AFA Jumps the Shark: ‘ALS Challenge Kills Babies’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

 In recent weeks, it has seemed as if the American Family Association—already listed by the SPLC as an anti-LGBT hate group—has been on a mission to transform its public image from that of ordinary family-values advocates to a pack of wild-eyed radicals foaming at the mouth about their perceived enemies.

AFA spokesperson Bryan Fischer has been leading the way. In recent weeks on his radio program, Fischer has:

• Declared it will be “the end of America” if Congress does not impeach President Obama.
• Denounced anyone who uses the word “racist,” then insisted that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are “racists.”
• Sided with radical Islamists in Iraq in calling Obama a “devil worshiper.”
• Suggested on Twitter that accepting homosexuality leads to people to commit acts of necrophilia.
• Said that LGBT people are inherently disqualified from holding public office.
• Written an article in which he wonders if Robin Williams will go to heaven and insults Williams’s mother’s belief system (she was a Christian Scientist, Fischer says, and that is “a counterfeit form of religion that is neither Christian nor scientific”)

It’s not just Fischer, though. A couple of AFA analysts recently decried the recent editorial direction of Archie Comics, saying they now promoted “the occult and homosexuality.”

But as absurd as all these declarations might be, Fischer and his AFA cohorts may have been outdone in making such spurious claims. Kevin McCullough, a fellow AFA pundit who contributes at the organization’s commentary site, The Stand, recently published the following headline and article:

 The ALS Challenge is a wildly popular fundraising stunt for the ALS Association in which people are encouraged to pour a bucket of ice water over their heads, record it on social media and then challenge other people to otherwise join them or make a donation to the association.


The stunt has become an Internet sensation, with participants including movie stars, pop singers and politicians, as well as a wide range of others. It has also inspired some moments of accidental low comedy on the Web.

But according to McCullough, the fun and frivolity is overshadowed by his view that “this very challenge is contributing to the on going destruction of human life – intentionally.”

The ALS association is actively now funding embryonic stem cell research and admitting that they likely will continue to do so in the future.

The funding of embryonic stem cell research means that children are created and at their earliest stages of life they are destroyed so that the stem cells (from usually the base of the brain) can be harvested to perform tests with.

Embryonic stem cell research has proven zero percent effective in combating diseases like ALS and other neurological degenerative diseases.

Stem cell research has proven to be a controversial issue for years, with many conservative Christians, including the Southern Baptist Convention, viewing it as akin to abortion. The embryos used for the research are  fertilized in the laboratory, and there has never been a baby born or created in such conditions.

The ALS Association also claims to have produced substantial scientific research that, contrary to the AFA’s claims, indicates progress toward finding a cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the progressive and fatal neuromuscular malady commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

ALS afflicts about 30,000 Americans, with about 5,600 new cases diagnosed annually. More than 5,000 people die each from the disease. The ALS Association reports that so far more than $31 million has been raised by the ice-bucket challenge.