only mentions Muslims, of course.
• No permits should be granted to build any more mosques in the United States of America.
• A “sensible and sane immigration policy" would model "ancient Israel" and require every immigrant to “convert to Christianity”. Muslim immigrants in particular should be required to "drop his Islam and his Qur'an at Ellis Island." Originally posted in a 2011 column, he later altered the article to make it sound a tad less extreme, but in February 2012 he repeated the claim that Muslims should "convert to Christianity" in order to become American citizens, saying that immigrants "got to embrace your God, they've got to embrace your faith." Part of the reason is that Muslims, according to Fischer, are a "toxic cancer" to American culture, Fischer supports Trump's immigration policies because extreme vetting is required to get to Heaven.
• Based on the "ObamaCare" individual mandate model, the government should tax atheists.

Fischer also stated that "counterfeit religions, alternative religions to Christianity, have no First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion;" indeed, in his own explicit words:

“”the First Amendment was written neither to guarantee freedom of religion to Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus nor to prohibit their free exercise of religion. It wasn’t written about them one way or another. It was written for one specific purpose: to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion

In August 2011 the Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a survey that found that "Muslims in the United States continue to reject extremism." Fischer, of course, rejected the claim outright, pointing instead out that nearly half of Muslims identify themselves as Muslims first and Americans second. Of course, Christians do the same, but in that case it is a good thing since “devotion and allegiance to Jesus Christ means [a person is] going to be a better American. He's going to be an asset to his country, he's going to love his country, he's going to become more fervent in his patriotism.” If a Muslim says “I am a Muslim first and an American second,” on the other hand, it is a bad thing since the ultimate “devotion is to the Quran, it's to Allah, it's to Muhammad. It's not to Jesus Christ, it's not to the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is not to American values and American tradition and American history and American heroes.”

Fischer finally dropped any pretense that he understands Islam as a rival Abrahamic religious tradition and stated that Muslims worship a "demon god" named Allah. On the other hand, since he previously made the statement that Islam is the "spirit of Satan" nobody should be surprised at his utter lack of sanity comprehension on the subject. Add to this his bizarre observation that the participation of a female Saudi judoka in the 2012 Olympics actually promotes Sharia law (an observation which must come as a total surprise to citizens of Saudi Arabia, to say the least) and you have to wonder if the conditioner Fischer uses for that impressive head of hair of his isn't causing brain damage.

More recently, Fischer insisted that the real reason that Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner was running for mayor of New York City wasn't because he wanted to find more sexting opportunities actually be mayor; it was so that his Muslim wife Huma Abedin could engage in "jihadist activity", because it would "serve the interests of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood and their agenda" to have a "mayor of the most populous city in the United States be connected to the Muslim Brotherhood". There's no word as to whether Fischer actually bothered to read up on some of Weiner's actual views on the middle east conflict before he said this.

Fisher criticised the Republican Party for letting a Muslim pray at the 2016 convention. Fisher claims this, “allowed a demonic power to be invited into its building,”

On the other hand, Fischer chose to agree with the Islamic extremists in ISIS on their characterization of religious minorities in Iraq such as the Yazidis as "devil worshippers", since it was a nice way of accusing Obama of intervening in Iraq in August 2014 only because he wanted to protect them and not Iraqi Christians.

Quote mining Joseph Story

Despite the protection guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment, and the succinctness of the First Amendment's words "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", Fischer's specific narrative that there are Constitutional grounds for the legal disregard of discrimination against non-Christians comes about by way of attempting to situate the First Amendment's historical context in a manner that suits his beliefs. However, his case is as inaccurate and disingenuous as it is irrelevant, as it is based on quote mining Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) from his privately published commentaries on the Constitution:

“”I have written on numerous occasions that the purpose of the First Amendment, as Justice Joseph Story declares in his monumental history of the Constitution, was only to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith and to prevent the selection and designation of one Christian denomination as the official church of the United States. Story said the purpose of the Founders in crafting the First Amendment was not to "countenance much less to advance Mohammedanism, Judaism or infidelity...but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects" (meaning denominations). But because low-information educators have so mangled our history, and activist judges have so mangled our Constitution, most Americans, even educated ones, do not understand this basic fact about the First Amendment: that by the word "religion" in the First Amendment, the Founders meant only the various expressions of Christianity.

