Bryan Fischer of the American Family
Association (AFA) claims gay activists are leading the charge to
criminalize gay sex.
The social conservative recently
attracted headlines when he attacked
presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney for hiring an
openly gay spokesperson.
In a op-ed appearing on the AFA's
Rightly
Concerned website, Fischer said an effort to outlaw unsafe
sex in adult films was tantamount to an acknowledgment that gay sex
was a “menace to public health.”
“Gay sex should be contrary to public
policy, and it looks like the first steps in that direction are being
taken gay activists themselves. Who could have seen that coming,”
Fischer wrote.
“So the next logical step is obvious:
for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to propose an ordinance that
promotes a fine for any act of unprotected gay sex, whether money
changes hands or not, and proposes criminal penalties for repeat
offenders. If they care about the health of all homosexuals, not
just the ones who do it for money, they can do no less.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is
backing a fall ballot question which if approved would expand to most
of the Los Angeles County a Los Angeles law requiring all porn actors
– whether gay or straight – to wear condoms.
ThinkProgress.com's
Zack Ford criticized Fischer for “leaping at the opportunity to
condemn gay sex as the direct cause – not [a] form of transmission,
but cause – of HIV.”
“Conservatives like Fischer refuse to
promote safe sex because they believe in abstinence until
opposite-sex marriage, and anything outside of that paradigm is
morally wrong. But as offensive as his extreme (and
self-plagiarizing) conclusions are, what is perhaps more offensive is
his insensitivity to the history and ongoing threat of HIV infection.
Ironically, it is the straight porn
industry which opposes the mandate. Most gay porn studios require
actors to wear condoms.
(Related: Porn
star Derrick Burts' claim he acquired HIV on-set questioned.)