The American Family Association is a conservative religious group led by a Methodist-ordained preacher named Don Wildmon. Wildmon founded the National Federation of Decency in 1977 to protest what he saw as the “normalization” of premarital sex by the entertainment industry. He was the leader against the promotion and distribution of Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, and he’s been at it ever since. In 1988, the NDF became the American Family Association. The AFA has used it’s considerable influence to bully sponsors of TV shows and films into withdrawing their support by threatening boycotts and exposing them to ridicule as being sponsors of pornography.

Using biblical standards and the ancient Mosaic Law, the AFA has turned its attention in recent years to the recent victories of the homosexual community in the field of human and civil rights. Wildmon concluded that these victories were the most dangerous threats to what he recognizes as the American family, and in particular the conservative American Christian family. So concerned was Wildmon and his followers that the AFA has become radicalized into a hate group. According to the AFA and its leader, all homosexuals are a direct and personal threat to every conservative Christian family in the United States. He teaches that there is no redeeming quality whatsoever in a homosexual. The AFA supports all attempts to keep the homosexual community relegated to second-class status. Though he has not said so in public, Wildmon has privately told his followers that homosexuals ought to be imprisoned as sex offenders. He makes no bones about the fact that he believes that they ought to be denied the right to work (in any field), and ought to be denied housing. In other words, he advocates the complete and absolute marginalization of all homosexuals much in the same way that the Nazis marginalized the Jews into ghettos and then to the concentration camps. In fact, there is very little difference in the way the AFA views homosexuals than there was in the way Nazis viewed Jews before German law was changed to allow them to undertake genocide. But for the Constitution and the laws of a tolerant government, there is little doubt that the AFA would carry out genocide of Holocaust proportions.

To this end, Wildmon and the AFA have solicited the support and approval of U.S. politicians, particularly conservative politicians that might use their influence on the floors of Congress and state legislatures. Unfortunately, few of these politicians have stopped long enough in their pursuit of votes to consider the ultimate consequences should the AFA achieve their ultimate goals. Unaware that the AFA has become radicalized (or not caring), they feel free to receive lobbyists for the AFA in their offices in Washington and the state capitols across the country. When one views official photographs of Don Wildmon with Congressional representatives, such as Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS), you are reminded of the conservative politicians who, in the early years of the 20th century, received lobbyists for the Ku Klux Klan and even the Nazi Party. In those years, membership in the Klan was not considered such a horrible thing, and during the 1930s neither was sympathy with the Nazis. In fact, in many parts of the country (and not just in the South), membership in the Klan was considered to be a status symbol. They were received warmly by Congressional delegations in Washington, and proudly posed for photographs with known henchmen and murderers.

Rep. Charles Pickering (R-MS) receives the Rev. and Mrs. Don Wildmon in his Washington offices

Of course, the most important weapon the AFA employs - besides enlisting conservative politicians to act as their political arm - is pure propaganda, and this they use very well. Propaganda as a verb is “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person”, and as a noun are “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause.”

On the AFA website there are a series of articles in which one of the organization's contributing columnists uses e-mails from pro-gay readers to formulate progaganda. As the author of southbear.com, I have received several e-mails from pro-AFA readers in which they have argued against me using many of the same ideas and "facts" that this columnist has used to answer her e-mails. Many of them are not so polite, and so a personal response has been avoided. It is realized that answers to propaganda is easily turned into further propaganda, however that is a risk worth taking. All reasonable-minded people must be prepared to continue the attack.

Propaganda Point #1:
homosexuality is a sin because it is conducted outside of marriage.

Answer: Then let us marry. As we have seen in Vermont, if given the chance, homosexual couples will take advantage of the opportunity to declare their love for one another and have it blessed by both the state and the Church. Gay and Lesbian couples are always accused of trying to undermine the strength of the family, and yet they have proven time and time again that their only wish is to affirm their relationships in the context of matrimony. I find it astounding that fundamental Christians will themselves deny us matrimony when we seek it, and then claim that we are out to destroy it.

