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01/12/2015

Wild, man: American Family Association enters its third generation

by Jeremy Hooper

In a new column, an American Family Association writer portrays homosexuality as "sexually immoral" and a "chosen lifestyle," calls on gay people to repent, and brags that a small victory for inequality in a small town in his home state means that "the homosexual agenda can be defeated." All standard stuff for the AFA. The notable part is the bylined writer himself:

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The article: When Voices Are Raised, Values Are Restored [AFA]

Walker Wildmon is the son of Tim Wildmon, the AFA's current president. Tim Wildmon is himself the son of Don Wildmon, AFA's founder. The AFA would not exist if not for the Wildmon family, and now we are on our third generation.

But of course there are two ways of looking at this. On one hand, you have to shake your head at the Wildmon's repurposing of the same discrimination year after year and child after child. But at the same time, you also have to think that the Wildmon show has been a blessing in disguise. I mean, Don Wildmon founded this rabidly anti-gay special interest group in the mid seventies, and he and his family have been trying with every fiber in their being to stop and ultimately reverse the trend of more acceptance. And yet in that same span of time, the whole thing has gone against them in ways greater than Mr. Wildmon could have ever predicted when he launched this ship. The past four decades have been a repudiation of all that he hoped to accomplish. In fact, I would be one to argue that Mr. Wildmon's little stable of animus very much helped us get to where we are today, since it helped crystallize how discrimination looks and sounds.

Walker Wildmon has now adopted the truly chosen lifestyle that his daddy and granddaddy laid out before him. I would remind him that the last five letters of "dynasty" ably describe the attacks that the organization that is his apparent birthright has waged against good and decent Americans for far too long; the first two letters can serve as a phonetic, rhetorical representation of this overwrought special interest group's overdue closing.

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