While Story indeed stated that the original intent of the First Amendment was specifically directed against the threat of Christian sects accruing power or fighting amongst one another, Fischer has taken it out of context, claiming he was speaking to the effect that this intent was ultimately the sole purpose, to the exclusion of all others and justifying the disparagement of anything else. To this end, Fischer is lying by omission, because Story's unabridged commentary reaches a conclusion that runs completely counter to that narrative:

“” § 1872. Mr. Justice Blackstone, after having spoken with a manly freedom of the abuses in the Romish church respecting heresy; and, that Christianity had been deformed by the demon of persecution upon the continent, and that the island of Great Britain had not been entirely free from the scourge, defends the final enactments against nonconformity in England, in the following set phrases, to which, without any material change, might be justly applied his own sarcastic remarks upon the conduct of the Roman ecclesiastics in punishing heresy. "For non-conformity to the worship of the church," (says he,) "there is much more to be pleaded than for the former, (that is, reviling the ordinances of the church,) being a matter of private conscience, to the scruples of which our present laws have shown a very just, and Christian indulgence. For undoubtedly all persecution and oppression of weak consciences, on the score of religious persuasions, are highly unjustifiable upon every principle of natural reason, civil liberty, or sound religion. But care must be taken not to carry this indulgence into such extremes, as may endanger the national church. There is always a difference to be made between toleration and establishment." Let it be remembered, that at the very moment, when the learned commentator was penning these cold remarks, the laws of England merely tolerated protestant dissenters in their public worship upon certain conditions, at once irritating and degrading; that the test and corporation acts excluded them from public and corporate offices, both of trust and profit; that the learned commentator avows, that the object of the test and corporation acts to exclude them from office, in common with Turks, Jews, heretics, papists, and other sectaries; that to deny the Trinity, however conscientiously disbelieved, was a public offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment; and that, in the rear of all these disabilities and grievances, came the long list of acts against papists, by which they were reduced to a state of political and religious slavery, and cut off from some of the dearest privileges of mankind. § 1873. It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject. The situation, too, of the different states equally proclaimed the policy, as well as the necessity of such an exclusion. In some of the states, episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in others, presbyterians; in others, congregationalists; in others, quakers; and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects. It was impossible, that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.

— Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 3:§§ 1872-1873. 3 vols. Boston, 1833

Far from claiming that the Founders intended to privilege the religious freedoms of Christians above others, Story does nothing less than corroborate that they did not see any reason to do so, nor were they enthusiastic with the idea by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing the motivation of a distrust for the chauvinism of religious sects and its long-term effects on efforts to promote faith, as well as the hindsight of Europe's then-very recent history of religious wars, Story concludes that what the Founders thought was explicitly pluralistic: realizing that there was no hope of accomplishing the goal of putting a stop to religious strife and curtailing the societal encroachment of sectarian authority without extending religious freedom to all faiths (and to a lack thereof), and forbidding any kind of federal establishment or promotion of religion as such.

Despite being repeatedly addressed and debunked since 2011 for the same simple reason, Fischer has remained obstinate in using this obfuscation. However, he has not been the only one to use it since and is unlikely to have been the first to do so. Others, such as David Barton and Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress (who has apparently even referenced it as far back as 2008), have also been known to use it.

Officially, the AFA claims it does not agree with its own spokesperson's view (which would not be the first time) as expressed through his use of the Story commentary. However, they only seem to disagree insofar as they themselves even understand Story; as they too fail to recognize Fischer's actual error and instead bite into it, stating that "Joseph Story’s view continues to have proponents, including Bryan Fischer, one of American Family Radio’s talk show hosts."

Women

Fischer believes that women are unfit for public office or military service, and were designed to be ruled over by men and "to focus [their] energies ... on making a home for her children and for her husband." Surprise, surprise! Fisher did not want people to vote for Hillary Clinton as president.

Liberals

Fischer claims that liberals “hate the Declaration of Independence”.

According to Fischer anyone who criticizes Sarah Palin is really controlled by Satan, despite him believing women are unfit for public office. "When we look into the face of the unvarnished and seething meanness focused on Ms. Palin, we are looking into the face of evil. We are looking into the face of Satan himself, who is the ultimate source of this vitriol and toxic hate." And to back it up, he quotes the Bible: "Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” Remember that this is uttered, apparently with a straight face, by the guy who claims that homosexuals are terrorists who are responsible for the Holocaust. As if the unintentional humor provided by the previous statement wasn't enough, Fischer more recently proclaimed that liberals are dupes of Satan and believe "things that are irrational" which "cannot stand up to the test of reason and logic". Engage in projection much?

He has also claimed that an attack on Rick Santorum is an attack on Jesus himself.