Propaganda Point #2:
The biblical model of Marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Answer: modern relationships cannot be judged by biblical standards alone. There wasn’t even a word for homosexuality in biblical times (though we know it existed because there are rules against it). Besides, most modern heterosexual marriages also violate the biblical standard because modern women are considered equal in status to their husbands. The only marriage that truly conforms to the biblical standard for marriage is one in which the woman remains in the home (whether she wants to or not), and in which she is considered subserviant and inferior to her husband in all respects. This would include not insulting her husband by having the audacity to speak out in public (which would prevent Karen Battles’ columns on the AFA website). The point is that if we insist on applying biblical standards to one group of society, then we must apply them to all groups. If biblical standards are to be the supreme basis of defining marriage, and if they are to apply to all marriages, then today's women would have to quit their jobs and go home, or at the very least give their salaries to their husbands. If they are not already married, they would be required to allow their parents - or an older male relative - to find them a husband, and she would have no say in the matter. And if the biblical marriage standards are to be applied, then biblical standards would have to be applied to every other facet of life as well. As a result, we would have to disassemble our democratic government and institute a monarchy chosen by the clergy and answerable only to them. Most of the foods that we enjoy would have to be thrown out in the garbage, as the Mosaic laws governing food intake would not allow them to be eaten by God-fearing people. Would we really like to go back to biblical standards? Biblical standards are not to be dismissed, for they are very important as social and moral guides. However, blind reliance on these standards preclude the use of the God-given gifts of faith and reason when making ethical decisions in a modern society four-thousand years and two cultures removed from the ancient Hebrews.

If this argument does not convince you, Look at it this way: The Mosaic Law upon which these standards were built were written for the Jewish people. Of these, about 89% (Conservative, Reformed, and Secular Jews) use the Mosaic Law - which they call halakhah - only as moral and ethical guides. The rest - the 11% of Jews who are Orthodox - believe that halakhah are moral absolutes. The Orthodox Jews realize that if these laws are to be used as moral absolutes, then they must be applied "to the letter of the law" and apply them to every facet of their lives. Only Orthodox Jews come closest to following the law as it was originally intended. Yet, in the eyes of fundamental Christians, Orthodox Jews are condemned sinners because they reject Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Ironic, isn't it?

Propaganda Point #3:
Homosexuality does not allow a person to live according to the nature of God.

Answer: Forced heterosexuality does not allow a person to live according the nature of the person in question. The term "forced heterosexuality" used here refers to the process by which a man or a woman denies his/her own God-given nature in order to live within the biblical context of a heterosexual family. Forced heterosexuality - often lived in secrecy - has been the cause of countless numbers of miserable lives and faithless relationships Those men and women who have lived in forced heterosexuality have related their experiences in this sort of setting as unfulfilling, deceitful, fraudulent, and "living a lie." Living contrary to a person’s nature creates all sorts of other sins, not the least of which is deceit and betrayal. God perfectly made all people to be the individuals that they are (or is God fallible?) and has given them the opportunity to achieve happy, productive, and fulfilling lives according to their individual abilities. To live contrary to the nature that God perfectly gave us is the very nature of sin itself because by doing so we are following our own will rather than God’s.

Propaganda Point #4:
All sexual immorality is rooted in the sinful condition of the human heart.

Answer: Agreed! As St. Paul said, sexual immorality is "common to man." In other words, sexual immorality is committed by all people, heterosexual and homosexual. The sin of homosexuality is not homosexuality itself, but those actions that are commonly committed by them, which are the same that are commonly committed by heterosexuals as well. A devoted, monogamous, and faithful marriage between two men or two women is no more repulsive to God than a devoted, monogamous, and faithful marriage between a man and a woman. What is repugnant to God is promiscuity, unfaithfulness, and deceit. The sooner fundamental Christianity realizes this, the sooner the work of reconciliation can begin, so that hundreds of thousands of homosexuals - who have abandoned the Church and God because of fundamentalist intolerance - may be brought back to God and the Church.

Propaganda Point #5:
Biologically speaking, it still takes a contribution from both a man and a woman to create a child.

