The religious right is trying to moderate its message, at least when the cameras are in front of them. But to get a real picture of what fundies think, you have to listen to what they’re telling the true believers. A textbook example of this came on Monday’s edition of American Family Radio’s “Focal Point.” Host Bryan Fischer, who doubles as the chief policy analyst for the American Family Association, told his listeners that gays should be banned from holding any public office in this country because they’re no different from rapists and pedophiles.
Fischer was speaking about Rosemary Lehmberg, the district attorney for Travis County, Texas (Austin). In case you missed it, Governor Rick Perry’s attempt to strong-arm Lehmberg from office after she was arrested for DUI have him facing criminal charges for abuse of power. But if it were up to Fischer, Lehmberg wouldn’t have even been in office in the first place because she is openly lesbian. To Fischer’s mind, anyone who engages in “sexually deviant behavior” is automatically disqualified from holding office. After pointing out that rapists and pedophiles are banned from holding office of any sort, Fischer said that being gay also qualifies as deviant behavior because it runs counter to “God’s plan and design for human sexuality.” To his mind, since Lehmberg is lesbian, she “should be, ought to be, disqualified from public service.”
Fischer was speaking in code–one that his listeners will easily recognize. In the religious right’s world, gays and lesbians are no different from rapists and pedophiles. This is actually an old, old canard in fundie circles. Those of you old enough to remember will know that back in the 1980s, many fundie leaders proclaimed, “Gays don’t reproduce–they recruit!” This was resurrected in part after the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke at Penn State. In July 2012, the president of the AFA’s Pennsylvania chapter, Dianne Gramley, said that Sandusky’s crimes were proof positive of what happens when society is more accepting of gays. Gramley pointed out that Penn State president Graham Spanier had brought numerous gay-themed programming and events to Happy Valley. For that reason, Gramley said, there was a “homosexual aspect” to this case that went ignored. Gramley’s team is doing a good job of trying to prove there’s a “homosexual aspect” to this story; every Sandusky-related post on AFA Pennsylvania’s Website is tagged under the category “Homosexual Agenda.”
What the religious right doesn’t want you to know is that the gay rights movement kicked the pro-pedophilia crowd out of the movement years ago. But then again, as anyone who has studied the religious right for any period of time will tell you, such details as facts never got in the way of a campaign of hate.
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Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