Part of his issue with liberals is that liberals apparently hate women. Fischer reached this conclusion in part in relation to the Sandra Fluke episode. He had rushed to the defense of Rush Limbaugh, claiming that Limbaugh was “lexically accurate” to call Fluke a “slut” on his radio program, and that Limbaugh’s notpology was proof that we are now living under “secular Sharia.” In subsequent programs, however, Fischer delved more deeply into the discussion, and happily concluded that all misogyny, hatred, and vulgar attacks on women almost always comes from the Left because the Right respects women and treats them with dignity. In fact, he explained, there is really no difference between the Left and Islamic Radicals, who see women as “something less than human.” After claiming that the Right always treats women with respect, he continued to attack Fluke for being someone who is “sleeping with so many guys she can’t keep track [and] doing it three times a day,” and wondering if President Obama would be proud if his daughters turned out like that, since Obama is obviously to blame for whatever he is to blame for in this case as well. Classic, incoherent hate from Fischer, in other words.

Not one to back away from inviting guests to his radio show in order to help shovel out the usual demagoguery, he and American Spectator windbag-in-chief R. Emmett Tyrell blamed the Aurora shootings on - you guessed it - liberals instead of the probable crazy person who was actually responsible for the shooting. They did this by "forcing" the United States to "turn away from God" even though the country's still high level of religious piety doesn't seem to matter much in terms of being a brake on violent crime. Go figure.

Better yet, Fischer's bizarre definition of what constitutes a "liberal" in his book seems to be incredibly flexible; he claimed that Wade Michael Page (the shooter responsible for the Sikh temple massacre in Oak Creek, Wisconsin) is a "liberal" despite the rather obvious fact that he was affiliated with racist skinhead groups as long ago as 2000. Fischer's "logic" concerning this statement is especially bizarre:

• In the 19th century, segregationist Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments;
• Southern Democrats were also proponents of Jim Crow laws;
• Much more recently, Democrats have supported liberal causes much more than Republicans have.
• All Democrats (both then and now) are liberals.
• Therefore, Democrats and liberals are racists, shifts in party affiliation among former segregationist Dixiecrats such as Strom Thurmond (and the region-based factional differences found in the Democratic party itself) be damned. And Wade Michael Page was a racist who called himself a National Socialist, so all liberals and socialists are racists.

(Note: We at RW would like to apologize if your head feels like it's about to explode after reading this.)

Fischer was his usual classy self when he went on a multiple Godwin-worthy rant about the upcoming 2012 Democratic National Convention and referred to it alternatively as a "three day death camp", a "three day Auschwitz" and "abortion-palooza."

Barack Obama

Fischer believes that Obama is a racist towards white people, and has declared that he honestly believes that President Obama is deliberately trying to destroy America because he thinks America "is one big, giant Ku Klux Klan meeting", and that the Department of Homeland Security is hoarding ammunition in a liberal plot to shoot Fischer and his allies.

On November 29 2011 he went into a fit of rage over President Obama's Thanksgiving message, in which the president said that he and his family, like millions of Americans, would spend the day “reflecting on how truly lucky we are.” The offensive word in the president’s speech was apparently “lucky”, since according to Fischer it is not luck that has made America successful, but God. Never one to miss an opportunity to go completely over the top, he went on to declare Obama’s statement to be literally “the most offensive thing” Obama has ever said. Of course, Fischer probably doesn't consider his comparison of Obama to Mussolini and Hitler for the contraceptive mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act offensive at all, so feel free to consider the source.

Fischer is also convinced that a super-duper Evil Alliance consisting of Obama and the UN is trying to import as many Muslims to the US as possible in order to further the usual M00SL1M K0NSP1RAK11 hogwash. He also seems oblivious to the idea that Muslims don't seem to need a special permit to live in Tennessee (or in this particular hot-button case, Murfreesboro) once they're admitted to the US. A few days afterward, Fischer upped the ante on this theme by stating that he thinks Obama may be a "closeted Muslim", which means that he's now recycling some of Frank Gaffney's old shtick.

Fischer has also implied (like about a hundred right-wing pundits before him) that the 2012 election will trigger The Coming Apocalypse real soon now, although he goes in an opposite direction than most; he thinks that flash mobs are going to do all sorts of heinous shit if Obama loses, which is the exact opposite of what most of his brethren (for example, WND apparatchik David Kupelian) tend to predict.

If you thought that Obama's re-election would cause Fischer to mellow out somewhat (or at least shift targets), the answer is simple: nope.

In August 2013, Fischer apparently convinced himself that Obama had his image photoshopped into the situation room the night that Osama Bin Laden was killed by a SEAL team. After he was widely ridiculed for his odd assertion, Fischer doubled down and added some equally strange armchair psychologizing about Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well.