Answer: Many heterosexual couples are not able to create a child, for one reason or another. Some simply choose not to. Fundamental Christianity must realize that some people are given the gift of procreation, and some are not. This does not preclude the proven fact that homosexual couples can and do make good parents (or the proven fact that some heterosexual couples DO NOT make good parents!). Parenthood is a divine gift, given by God to some, but not to all. As my grandfather once said: "Any fool can procreate, it takes a wise person to be a parent." In addition, with all of the unwanted children that are in this world, doesn't it make sense that the number of available families into which they can be adopted be multiplied by allowing monogamous gay/lesbian families to care for them?

Propaganda Point #6:
To answer the comment that homosexuality is as innate as left-handedness or one’s racial identification, we say that left-handedness or racial identification does not cause you to sin.

Answer: There was a time not too long ago (recently enough that I have been a victim of it) that fundamental Christianity believed left-handed people to be the "devil’s spawn" and the "offspring of witches". These and other quaint euphemisms to describe the phenomenon were used to legitimize open discrimination and hostility toward left-handed people. Likewise, the biblical standards that fundamental Christians hold so dear kept an entire race enslaved to servitude for hundreds of years and subjugated to second-class status for another hundred years. Biblical standards enabled slaveholders to rationalize their sin by pointing to the Bible to show that God approved of slavery, especially of the sub-Saharan Africans. Biblical standards were used to legitimize bigotry against blacks, as it was believed that they were the cursed descendents of Noah’s son who questioned God. As such, these standards labeled blacks as sinful by nature, and therefore undeserving of human status or equal treatment. There is little difference between this rationalization and that used to legitimize the subjugation of homosexuals. It took a concerted effort and much patience, using the strength of reason to convince fundamental Christians that there was, in fact, nothing wrong with being left-handed or with being black (though some still believe this even today). Until the voice of reason broke through their thick skulls, fundamental Christians honestly believed left-handed people and blacks to be abnormal, much in the same way that they believe homosexuals to be abnormal. With faith and reason, they too will one day realize the narrow-mindedness of their views on this issue and abandon their stubbornness.

Propaganda Point #7:
You can't discount the increased rate of disease and other damage done to the body through the practice of male homosexuality.

Answer: What increased rate of disease? What damage to the body? The disease and damage that I assume you refer to is not from homosexuality but from promiscuity. Promiscuity is not a monopoly of the homosexual community. In fact, promiscuity is practiced just as much (and some argue more so) by heterosexuals than by homosexuals. Fundamental Christians prefer limited interpretations of things (unless of course it suits their needs to use a liberal interpretation). So, if you limit the interpretation of promiscuity to just "having more than one sexual partner", homosexual men are no more or less likely than heterosexual men to practice this behavior. (I know that this answer will not suffice, so I guess this would be an instance that a liberal interpretation would be preferred.)

Propaganda Point #8:
The human body is not designed for homosexual behavior.

Answer: It is no more designed for heterosexual behavior. Assuming that the AFA’s statement concerning this is based on the physics of anal sex, the same can be said for heterosexual behavior. It’s a proven fact that the day a woman becomes sexually active (and the more active she is the more susceptible she is), she increases her probabilities of developing cervical cancer. The more promiscuous a heterosexual man is, the more likely he is to develop genital warts. In other words, it sounds like the AFA’s real problem is not with homosexual behavior, but with promiscuity in general. Promiscuity, as has already been shown, is not the exclusive domain of homosexuals.

Propaganda Point #9:
There is no scientific evidence to support the "gay gene" theory.

Answer: There is no scientific evidence to support the biblical account of creation either, but every scientific evidence to support the theory of evolution. Why do fundamental Christians feel free to pick and choose which scientific evidence (or lack thereof) that they are willing to accept? If fundamental Christians want to be taken legitimately as a viable force in modern society, they should at least be consistent.

Propaganda Point #10:
We have to confront those who call themselves Christian but choose to live contrary to God’s word.

