American Family Association Still a Hate Group

Author: The Human Rights Campaign
Published: 4th Feb 2015 - Updated: 23rd Jan 2016
Peer-Reviewed Publication: N/A
Additional References: LGBTQ News America Publications

Summary: The trip is taking place despite the protests of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and many conservative Christian activists.

Main Document

As leading Republicans head to the Middle East on an AFA-sponsored junket, the organization tries to put lipstick on a pig.

As reported in Politico today, a number of leading Republican National Committee members have elected to take part in a junket to Israel sponsored, in part, by the American Family Association.

The trip is taking place despite the protests of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and many conservative Christian activists who are nonetheless offended at the shocking positions of the organizations, like AFA, that are sponsoring the trip.

Despite recent attempts by the AFA to shed its hateful reputation, including demoting Bryan Fischer, one of its most radical demagogues, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, notes that its designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center remains as true as ever.

"No matter how much flashy PR tricks the AFA tries to pull, there's no putting lipstick on this pig. The AFA has more than earned their label as a hate group, and as long as they continue to promote intolerant laws and social stigma against LGBT Americans, politicians on both sides of the aisle should know that associating with the AFA will have consequences," said HRC Vice President for Communications Fred Sainz.

AFA bills itself as being "on the frontlines of America's culture war" and "one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country." Take a look at 10 "pro-family" statements and stances out of AFA:

• AFA's Bryan Fischer blames the Holocaust on LGBT people, stating, "Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."
• AFA's Fischer has called for an "Underground Railroad" to take children from gay and lesbian parents.
• Fischer has compared making criminalizing LGBT people with bans on murder, stealing, child molestation, delicious trans fats and prostitution.
• AFA says God is going to use ISIS to punish America for being tolerant of LGBT people.
• AFA supported the passage of Uganda's deplorable anti-gay law, which calls for LGBT Ugandans or anyone "promoting" homosexuality to be jailed - potentially for life.
• AFA thinks the Boy Scouts of America would be better off drowning in the sea than allowing LGBT Scouts.
• AFA compares LGBT people to pedophiles and people who have sex with animals: "We should discriminate against unnatural and aberrant sexual behavior, whether pedophilia, bestiality, or homosexuality."
• AFA thinks fewer students will commit suicide if adults tell young people it is wrong to be LGBT and help them to "choose" to be straight - a practice that has been condemned by every major medical and mental health organization in the country.
• AFA thinks the NFL celebrating Michael Sam coming out as gay is the same as the NFL celebrating "a brain concussion."
• AFA supports criminalizing LGBT people and, when talking about punishment, asks, "Do you put them to death, do you lock 'em up...what do you do?"