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?"