Answer: Absolutely! But who are you to decide what is contrary to God's word? We all know that there are fundamental Christians (including members of the AFA) who believe that all Roman Catholics, all Orthodox Christians, and all Anglicans are living contrary to the word of God. We all know that there are fundamental Christians who refuse to accept the possibility that non-Christians who are practicing their religion faithfully are living contrary to God's word. And we know that there are fundamental Christians who absolutely refuse to accept that homosexuals are capable of being Christians. If fundamental Christians hold this view, then they believe that the great majority of Christians are living in this state of sin, since Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism make up the three largest branches of Chritianity. As a homosexual Christian, I confess my sins - most of which have nothing at all to do with my sexuality - every day. And I rely on the wonderful Grace of God for His forgiveness. I don’t care one whit about a fundamental Christian’s forgiveness because I know that I will never live up to their self-righteous standards. Who really can? Unless I worship as they do, believe as they do, interpret the Bible as they do, vote as they do, and live my life according their archaic standards, there is absolutely nothing I can do, though every thing God has to say about the subject begs to differ. Fundamental Christianity has taken no recognizable interest in me as a human being, let alone as a Christian. So, I rely on the grace of God and the promises made to me through Jesus Christ for my acceptance and salvation. I’ll leave fundamental Christians to fend for themselves, if only they would do the same.

A personal question posed to me via e-mail by a self-professed - yet anonymous - AFA member:
If you are so proud of your lifestyle, why do use a made up name to identify yourself on your website?

Answer: Notwithstanding the fact that it is unwise for anyone to publicly identify oneself on the Internet because of people who are always looking for new identities to steal, there are also those in my town (not the least of whom is the founder of the AFA) who would use this information to harass me, threaten me, publically humiliate me, seek my dismissal from my public service job, and seek to have me evicted from my home on the pretext of keeping our neighborhoods safe for their children. In other words, I must protect myself from my Lord’s "followers". I choose to conceal my identity in much the same way that harassed children on the playground keep quiet, lest they attract attention from the bullies that make their lives miserable. The bullies harass, threaten, cajole, and mock their victims, and then blame them when they are caught doing it. The AFA employs the same tactics in order to keep homosexuals "in their place". The AFA is a bona fide hate group, using terrorist tactics to accomplish their goals, all the while evoking the name of God to give them legitimacy. Their leaders travel to Washington to have photographs taken with our Congressional representatives while sending their henchmen to threaten me with physical harm. To be quite blunt, I fear for my life should the AFA find out exactly who I am and where I live. As proof of the kind of emails that I have received, I have left one posting on my website’s guestbook. This idiot is the only one that had the stupidity to post the harassment where others can see it. I figured he’s pretty proud of it, so I might as well leave it there for others to see it as well. I thought about posting the private emails on this website, but I have been told that I would be open to lawsuits if I did. I have no doubts that the AFA would take this opportunity if I gave it to them.

I have had so many friends who have rejected the religion of Christ in which they were raised for no other reason than because they have been subjected to scorn, hatred, and vilification from men and women who claim to be preachers of Christ’s gospel. Though I remain faithful to the religion of Christ, I understand your reasons for rejecting the Church completely. If I may, however, I would like to offer this encouragement: though you may have lost faith in Christ's Church, do not loose faith in Christ himself. Though human, mortal men use Christ’s religion to demean you – much to the delight of the evil one – Christ himself does not. The day will come when these men and women will answer for this most unpardonable sin – for their sin is nothing less than defamation of the Holy Spirit. Though I do not wish for their damnation – as they pray for yours – I am an apologist for the true religion of Christ. In the branch of the Christian tradition in which I was raised – Anglicanism – there was a very wise English vicar who addressed this same situation in the 19th century. I would like to offer his words of encouragement to you, for they still apply – even more so perhaps than they did in his day. This wise parson was named Charles Kingsley, a proponent and co-founder of the Christian Socialism movement. Here are his words that I offer to you:

"Whenever the devil, or ignorant preachers, or superstitious books, make you afraid, and tempt you to fancy that God hates you, and watches to catch you tripping, take refuge in that blessed Name, and say, 'Satan, I defy thee; for the Almighty God of Heaven is my Father.'"

[Emphasis added]