Other conservatives

Although Santorum may be Jesus, Fischer's views on Mitt Romney are incoherent complex, and not only because he denies that Mormonism is protected by the First Amendment. Since his lack of self-awareness is absolute, his indecision concerning Romney is usually channeled into some breathtaking psychological projectionist howls of insane rage that generally ends up blaming liberals anyway. So for instance, in the same rant in which he was warning that electing a "spiritually-compromised" Mormon like Mitt Romney would weaken and endanger America, he was still lambasting liberals for their (alleged) plans to start attacking Romney's faith, and how morally deplorable they were for attacking his faith, and how this shows that the media is biased and immoral (even though he was speaking about what he thought they were going to do, not what they had already done) According to Fischer, if the media thinks that the beliefs of Evangelicals are odd, then "what Mormons believe is in coo-coo land," but it would nevertheless be immoral to attack these beliefs despite the fact that they weaken and endanger America. Fischer also knows when to shamelessly play to Romney's supporters when needed: witness James Inhofe's guest appearance on Focal Point in order to predict both Romney's victory "by a substantial margin" and take a predictable shot at Barack Obama as well.

On the other hand, his statement concerning SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts' ruling on the Affordable Care Act was surprisingly well-reasoned, thoughtful and free of hyperbole. Ha, ha, just kidding. Of course it wasn't.

He also attacked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for promoting "socialism" when he defended a state law that bans price-gouging in gasoline sales during an emergency. As you can tell, his sense of compassion during natural disasters is a bit...underwhelming, to say the least.

Race

In February 2011, Fischer ridiculed the religious beliefs of Native Americans in the United States, by suggesting that "many of the reservations today are still mired in poverty and alcoholism because many Native Americans still to this day continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture." On his radio program, he advised fathers of Native American children to "...get them mainstreamed, convert them to Jesus Christ, and get them off the reservation and into American life." In a related blog post (which was later deleted), Fischer elaborated that "the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality" of Native American culture rendered them "morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil."

In 2012 Fischer raised more eyebrows when he claimed in another blog post (which was also later deleted) that treating Native Americans like the Israelites treated the Canaanites in the Old Testament (i.e., total genocide) would be justified on account of the tribes' rejection of Christianity. He has also warned us about Obama's policies toward American Natives: "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."

He has repeatedly asserted that Obama is a racist who hates America, and that Attorney General Eric Holder will never "prosecute someone if the victim is white."

Homosexuality

Fischer’s expressed views on homosexuality, gay marriage, and gay adoption can be summed up as an ongoing attempt to outdo himself with crazy. Against accusation that he has claimed that all gays should be “locked up”, Fischer pointed out that he had claimed no such thing; he merely wishes to criminalize homosexual behavior and force gays and lesbians into reparative therapy since “homosexual behavior represents a severe threat to public health, and is even more dangerous to human health than intravenous drug abuse.” He has also referred to same-sex marriage as "sodomy-based marriage."

In February 2012 Bryan Fischer joined the chorus of anti-gay activists who lamented JC Penney’s decision to hire Ellen DeGeneres to represent the company. Fischer, determined to be the shrillest and least reality-based of them all, went on to assert that JC Penney’s decision will lead to more depression, suicide, and breast cancer among women who become lesbians. According to Fischer "research has indicated that lesbians suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to heterosexual women." Unfortunately he didn’t specify exactly which studies it is that allegedly show a correlation between lesbianism and breast cancer.

In June 2012, he attempted to initiate a campaign to "reclaim the ‘D’ word” (“discrimination”) by arguing that government should discriminate against gays and lesbians to stop them from “destroying themselves through non-normative sexual behavior," and that it is ironic that gays don’t face discrimination even as the government wages an “all-out war against cigarette smoking,” condemns “adults, even priests, who have sex with children” and punishes people who “burgle houses, drive while drunk, eat the faces off homeless people, gun down servicemen on military bases, embezzle funds from employers or clients, or beat their wives.” As he put it “it’s time for conservatives to unhesitatingly reclaim the ‘D’ word, dust it off, and use it without apology.”

Fischer is also one of many anti-gay activists who have blamed 15 year-old openly gay eighth grader Lawrence King for his own murder; in the case of Fischer the reason for blaming King himself – summed up in a column called "Who will protect straights from homosexual bullies" – was apparently that his killer was a victim of King's relentless sexual harassment. Fischer’s proposed solution of anti-gay hate crimes would be to begin blaming the victim “placing reasonable curbs on the public expression of homosexual behavior."

