The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is unjustifiably convinced of his own cleverness and enamored with trying to defend acts of bigotry by arguing that those who oppose such bigotry are the real bigots.
He has used this laughable tactic time and again, so it was no surprise to see him post a new column today arguing that singer Bryan Adams is racist for having canceled a concert in Mississippi in protest of the state's recently enacted anti-LGBT law.
As Fischer sees it, the new law prevents black Christians in the state from being bossed around by the "white man in government," which means that the law outlaws racial discrimination and therefore Mississippi is now "the leading civil rights state in the Union."
Anyone who opposes this law, Fischer states, is therefore racist and wants to "drag Mississippi blacks back to the civil rights Stone Age of the 1960s in which their religious principles and rights of conscience had no legal protection, an era in which black pastors could be thrown in jail for standing for principles of liberty and equality":
Bryan Adams canceled a Mississippi concert in protest of a new civil rights bill that protects the conscience rights of blacks in a state that once was world-renowned for racial prejudice.
So on the grounds of personal principle, Bruce Springsteen is now officially a general in the war on women, and Bryan Adams is now the leading bigot in the South.
The Mississippi law that has Adams all wigged out protects the conscience and liberty rights of blacks (and whites) who serve as pastors, county clerks, heads of non-profits and adoption agencies, and who operate businesses as wedding vendors. Their right to freely exercise their religious convictions is what HB 1523 is all about.
Because this law protects the rights of blacks as well as whites, there are some striking implications for blacks in Mississippi, which is still regarded by many as a haven of racist bigotry.
Black pastors won’t be forced to perform same sex wedding ceremonies against their conscience just because a white man in government says they have to. Black churches won’t be forced to rent their houses of worship for same sex wedding ceremonies. Black county clerks won’t be forced to issue same sex wedding licenses that violate their conscience just because a white boss says she has to.
Blacks that run adoption agencies will be free to place adoptive children in a home with a mother and a father without fear of government discrimination at the hands of some white bureaucrat. Black fire chiefs like Kelvin Cochran won’t have to worry about getting fired in Mississippi for believing that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.
In other words, HB 1523 is a brilliantly conceived anti-discrimination bill. It does not foster discrimination, it prevents it. It is a world-class civil-rights bill of which Martin Luther King, Jr. would be justifiably proud. Anybody and everybody who is against invidious discrimination ought to love this law.
Mississippi can proudly take its place now as the leading civil rights state in the Union, providing more legal protections for people of faith and conscience than any other place in America.
But Adams is having none of it. He is evidently happy to drag Mississippi blacks back to the civil rights Stone Age of the 1960s in which their religious principles and rights of conscience had no legal protection, an era in which black pastors could be thrown in jail for standing for principles of liberty and equality.
Adams’ apparently believes that black pastors, clerks, non-profit leaders, and wedding vendors in Mississippi have no rights the white man is bound to respect.
