American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer on Monday mocked a call from UN officials for a dramatic increase in spending to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, which health officials warned is at risk of spiraling out of control.
A Daily Mail story on Monday cited global health experts’ concerns about “the alarming rate of new HIV infections and soaring numbers of young people in hard-hit countries” and warned that without additional funding for prevention and treatment the world could be facing “a crisis of epic proportions.” Fischer read from and mocked a news story about the call for funding.
“You know what this is about?” he said. “It just hit me. What this is about is the collapse of global warming hysteria.”
Huh?
“They” realized that “the global warming scare isn’t working anymore,” Fischer said, citing a Gallup poll in which manmade global warming did not show up among the top things Americans fear. Fischer said that’s thanks in part to conservative talk radio giving people information like Fischer’s claim that global temperatures are actually dropping.
So, he said, U.N. officials who have been “shaking down” big companies for climate change funding are now trying to “pump air into the HIV/AIDS tire.” Said Fischer, “The global warming scare didn’t work so now we’re back to the HIV/AIDS scare.”
In the past, he said, generating concern about AIDS “worked like a charm.” Speaking in the voice of these shadowy shakedown artists, he said, “’We had people believing every lie under the sun about homosexuality, about homosexual behavior, about HIV/AIDS, they believed every one of them. We raised a ton of dough. Let’s go back to the well one more time.’”
Added Fischer, “That’s where this thing is coming from.”
Pay no mind to the global health experts, says Fischer. He has his own solution. “Here is all you need to know about this epidemic and what is needed to stop it. What is not needed to stop this epidemic is billions and billions of extra dollars—that’s not needed,” Fischer said:
Now, it’s very, very simple, ladies and gentlemen. You wanna fix the AIDS epidemic, you wanna bring it under control, you want it to go away, there’s only two things that you need to do. Tell people—tell gay men to stop having sex with other gay men. That’s job number one. Tell gay men, ‘Don’t have sex with other gay men.’ You need to get converted to Christ, you need to pursue reparative, conversion therapy, you need to come out of that dark world, because it’s gonna kill ya before you’re done. But what you’ve gotta do is stop having sex with gay men.
Part two of Fischer’s AIDS eradication plan: “We need to tell people, ‘Don’t shoot up.’”
Fischer has a long and sordid record of bigoted commentary on LGBTQ people, HIV/AIDS and religious minorities. He as declared that homosexuality should be illegal and that gays should be treated like criminals and banned from serving in public office. In 2014, he said people with HIV should be quarantined. In 2012, he said that “the reason that HIV was invented as the cause of AIDS is it was a way to get research money” and blamed AIDS on promiscuity and drug use. A few years ago, Fischer agreed with a caller that gay men with AIDS should sue gay rights groups for not warning them about the health risks associated with homosexuality.