Fischer also gloated about forcing the resignation of Mitt Romney's openly gay security spokesman Richard Grenell, emphasizing in particular how the Romney camp turned spineless in the face of an attack by "a yokel like me" (Fischer's words, not ours) and other figures from the religious right.

Fischer also responded to calls by gay rights activists to boycott the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain in his usual oblivious fashion by implying that they want to "go Ahmadinejad" in order to get the company "wiped off the face of the map". Why Fischer chose to invoke the name of the President of a country that treats gays and other sexual minorities the way he'd like to is just another sign of how lost in Wackyland he is on the subject.

Fischer also claimed that Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning's homosexuality was the cause of the WikiLeaks case.

In response to Uganda moving forward with their Anti-Homosexuality Bill (more commonly known as the "Kill the Gays" bill), Fischer praised Uganda (wrongly assuming the bill had passed) and took the opportunity to suggest that the United States follow suit.

He's under the impression that discriminating against homosexuals in employment issues is the moral equivalent of (and therefore just as acceptable as) discriminating against shoplifters.

In the wake of NBA player Jason Collins coming out as gay in April of 2013, he asserted that NBA players and their wives should resist Collins being signed to any of their teams in the future since he'd be "eyeballing" other players in the shower. This sounds like a wonderful combination of half-baked ideas (one being the concept that gay men want to have sex all the time, especially with every man that they see naked), but Fischer is late to the party since a retired player (John Amaechi) had already come out earlier.

In 2013 alone, Fischer said striking down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act was a worse travesty than Trayvon Martin's death, called Mary Cheney a "lesbian bigot" for standing up for her marriage, claimed that if Hillary Clinton wins in 2016 she would become the "first lesbian president," implied that gay Boy Scout leaders would try to molest the troops, and then said it's all owing to his deep concern for LGBT people.

In response to India's Supreme Court striking down a prior decision that decriminalised gay sex, Fischer tweeted that "upheld a law passed by the elected representatives of the people". The law in question is the 1860 Indian Penal Code, passed by the British during the Raj 87 years before independence.

During an appearance on Alan Colmes' radio show, Fischer went out of his way to dance around the subject of whether or not his assertion that being gay is a choice based on sexual impulses "that people are not obligated to act on" meant that Fischer had had such impulses. Fischer did his best not to answer that.

Considering all of the previous rhetorical overkill, it comes as no surprise that Fischer blames Teh Evil Gay for all of this since they're engaging in "heterophobic and Christophobic hatred" that's "seething", "demonic", "dark" and "venomous". Presumably, the only thing that caused him to stop ranting at this point is that he ran out of scary-sounding adjectives to use.

Being the exception that proves the rule of Haggard's Law, we have no evidence that Bryan Fischer has ever, past or present, engaged in homosexual acts of any kind.

Yet.

Homosexuality and (religious) freedom

At the 2010 Values Voter Summit Fischer gave a speech in which he claimed that the American people would have to choose between the homosexual agenda and freedom, because the two cannot coexist. The incompatibility of freedom and LGBT rights is a mainstay in Fischer’s rants, but it is always a little unclear why, exactly, they are incompatible. Maybe we should let Fischer himself clarify?

“”The homosexual agenda is just like Islam: there is no room for dissent, there is no room to leave, once you're in, you can't leave Muslims won't let you leave, homosexuals won't let you leave. [...] There's no freedom of choice, there's no freedom of religion - if you have religious views about homosexual behavior, you are squashed. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, they are Nazis. Homosexual activists, when it comes to freedom of speech, are Nazis. When it comes to freedom of religion, they are Nazis. … it's the Spanish Inquisition all over again.

—Bryan Fischer on AFA focal point

Nope.

Fischer's extremes on the matter were made very clear in 2012, when he was stupid enough to tweet that Americans should kidnap children from same-sex households, and deliver them via an "Underground Railroad" (a metaphor that is hilarious, when one reads his remarks about genocide and race) In addition, Fischer specifically brought up the Lisa Miller child abduction case when he asserted that Miller's former same-sex partner Janet Jenkins had sexually abused their daughter (sans any real proof for such a serious accusation, of course; Fischer even repeated this charge a second time, which meant that the first accusation was hardly a slip of the tongue) and that Miller was completely justified in engaging in child abduction in order to "obey God rather than man."

More recently, Fischer has stated that he wants to take the United States back to the conditions of the book of Genesis in order to combat "sexual perversity" and "sexual deviancy"; this can be taken as an indication of Fischer dabbling in rhetorical overkill, borderline theological heresy or not-so-borderline stupidity (or any combination of the three) depending on your POV.

