TPMMuckraker

Social Conservative Bryan Fischer: Get Rid Of The ‘Curse’ That Is The Grizzly Bear

Social Conservative Bryan Fischer: Get Rid Of The ‘Curse’ That Is The Grizzly Bear

Bryan Fischer really hates it when animals attack. Like, hates it so much that he thinks we’d be better off without them.

Which is why Fischer, who is the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, wrote a blog post today called “A hot dog on two legs - time for open season on Yellowstone grizzlies,” in which he refers to Grizzly Bears as a “curse” and says that “it’s time” for the grizzlies to go.

Does Stephen Colbert know about this guy?

Fischer posted the piece on his “Rightly Concerned” blog, which is “a project of the American Family Association.”

He references a November 6 article in the Los Angeles Times about the high death toll of bears in the Yellowstone region this year, which the article says is the worst on record. Fischer’s point is that the piece “exudes far more compassion for live bears than dead people,” since the two people who died from grizzly attacks only warrant a fifth-paragraph mention.

“One human being is worth more than an infinite number of grizzly bears,” Fischer writes. “Another way to put it is that there is no number of live grizzlies worth one dead human being. If it’s a choice between grizzlies and humans, the grizzlies have to go. And it’s time.”

He continues: “Of course there is a simple answer: shoot these man-eaters on sight.”

“God makes it clear in Scripture that deaths of people and livestock at the hands of savage beasts is a sign that the land is under a curse. The tragic thing here is that we are bringing this curse upon ourselves,” Fischer writes.

Fischer is a favorite of social conservative Republicans, and even spoke at the Values Voter summit this fall alongside Mitt Romney, Jim DeMint, and other big-name Republicans. Many also know him for having suggested that there should be “no more mosques, period” in the U.S. because “every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad.”

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Morals, Morals, Morals! Conservatives Gather For Values Voter Summit]

But Fischer also has a history of outrage over animal attacks. He was furious that the killer whale Tilikum killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in February, because it’s just part of the “ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture.”

“If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone’s misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives,” he wrote at the time.

h/t Right Wing Watch.

American Family Association, Bears, Bryan Fischer
Jillian Rayfield

Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.

Editor & Publisher

Josh Marshall

Managing Editor

David Kurtz

Senior Associate Editor

Paul Werdel

Associate Editor

Sara Libby

Assistant Editor

Igor Bobic

Reporters

Brian Beutler

Carl Franzen

Sahil Kapur

Eric Kleefeld

Eric Lach

Nick Martin

Evan McMorris-Santoro

Ryan J. Reilly

Benjy Sarlin

Front Page Editor

David Taintor

Poll Editor

Kyle Leighton

News Writer

Pema Levy

Video Editor

Michael Lester

Polling Fellow

Tom Kludt

Video Fellow

Clayton Ashley

Research Interns

Michael Brooks

Publishing Intern

Christopher O’Driscoll

Miles Read

General Manager & General Counsel

Millet Israeli

VP, Ad Sales

Mary Cadwallader

Bob Edmunds

Bruce Ellerstein

Waldo Tibbetts

Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support

Versha Sharma

Deputy Publisher

Callie Schweitzer

Director of Technology

Eric Buth

Designer/Developer

Ni Mu

Matthew Wozniak

Tech Fellow

Dennis Cahillane