Evangelicals have a Bryan Fischer problem

Here is your semi-regular reminder that Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is a big honkin’ racist.

If you can’t watch that video, here’s a bit of the transcript:

Hispanics … don’t vote Democrat because of immigration. … It has to do with the fact that they are socialists by nature. They come from Mexico, which is a socialist country. They want big government intervention, they want big government goodies. … Now they want open borders — make no mistake — because they’ve got family and friends that they want to come up and be able to benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States, just as they have been able to do.

Fischer manages to cling to semi-respectability as a representative of the religious right and a member of the white evangelical tribe because he checks all the right boxes on the litmus-test questions. He has the tribally correct “stance” on abortion and the expected “stance” on same-sex marriage, so he manages to spout off like the above video/quote without ever being wholly banished, or even being forced to apologize for or to retract such comments.

Much like Dinesh D’Souza, Fischer channels most of his racism into support for the political aims he shares with more “mainstream” evangelicals.

And that causes two problems — two big problems — for those more mainstream evangelicals.

The first problem for them is that Fischer can’t really be said to be on their side when it comes to abortion and gay marriage. He may vote the same way as they do and seek the same political outcomes, but he undermines the credibility of the “stances” he shares with mainstream evangelicals due to all that “socialists by nature” crap that he can’t help from spewing.

Those mainstream evangelicals can’t reassure themselves by thinking, “Well, at least he’s on our side on abortion and gay marriage,” because any side Bryan Fischer is on gets tainted by the stench coming off that racism. Everything else he says, everything else he advocates, becomes morally suspect.

That means these mainstream evangelical types can’t view Fischer as an ally when it comes to “defending the sanctity of life” or “preserving biblical marriage.” He’s not helping to promote those causes, he’s undermining those causes by linking them to his noxious “they want to … plunder” garbage.

And problem No. 2 is even worse.

Just as everything Bryan Fischer has to say about “biblical values” gets outweighed by everything he has to say about people who aren’t white, so too everything mainstream evangelicals have to say about “biblical values” gets outweighed by everything they haven’t said about people like Bryan Fischer.

Or, put more directly: Until mainstream evangelicals denounce racists and bigots like Bryan Fischer — clearly and unambiguously — they will lack the moral credibility that might make anyone care what they have to say about any other moral issues.