Fischer's response to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act was to join with Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and launch into a prolonged screed claiming that anti-gay "activists" would become second-class citizens and be relegated to "steerage status" (though Fischer didn't quite elaborate on how the right of same-sex married couples to receive Federal benefits accomplishes this feat); Staver added that the Supreme Court was "demeaned" by the ruling, that States should just ignore the ruling and that the ruling itself was analogous to one upholding slavery (i.e. Dred Scott) or one that "alters the laws (sic) of Gravity".

Apparently, the Government was slow to issue second-class citizenship to either participant in this exchange since both continue to broadcast to the same audience of fervent knuckle-draggers religious zealots just as before.

As you might've guessed, Fischer fully supports Russian efforts to censor outward expressions of Teh Ev1l Gay, referring to such efforts as "this is public policy (sic) that we've been advocating".

Homosexuality and Nazism

Fischer is apparently a fan of Scott Lively’s contention that homosexuals were to blame for the rise of Nazi Germany, but as usual he is not willing to let someone else have the most extreme views on the issue. Thus, Fischer has declared that Hitler himself, as well as many members of the Nazi Party, were homosexual and that their homosexuality was responsible for the Nazi atrocities. In his own words

“”Homosexuality gave us Adolph (sic) 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.

Yeah, can't you just picture it? After a hard day at the Death Camps, the Nazis head back to the Fuhrerbunker, whip off those fabulous Hugo Boss uniforms and prance about in pink feather boas and leopard print leotards drinking Cosmopolitans and dancing to Lady Marmalade. Well, maybe in the case of Goering. Anyway Godwin's Law is realized very, very quickly whenever Fischer talks about teh gays. An especially good example of this is an interview where he took slightly under four minutes to start throwing around Teh Evil Nazi Gay canard in a typically cringe-worthy appearance on CNN (which also includes such gems as his comparison of homosexuality to "poisoned Halloween candy" and calling the Southern Poverty Law Center a bunch of bullies for having the audacity to call the AFA a hate group) in which Fisher's ranting eventually got shut down by anchorperson Carol Costello.

More recently (September 2013, this time around) he reiterated the same old garbage by comparing gay activists to Nazi Stormtroopers. Considering what Hitler actually did to the leadership of the SA during the actual Night of the Long Knives, he might be in need of a serious rethink of that analogy.

June 2015 Meltdown

On June 26th, 2015, SCOTUS struck down state bans on Marriage Equality with its 5-4 decision on Obergefell v. Hodges. In response to this news, Fischer took to twitter and had a meltdown of epic proportions. Comparing the decision to the Attack on Pearl Harbour that brought America into WW2 and the 9/11 Terror Attacks. And he also made a puzzling reference to a well-known song. The following are the tweets in question.

“”June 26, 2015: a date which will live in infamy.

“”From a moral standpoint, 6/26 is now our 9/11.

“”June 26, 2015: the day the twin towers of truth and righteousness were blown up by moral jihadists.

“”June 26, 2015: I saw Satan dancing with delight, the day the music died in the United States of America.

Science

According to himself, Fischer is “committed to science”, and it is because of his commitment to science that he rejects such phenomena as global warming and evolution.

Global Warming

Fischer was one of many prominent wingnuts with nothing remotely resembling background in or knowledge about the topic who were featured in a "documentary" by E. Calvin Beisner that allegedly showed that global warming is part of the Pagan cult of environmentalism that is attempting to institute a world government through the United Nations and Al Gore.

Fischer and Beisner agree that environmentalism is becoming the established religion in America (Beisner is — unsurprisingly — also a regular guest on Fischer’s show). Now, you may wonder what makes environmentalism a religion, per se. According to Beisner, environmentalism has its own doctrines, its own holy day (Earth Day), its own food taboos, sacrifice rituals (recycling), paradoxical beliefs, sacred structures (recycling bins), and proselytizing. Fischer added, just like with the early church, heretics (that is, global warming deniers like Fischer and Beisner) are punished, excommunicated, and shunned. What about scientific research, empirical evidence, hypothesis testing, and revisions of data based on all of these? Not important: Fischer and Beisner aren’t exactly known for their skills at distinguishing evidence from opinion, and would most likely not recognize empirical evidence if it hit them in the face with a dead fish. If you want proof of this, feel free to peruse their utterly bizarre views concerning an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Not only is it in line with Dominionist theology, apparently, but it can only help plants grow since they eat carbon dioxide (so much for the rest of photosynthesis). This in turn will help the poor — provided that they don't drown from living too close to an inundated coastline first.

