The extreme religious right in the United States often uses HIV/AIDS to scare their faithful into submission. Don’t repeal the Defense of Marriage Act because it prevents HIV, which causes AIDS, they say. Make your gay kids straight, they say, because if you don’t your kids are going to get HIV, which causes AIDS.

Obviously, I disagree with their point of view. That said, I do agree with them about one thing -- HIV causes AIDS. That small common ground didn’t seem like much, until now.

Bryan Fischer is director of issues analysis for the American Family Association (AFA), which calls itself “one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country.” However, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, calls the AFA a hate group. Among many other distinctions, AFA is well known as an anti-gay group.

Fischer hosts the talk radio show Focal Point on American Family Radio and writes for the AFA blog Rightly Concerned. In a video clip from his program posted by RightWingWatch.org that I ran across at the LGBT blog Joe.My.God, Fischer comes out as an AIDS denialist.

Watch the clip:


In the clip, Fischer claims that researchers invented HIV as the cause of AIDS so that they could get funding. Then he asks Peter Duesberg, a longtime AIDS denialist, what really causes AIDS. His answer is that recreational drugs and promiscuous sex are to blame, not HIV.

In his blog, Fischer doubles down on his new AIDS denialist beliefs by claiming that Magic Johnson is “healthy as a horse” because HIV does not cause AIDS.

In 2011, Fischer compared gays to Nazis -- literally. In 2010, he said we were "stuck with sexual deviants" in response to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Fischer is undoubtedly a homophobe.

However, embracing AIDS denialism takes his homophobia to an all-time low. To stick it to the gays, Fischer now promotes pseudoscience. Advancing pseudoscience is always dangerous, but in this case, it’s mostly just sad.