Bryan Fischer is now — falsely — claiming that “homosexual activists want to re-criminalize gay sex.” Fischer says the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a “homosexual activist group” and wants to make gay sex illegal. Fischer is of course wrong on all these points, as he often is on so many issues, but here he is especially wrong, and his being wrong is literally playing with people’s lives.
In “Homosexual activists want to re-criminalize gay sex. Wow,” Bryan Fischer, the public face of the certified anti-gay hate group, American Family Association, writes:
Who‘d have thought that the first group to propose re-criminalizing gay sex would be a homosexual activist group?
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which advocates for marriage based on the infamous crime against nature, has collected enough signatures to place an initiative on the Los Angeles County ballot in November that will provide civil and even criminal penalties for any acts of unprotected gay sex that occur in filming pornographic movies. The penalties, by the way, would apply to heterosexual productions as well.
The president of the AHF, Michael Weinstein, says, “The lives of these performers are not disposable.†He is optimistic that the measure will pass, after releasing a poll that indicates that the measure has the support of 63% of likely voters.
Do not miss the significance of this. A homosexual activist group is leading the charge to re-criminalize gay sex.
Of course, Fischer is merely twisting facts, and he’s twisting them into falsehoods.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is an international organization — and the largest global AIDS organization — serving more than 130,000 people in at least 22 countries. They also state they are “the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the U.S.”
The President of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Michael Weinstein, told The New Civil Rights Movement by telephone today that Bryan Fischer’s characterization of his organization — in fact, much of what Fischer described in his op-ed, is “wrong on most counts.” Weinstein says that the AHF is “strongly opposed to the use of criminal sanctions as the basis for educating about safer sex,” and adds that most gay porn films already require the use of condoms by their performers. Rather, Weinstein tells tNCRM, “this issue has been primarily a heterosexual one.”
Weinstein was also very clear to tell The New Civil Rights Movement that the legislation would focus not on actors but on the producers.
In response to Fischer calling the AIDS Healthcare Foundation a “homosexual activist group,” Weinstein notes that while they support gay activists, theirs is not a “homosexual activist group.”
That’s an incorrect characterization. In fact, the vast majority of our clients are heterosexual.
But facts to Bryan Fischer are merely chess pieces to be used and sacrificed in performance of his daily radical religious rites. Fischer, who spends his Sunday mornings tweeting voraciously, apparently prays at the altar of hate, homophobia, and hysteria.
“Gay sex should be contrary to public policy, and it looks like the first steps in that direction are being taken by gay activists themselves,” Fischer wrongly writes. “Who could have seen that coming? Perhaps the best thing the pro-family community can do is just get out their way.”
He continues:
We have been saying for years that homosexual behavior ought to be contrary to public policy because it is a menace to public health. We ought to care too much for our citizens to promote behavior that we know is linked to a disease which can destroy human health and shorten life spans. It is callous and indifferent to endorse behavior that we know can be lethal to people we are supposed to love and care for.
It’s almost surreal to have gay activists echoing our message, and going beyond our message to propose financial and criminal penalties for this health-destroying conduct.
This brings us to the final point. Gay activists want to punish producers who allow film workers to engage in behavior which threatens their health and the health of their sexual partners. So they want to protect the health of people who get paid to have sex.
But what about people who engage in this kind of dangerous and risky behavior without getting a paycheck for it? Should we just seek to enact public policies that protect professional sex workers, or should we seek to protect the health of all of our citizens? An HIV/AIDS victim is a victim whether the partner who infected him got paid to do it or did it for free.
Of course, Fischer totally ignores the fact that this ordinance isn’t about gay sex, but sex. period. All sex. Gay sex, straight sex, and any combination thereof, when it comes to pornography. Period.
Ged Kenslea, the Marketing & Communications Director at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, also spoke with The New Civil Rights Movement and offered us this statement via email:
AIDS Healthcare Foundation is NOT seeking to re-criminalize gay sex, and we are certainly not anti-porn–gay or straight. Performing in adult films is a legally permitted activity in the State of California, sanctioned by a 1988 California State Supreme Court decision. As such, our ballot measure, which Mr. Fisher references and mischaracterizes, would merely require adult filmproducers to obtain a public health permit as a condition of doing business in Los Angeles County—just as nail salons, barber shops and tattoo parlors must, and then to follow California and federal health and safety laws regarding employees. The ballot measure is simply to allow Los Angeles County voters to weigh in on a means to ensure that adult producers, and the adult film performers working for them, follow existing California state and federal health statutes, which already require the use of condoms in the production of any and all adult films.
So, let’s get this straight, Bryan. The use of condoms in pornography — gay or straight — is a good thing. No one, except you and your radical minions, wants to criminalize gay sex. Period.
Apparently, Bryan Fischer has a problem getting his facts straight.