Additionally, has stated on his talk show that fossil fuels are a gift from God, and that failure to use them is a direct insult to God. No word yet on his intentions to boycott the manufacturing of bicycles.

Evolution

According to Fischer, since "evolution is completely irrational and scientifically bankrupt", the "most logical thing in the world" is to believe that God created the universe. Now, given his track record, you would expect Fischer’s reasons to reject evolution would be among the dumbest out there. You would be right. In his article Defeating Darwin in Four Steps he presents four perceived challenges to evolution that are as dumb and as hackneyed as they get.

In argument one, Fischer cites the First Law of Thermodynamics as evidence against evolution, which is one of the most common and tired PRATTs out there.

“”This law (note: not a theory but a scientific law) teaches us that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed... By logical extension, then, matter and energy had to come into being by some force outside the universe.

—Bryan Fischer

What this has to do with evolution is anyone’s guess (though it is a fairly common argument among creationists).

For argument two, he makes a similar claim that the Second Law of Thermodynamics also disproves evolution.

His third argument is that there are no transitional fossils.

His fourth argument is to misunderstand genetics:

“”[N]aturally occurring genetic mutations are invariably harmful if not fatal to the organism.

—Bryan Fischer

On a separate occasion, Fischer joined with Terry Mortensen of Answers in Genesis in making a very silly argument to defend Senator Marco Rubio's very silly argument about the age of the Earth. Said defense was nothing more than the very, very tired canard "How do you know? Were you there?"

“It’s not okay for Christians to have diverse opinions about evolution.” Christians are required to agree (with Fisher) about Evolution.

Fischer is also under the impression that politicians who accept evolution are "disqualified from holding political office in the United States of America" because anyone who "does not believe that we are created beings and that our rights come to us from God, (that man) cannot be trusted to protect your civil rights" (which is ironic considering his own stated views on civil rights for other people).

HIV/AIDS

On January 4 2012 Fischer hosted famous AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg. In the interview Fischer asserted that he wholeheartedly endorses the theory that the purported causal relation between HIV and AIDS is a scheme concocted by scientists in order to get research grants, and that the symptoms attributed to AIDS are really caused by massive recreational drug use among gay men.

He has endorsed this HIV denial on Twitter posting: "New pill stops HIV virus. But won’t stop AIDS since caused by extensive inhalant drug use, not HIV."

On July 18, 2014 Fisher once again showed his vapid view on this subject when he disregarded the lives lost in the Malaysian airlines crash and instead chose to focus on the work of the AIDS researchers, who died in the crash. He said: "Obama politicizes the death of AIDS researchers on Malaysian plane. We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men to stop having sex with men."

Jesus "Force"

Here is this crackpot, who supposedly has a brain that is inferior to a knuckle-dragging ape, explaining how the nucleus of the atom (containing protons and neutrons) stays intact. He says the force holding the protons together from repelling from each other is none other than ; you guessed it right ; Lord Jesus Christ himself! The Jesus force is the nuclear 'glue' that holds atoms from ripping apart!

Miscellaneous nuttery

• In what must surely be a strong candidate for a world record in hateful lunacy, Fischer has complained that we have "feminized" the Congressional Medal of Honor because it’s been given to a man who risked his life to save his fellow soldiers. In November 2010 the medal was awarded to Army Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, for braving "heavy gunfire to pull a fellow soldier to cover and rescued another who was being dragged away by insurgents." One would have to be pretty deranged to find such actions “unmanly,” right? Well, enter Bryan Fischer:

“”So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night? […] We have feminized the Medal of Honor...

• In 2010 he caused some controversy when he blamed a grizzly bear attack at Yellowstone National Park on America for turning its back on God: "History reveals that God's covenant with an ancient nation suggests that one of the consequences for a nation which walks in his statutes is that it will have nothing to fear from wild animals;" however "[I]f you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments ... I will let loose the wild beasts against you." (Apparently he overlooked 2 Kings Chapter 2.) He went on to argue that we should kill every single wild animal in existence.

• On January 27 2012 Fischer discussed a new study estimating that 7% of Americans carry the human papillomavirus (HPV) in their mouths. Of course Bryan Fischer knew exactly who is responsible for this and the associated increase in mouth and throat cancer the last decades: Bill Clinton.

