American Family Assoc. Is Deliberately Creating Fear Of Military Why?

In early October the U.S. Army found itself in the cross hairs of American Family Association President, Tim Wildmon, after active duty and reserve soldiers were informed during a slide show briefing that it was against policy to associate with any known hate groups.

In an email to The Clarion-Ledger, Army spokesman Troy Rolan stated,

The slide was not produced by the Army and it does not reflect our policy or doctrine?

This clarification by the U.S. Army doesn’t seem to appease Wildmon?contrary to statements he made.

During an interview the AFA president wondered, ?what business is it of an Army soldier that he is ever going to have to be concerned about the American Family Association.?

Earlier this week Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, answered that question by accusing the Obama administration of preparing military members to use ?lethal force? against evangelicals and Tea Party activists. Fischer claimed:

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,

Fischer continued by saying,??If you think about this it would not be illogical for next year at the Values Voters Summit in Washington D.C. to have military troops surrounding the Omni Hotel afraid with cannons and water guns and who knows what else??

This seems to be a constant thread within the AFA as Wildmon wondered, ?if there would ever come a day when tanks are gonna start rolling down the street? in front of our [AFA?s] office??

Fischer especially seems poised to attack gay military members.

In May 2010 Fischer claimed that Hitler chose homosexual soldiers as his elite officers because they were far more brutal and savage than heterosexual soldiers. Fischer wrote that “homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine, and 6 million dead Jews.”

In 2012 Buster Wilson, the general manager of AFA and host of the program ?AFA Today,? suggested the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell lead to increased suicides, alcoholism, sexual assaults, and violence in the military.

Rolan stated that the slide in question, ?was produced by a soldier conducting a briefing which included info acquired from an Internet search.?

The soldier’s information would seem to be supported by the AntiDefamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s labeling of AFA as a hate group. Rolan stated that, ?The briefing has been updated and any reference to American Family Association has been removed.?

Yet, given the hateful rhetoric of AFA and a history of attacking military members is it any wonder the solider in question counted them a hate group?

Edited by SS

R.E. has been a contributor for the UNCW SeaHawk-- a campus newspaper. An Alumni of the University of North Carolina, he currently lives in Jacksonville, FL with his wife and daughter.