Last month, the American Family Association announced that it had removed Bryan Fischer as its chief issues analyst. However, it still allowed him to keep his other job as host of American Family Radio’s afternoon show, “Focal Point.” As Fischer put it, he just happened to realize that we evil libruls were mistaking his views for those of his bosses at the AFA–five years after he came to Tupelo. Regardless of whether Fischer was speaking for himself or the AFA, he may have outdone himself on Friday’s edition of “Focal Point.” He claimed that the growing number of Americans who speak a language other than English is evidence that God is about to bring judgment on this nation.
Fischer wasn’t pleased to learn that more than half of the millennials in Los Angeles are bilingual. Apparently forgetting that most of them speak English in addition to another language, Fischer told his listeners that one sign of God’s judgment is that people “lose their ability to talk to each other.” As he saw it, growing “linguistic isolation” was a sign that God is slowly removing his hand from this country. People for the American Way got a clip.
Fischer ticked off the numerous building projects in this nation’s history–and claimed that such projects may no longer be possible if we can’t speak the same language. To his mind, this is very similar to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, when God brought a megaproject to a screeching halt when he “confused the people with different languages.” The difference today, he said, is that we’re doing this to ourselves.
So let me see if I’ve got this right. Just because parents who came to this country as kids and learned to speak English want to keep at least some of their culture and pass it to their kids, they’re bringing about “linguistic isolation”? I wonder if Fischer would be willing to say that to a couple of my Latina friends at church. One of them was born in Colombia, and has been in this country for 35 years.? She still liberally uses some Spanish phrases because she wants her daughter to be bilingual. Another is from Chile, and is a flight attendant at American Airlines. She was hired specifically because American was looking for Spanish-speaking flight attendants.
Or maybe Fischer needs to have a chat with another friend of mine, who’s from Sweden. She taught her daughter to speak Swedish almost from the time she was an infant. That little girl is only six years old, and is already bilingual. And yet, by Fischer’s logic, by teaching her Swedish, her mother was helping contribute to the downfall of this country. Then again, you have to consider Fischer’s audience. Most of them probably thought that Sarah Palin understood foreign policy because she could see Russia from her window in Wasilla.
So does the AFA think that bilngualism is a sign of God’s judgment, or is this just Fischer’s view? Regardless of the answer, it’s horribly ignorant, and should be called out as horribly ignorant.
