Bryan Fischer, the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, wrote on his blog this week that gays — not Julian Assange — are responsible for the thousands of government documents released by Assange’s WikiLeaks.
More specifically, Fischer assumes that the alleged WikiLeaks source Private Bradley Manning was “at minimum” seriously confused about his sexuality. He then really stretches things when he suggests that Manning leaked the documents to wage war on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
In Fischer’s own words:
Regardless, he is a one-man argument for keeping open homosexuals from serving in the military in the first place. If the 1993 law - which flatly prohibits homosexuals from a place in the armed services - had been followed, there would be no PFC Bradley Manning and no WikiLeaks.
Apparently Fischer isn’t the only one who feels this way. Ann Coulter also wrote last week that Manning’s supposed homosexuality is to blame for his alleged decision to leak the documents, calling him a “poster boy” for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Fischer has a history of making homophobic remarks on his blog. Just last week, he wrote that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t fund AIDS research.
“Homosexual activist groups likewise are pushing a lifestyle that kills,” Fischer wrote, on World AIDS Day, no less. “If anybody should be obligated to pony up funds to mitigate a health crisis, it ought to be the organizations that are responsible for advocating the very behavior that created and perpetuates the epidemic.”
And back in November, Fischer wrote that awarding the Congressional Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. Salvatore Giunta “feminizes” the medal, because the soldier hadn’t killed enough people.
The AFA is a major social conservative group, and at the Values Voter Summit this fall, Fischer appeared on the same stage as big-time Republicans like Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty.
[TPM SLIDESHOW: Morals, Morals, Morals! Conservatives Gather For Values Voter Summit]
h/t Wonkette
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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