Christian activist says opposing LGBT equality is ‘the only religious liberty issue that matters’
A spokesperson for America’s most prominent Christian pressure group has claimed that defending people with anti-LGBT views is “the only religious liberty issue that matters today”.
Bryan Fischer, the host of American Family Radio show Focal Point, made the shocking assertion in a blog for the American Family Association – a fundamentalist group which claims to “protect Christian values”.
In his blog for the AFA, Fischer lambasted the removal of Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army, Mark Green over his extreme anti-LGBT views.
After his nomination was made, it became clear Green had made a string of disturbing statements, branding transgender people a “disease” and calling for evil to be “crushed” in a rant about LGBT rights.
Green withdrew his nomination, saying his views had become a “distraction”.
In his blog for the AFA, Mr Fischer wrote: “The homosexual activists ran Green out of town because he believes that honest mental health professionals will tell you that transgenderism ‘is a disease’.”
Citing ‘evidence’ from long-debunked studies, Fischer added: “He should be praised for both views rather than exiled from public service. What good is it to have religious freedom if the moment you exercise it, you are punished and driven into exile?
“If Donald Trump could not find a way to stand up for Mark Green, he is no true defender of religious liberty.
“If he will not defend his own pick for military leadership against [the] Gay Gestapo, of what use will he be in the pitched battle over First Amendment civil rights for people of Christian faith?”
He continued: “The bottom line: President Trump flinched. He will not be, his religious liberty order notwithstanding, America’s defender of the faith. He has chosen sides on the only religious liberty issue that matters today, and he has chosen poorly.
The assertion that standing up for homophobia is the only genuine religious liberty issue in 2017 will be news to the many people who are persecuted for their religion around the world.
Christians, moderate Muslims and minor religious groups continue to be targeted in the Middle East by the so-called Islamic State, while Christians also face violent persecution in countries including Somalia.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Rohingya people face extreme ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar.
We’re sure they’ll all be very happy to hear the proclamation from America’s largest ‘religious liberty’ organisation that it’s really picking fights with queer people that matters.
Fischer insisted earlier this year that homosexuals are ‘literally’ Nazi stormtroopers.
The right-wing American Family Association, which runs American Family Radio, pretended to sack spokesperson Bryan Fischer in 2015 for comparing gays to Nazis after senior Republican lawmakers faced questions over financial ties to the AFA.
While he was stripped of a symbolic title, Mr Fischer was never actually dismissed from his American Family Radio show. He is still employed by the AFA, and still making the exact same offensive comparison.
Speaking on his show in February, he claimed: “Homosexual supremacy is the doctrine that homosexual rights trump every other right in the world.
“They trump every right that heterosexuals have, they trump every right that citizens have not to be pushed around by the activists and the LGBT agenda.
“You know, Meryl Streep is out there saying she is going to stand up to the Brownshirts in our culture, referring to Donald Trump
“The real Brownshirts are in the homosexual movement. In fact, the Brownshirts under Hitler literally were homosexuals. You couldn’t become an officer without being a homosexual.
“The gay Gestapo have the same kind of tactics, the same kind of worldview, the same kind of mentality [as Nazis].”
