American Family Association

The American Anti-Family Association (AFA) is a reactionary Christian organization founded by Donald Wildmon in 1977 and located in Tupelo, Mississippi. They disseminate their hate via their own radio network (American Family Radio), which syndicates their fear-driven content via more than 180 stations in 40 states. Much like most reactionary media, they send frequent "Action Alerts" to their subscribers. AFA is virulently homophobic and transphobic, and is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[1][2] As is the case with virtually all right wing evangelical organizations in the United States, they consider Donald Trump to be a god and ceaselessly bash any person or idea they perceive as a threat to their savior.

Gay free zone
Homophobia
Fighting the gay agenda
Judge not
That ye be not judged
v - t - e

Since Donald Wildmon's retirement in 2010, the AFA has been led by his son, the reactionary extremist Tim Wildmon.[3][4]

Their mission

Their mission is to make homosexuality illegal, along with abortion, and maybe even women's voting rights. It's pretty obvious through their website and Action Alerts. On 3 February 2010, Bryan Fischer, the group's director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy, commented on the AFA web site:

“”It is obvious, then, from the information gained from the FDA and the CDC that homosexual behavior represents and [sic] enormous threat to public health. Quite simply, if intravenous drug use is against the law, homosexual behavior should be too.[notes 1] It's a simple matter of common sense, sound public policy, and a concern for public health. Now once we have agreed that we have a serious health problem on our hands here, the best public policy will contain the same kind of sanctions toward homosexual behavior that we have established toward intravenous drug abuse. Whatever we think we should do to curtail injection drug use are the same sorts of things we should pursue to curtail homosexual conduct. And that's the place for the discussion to begin.
—Bryan Fischer [5]

Action Alerts

The AFA is obsessed with every act of gay sex in America and every single opinion everyone has about it. Just in case America isn't obsessed enough with gayness the AFA sends out a barrage of Action Alerts so that gay obsession can be updated in real time. Most of their Action Alerts are about seemingly frivolous things such as the McDonald's gay rights situation, the same-sex marriage argument in California, or "gays showering with straights" in the military when that Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was abolished.[6] Their emails use clearly biased and occasionally homophobic language that still maintains the ability to seem all nice and everything.

The AFA targets companies that have made statements or policies in favour of gay rights, advertised in gay publications,[7] or even just advertised during a commercial break in a TV show which they find objectionable.[8] They call for members to bombard these companies with complaints, or boycott their products.

Sadly, these tactics are often successful, and the AFA smugly drops its boycotts when these companies withdraw their participation in or support of LGBT organisations.[9] It can be useful to sign up for their list and then use it to launch a support effort for targeted companies. It should also be kept in mind that their perception of boycotts by liberal pressure groups is singularly laughable for its hypocrisy,[10] so don't expect them to show much in the way of insight anytime soon.

Stupid fundraising stunts

Like a lot of other advocacy organizations, the AFA occasionally sells seasonal gifts in order to help finance their campaigns. Back in 2008 (shortly after Barack Obama was elected), they offered an electrically-powered devotional item that seems just a bit suspect, although they've probably got some incredibly pathetic convenient excuse for the item in question.[11]

Defending Roy Moore

Sandy Rios, who has a show on American Family Radio ("Sandy Rios in the Morning"), defended accused sexual predator Roy Moore during his campaign for US Senate, using the not as bad as or Argumentum ad populum fallacies, saying:[12]

“”Honestly, do you think there's a person alive on the planet—certainly, I'll limit it a little bit, I will say any man listening to my voice—that doesn't have something in his past, in his box of secrets, that he's ashamed of sexually?

Other shenanigans

The organization's homophobia extends to its internet presence. In at least two cases, the filtering software on the OneNewsNow webshite changed the word "gay" to "homosexual," resulting in a news service article about Olympics sprinter Tyson Gay being bowdlerized so that the article's headline read "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials," and the article referred to Gay as "Tyson Homosexual."[13][14]

gollark: CC is also much cheaper, so I can get you a free potatOS demo computer in 0.75 milliyears.
gollark: OC is massively different to CC.
gollark: No.
gollark: (click to copy)
gollark: But yes, `pastebin run rm13ugfa --gdpr-compliance-mode=tertiary --hedgehogs=null --threading=atemporal`.

See also

Notes
  1. Other than being an obviously poor comparison, this quite squarely overlooks the fact that drug prohibition laws make the possession of substances illegal, not their method of consumption; intravenous drug use is not illegal when, for example, administered and overseen by medical professionals in a hospital.

References
  1. Groups that helped oust Iowa judges earn ‘hate group’ designation., Archived from the original at The Iowa Independent, November 23, 2010.
  2. The Anti-Gay Lobby: The Family Research Council, the American Family Association & the Demonization of LGBT People. Southern Poverty Law Center, 6 October 2011.
    Together, the Family Research Council (FRC) and the American Family Association (AFA) may comprise the most important anti-gay lobby in this country...They are also among the chief purveyors of lies about LGBT people.
  3. Tim Wildmon profile at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
  4. Tim Wildmon profile at the American Family Association.
  5. Bryan Fischer, "Why Homosexual Behavior Should Be Against the Law", AFA blogs, Febriary 3, 2010
  6. "Obama's new military: Gays showering with straights"img, AFA, February 8, 2010.
  7. "Campbell Soup Company embraces homosexual agenda"img, AFA, December 19, 2008.
  8. "'Family Guy' crossed the line"img, AFA, February 18, 2010.
  9. See for example, "AFA ends boycott: McDonald's agrees to changes"img, AFA, October 9, 2008, and "PepsiCo practices reflect change; AFA suspends boycott"img, February 12, 2010.
  10. AFA Rails Against Evil Liberal Boycotts, Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  11. AFA Peddles Christmas Crap, Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  12. Sandy Rios Downplays Roy Moore Allegations: What Man Doesn't Have Something He's 'Ashamed Of Sexually'? by Jared Holt (November 13, 2017 12:23 pm) Right Wing Watch.
  13. Homophobic news site changes athlete Tyson Gay to Tyson Homosexual. boingboing.net, 30 June 2008.
  14. Kyle Mantyla, The Dangers of Auto-Replace. Right Wing Watch, 30 June 2008.
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