• On February 1 2012 in a column titled “Jesus explains the success of Fox News”—which is so wonderfully surreal that it takes even those of us who have some idea of him aback—Fischer claimed that Fox News president Roger Ailes’s “leadership style is exactly the style that Jesus taught.” Fischer credited Ailes’s Jesus-like behavior for Fox’s success and says “the key to success in a capitalistic system is to do things Jesus’s way.” It is unknown if Jesus sexually harassed women.

• Fischer has rushed to the defense of dominionist "historian" David Barton when Barton's book The Jefferson Lies was yanked by its publisher for glaring inaccuracies. Their joint solution of the problem of Barton's shrinking credibility was to attack critic Warren Throckmorton instead, but with friends like Fischer who needs enemies?

• Fischer's opinions on the Todd Akin thermonuclear gaffe concerning the subject of "legitimate rape" (and whether or not women's bodies could automatically shut down a pregnancy as a result) has been a parade of classic fucknuttery; first he asserted that Akin's complete lack of understanding of the female reproductive system was completely correct; Then, he embellished his foray into insanity on this subject by stating that Akin was a "victim of forcible assault" for even being criticized for what he said. More recently, he engaged in a "more conservative than thou" tirade against the likes of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for supposedly attacking Akin's (and therefore Fischer's) batshit take on the subject. Fischer postured as a "man of science" all over again despite the fact that his assertions are almost entirely based on his convenient misreading of a science article from the Daily Mail. It's as if Fischer is in some secret competition with Fred Phelps over who can make the most unhinged statement on any given subject.

• Fischer also apparently decided to court the dumbass redneck Neo-Confederate demographic (not that he hasn't done this sort of thing before) by babbling that a decision by a Mississippi school board to stop delivering public prayers over the PA system during football games and school functions (prompted by the board receiving a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation) was an indication that the FFRF was leading "a second Northern war of aggression against the South" since the FFRF is based in - Katie bar the door! - Wisconsin. Fischer also suggested that the governor should be willing to send in the National Guard to surround the press box in case anyone tried to prevent the school from broadcasting another prayer. There's still no word on how many Civil War and Civil Rights-era historians spontaneously combusted due to the reality-warping content of Fischer's remarks.

• Fischer proved that he is not merely an bigot but a highly versatile bigot when he ranted about how "we" need to clamp down on immigration because hispanics are socialist by nature and vote Democratic because it allows them to "benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States". The blatant racism of this statement wouldn't be lost on most sane people, of course, but they hardly constitute Fischer's target audience.

• Fischer again proved himself a complete fuckhead demagogue when he stated on Focal Point (on the same day, no less) that God didn't stop the shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut because "God is not going to go where he is not wanted", i.e. a public school that fails to proselytize Christianity to Fischer's liking.

• He thinks that adultery and viewing pornography should be illegal since he thinks that Biblical standards should be the basis of our government's laws. No word as to when he'll be calling for the death penalty for wearing of mixed fabrics (as in Leviticus 19:19).

• Premarital sex is also a no-no since "it gives legal ground to Satan. It gives him some turf, it gives him some space, it gives him some part of that relationship over which he has control ... If it is misused, it is one of the ways in which Satan is given very powerful legal ground in a relationship".

• He also blamed separation of church and state for the Sandy Hook massacre. "God is not going to go where he is not wanted." because Jesus never hung out with sinners (Mark 2).

• Fischer condemned both Mormonism and Islam because both add to the Bible. Fischer quotes Proverbs 30:5-6 for why he thinks the Koran and the Book of Mormon are wrong. Somehow Fischer overlooked that the New Testament also adds to the Old Testament contrary to Proverbs 30:5-6. There is no evidence Fischer plans to convert to Judaism.

• Fischer thinks a total solar eclipse is something to do with Satan, Prince of Darkness, wanting to blot out the light of God's truth. People who understand science think it is to do with the earth and the moon's orbits.

Sharia Law vs. Liberalism

Despite him being very critical of Islam, including the belief that the first amendment doesn't apply to Islam. He admitted, in a conversation with his caller, that in his mind "what muslims are setting up might be better than what liberals want".

The inescapable conclusion

He is, in short, a raving douchebag.

See also

• Dominionism
• Fundamentalism

External links

• His official biography was taken down when he was "fired" in 2015, so read the archived version here

• His radio show homepage, blog roll, and Twitter shit sheet.

• A 2011 documentation of crazy things Fischer has said; he has a knack for outdoing himself, however, and has said plenty of even crazier things after that article was written.

• Jane Meyer, "Bully Pulpit: a evangelist talk show host's campaign to control the Republican Party", The New Yorker

• Finally, Bryan Fischer's douchebaggery has finally been transcribed in meme form. Feel free to add!