CNN's Carol Costello Challenges Bryan Fischer's Anti-Gay Rhetoric

CNN anchor Carol Costello on Tuesday abruptly ended an interview with Bryan Fischer over his anti-gay rhetoric.

Fischer, a spokesman for the Christian conservative American Family Association (AFA), appeared on the network to discuss the AFA's boycott against the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) 11^th annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day. The October 30^th event encourages schoolchildren to eat lunch with someone they normally might not in an attempt to break up social cliques.

In an e-mail to members, the AFA called the project “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.”

An SPLC representative told The New York Times that about 200 out of 2,500 participating schools have decided to opt out of the event since the AFA attacked the program.

“You know it's interesting to me that they are doing this on October 30, the day before Halloween,” Fischer said in the CNN segment. “And what this program is, it's like poison Halloween candy. Somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide. The label looks fine, it looks innocuous, it looks fine. It's not until you internalized it that you realize how toxic it is. And we want parents to be aware that any program that comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to be toxic to their student's moral health.”

Costello questioned whether the AFA's actions were retribution against the SPLC for labeling it a “hate group” in 2010, a charge Fischer denied.

After citing a quote from Fischer in which he claimed that Hitler recruited gay men as Nazi Stormtroopers to carry out “savage” acts because straight soldiers were not vicious enough, she said, “That spells agenda to me.”

Fischer asserted that the SPLC was the “hate group” because they are out to destroy the AFA and the Family Research Council (FRC).

“They're the ones that want to silence any [group] that would criticize the normalization of homosexual behavior. And we know from the CDC and from the FDA, not part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, that homosexual behavior has the same health risks associated with ...”

“That's just not true,” Costello interrupted. “I'm going to end this interview now, sir, because that's not true. Thanks for sharing your view, I guess?” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)