American Family Association opened its airwaves to advocate for executing gays, adulterers, abortion doctors

Far-right Christian author and American Vision president Gary DeMar was the guest on the February 2 edition of American Family Radio's Today's Issues. In the past, DeMar has advocated the installation of a theocratic government in the United States in which homosexuals, adulterers, and abortion doctors would be executed.


Far-right Christian author and American Vision president Gary DeMar was the guest on the February 2 broadcast of Today's Issues, a program of American Family Radio, a network of nearly 200 radio stations owned by the conservative American Family Association (AFA). DeMar denounced “the continual assault on all things religion and, in particular, Christian,” and AFA president Tim Wildmon praised him as “one of the best writers out there in the Christian community and thinkers.” In the past, DeMar has advocated the installation of a theocratic government in the United States in which homosexuals, adulterers, and abortion doctors would be executed.

Wildmon invited to DeMar to discuss “the assault on God in our popular culture.” DeMar responded by criticizing two television shows on NBC with allegedly “anti-Christian” themes:

DeMAR: Well, of course, as you know, on television we saw the -- what is it The Book of Daniel that was on there? And I understand that there's gonna be something on Will & Grace. I've never seen Will & Grace, but I guess Britney Spears is gonna be on there, and she's doing some cooking show called “Cruci-fixins.”

WILDMON: Yeah, that's right, Gary. Of course, The Book of Daniel is an NBC television program, extremely sacrilegious and anti-Christian, and now NBC has announced that an episode of Will & Grace over in April, I think, will feature Britney Spears the pop star --

DeMAR: I think it's pretty much around Good Friday.

WILDMON: Yeah, the day before Good Friday. And she's supposed to play the part of a conservative Christian. Of course, that's the show featuring a homosexual character. And the name of her show is gonna be “Cruci-fixin's,” if you can believe how sacrilegious a network can be. “Cruci-fixin's.” It's supposed -- you're supposed to laugh at that because it's a play on the word “crucifixion” obviously.

DeMAR: Right. And of course, we've seen with [the film] Brokeback Mountain and so forth, just this continual assault on things religious and, most specifically, Christian. I know the ADL [Jewish advocacy group, the Anti-Defamation League] has come out against, you know, prayers that mention Jesus' name in a city -- in Florida, and I know here just in Marietta [Georgia], they've done the same with, you know, no mention of any specific god in these prayers. I mean, I don't know who in the world they're praying to. And there's a video out that's making the rounds on the Internet: The God Who Wasn't There. So there's just a daily assault on everything mostly related to Christianity across the board, and Christians need to be prepared for these assaults, especially with their children as they go off to school and, of course, to college, and as they get further and further away from the home. We as Christians need to be vigilant in answering these rather ridiculous objections to the things of Christ.

NBC canceled The Book of Daniel January 25 after four episodes aired; AFA founder and chairman Donald E. Wildmon said, “This shows the average American that he doesn't have to simply sit back and take the trash being offered on TV, but he can get involved and fight back with his pocketbook.” NBC claimed that the purported Will & Grace storyline of Spears serving as a Christian conservative hosting a cooking show called “Cruci-fixin's” came from “a press release mistakenly issued by the network,” and that “neither a script nor story line for the episode in question has been written.” The God Who Wasn't There is a film that, according to a Newsweek article, “irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed.”

Later in the broadcast, co-host Jeff Shambley told DeMar, “I should mention that I personally appreciate your work. The three-work set God and Government [American Vision, 1990] and Reformation to Colonization [American Vision, 1997] is used in our home school. And I know your work has blessed millions of people."

Tim Wildmon echoed Shambley's praise of DeMar, declaring, “Well, one of the best writers out there in the Christian community and thinkers is Gary DeMar.”

DeMar is a leading promoter of an extremist theology called Christian Reconstructionism, also known as Theocratic Dominionism, which, according to journalist and author Frederick Clarkson, “argues that the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life -- such as government, education, law, and the arts, not merely 'social' or 'moral' issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion.”

In his essay, "Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence," Clarkson stated that under a Christian Reconstructionist government, "[w]omen would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality."

As Americans United for Separation of Church and State documented, DeMar wrote in his book, Ruler of the Nations: Biblical Principles for Government (Dominion Press, 1987): “The law that requires the death penalty for homosexual acts effectually drives the perversion of homosexuality back into the closet.” DeMar added: “The long term goal [is] the execution of abortionists and parents who hire them. If we argue that abortion is murder, then we must call for the death penalty.”

DeMar further articulated his views during an exchange on an Atlanta radio show in 1991 with liberal Christian activist Skipp Porteous and host Paul Gonzalez:

DeMAR: The definition of Christian Reconstruction is simply this: The Bible applies to every facet of life. That means not just the judicial aspects of life, such as civil government, church government, but business, economics -- every facet of society. The Bible has something to say about each area. For example, on homosexuals: We do not believe that homosexuals ought to be executed. The Bible doesn't say that homosexuals ought to be executed. What it says is this: If two men lie together like man and woman, they are to be put to death.

PORTEOUS: What the hell do you think that is?

DeMAR: Well, wait a minute. If a guy comes up to me and he says, “I'm a homosexual,” that doesn't mean he's to be executed. If you understand the Scriptures, it says very clearly: If a man comes up to you and says, “I've murdered somebody,” that doesn't mean that person ought to be executed.

GONZALES: Oh, so what you are saying, Gary, is, if you catch homosexuals in the act, then the Bible says to execute them.

DeMAR: The Bible lays forth the severest penalty, which would be capital punishment for two men who publicly engage in sodomy.

DeMar continued by stating his nominal support for the death penalty for adulterers and abortion doctors:

GONZALES: If, indeed, the Reconstructionist movement ever made it in America, would you advocate these biblical principles being carried out: the execution of the adulterer, the abortionist, and the homosexual?

DeMAR: I'm saying that they could be implemented, yes.

In September 2005, DeMar spoke at a symposium at The Chalcedon Foundation, a Reconstructionist think tank. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) called the symposium “a preview of a planned speaking tour of Reconstructionism's leading voices ... that will be traveling to non-Reconstructionist fundamentalist Christian churches around the country beginning this winter as part of the Chalcedon Foundation's missionary effort to 'convert' already conservative congregations to full-blown Reconstructionism.”

DeMar's Marietta, Georgia-based think-tank and advocacy group, American Vision, which the SPLC lists as a hate group, claims to be “Equipping and Empowering Christians to Restore America's Biblical Foundation.” In 2001, President Bush was expected to re-nominate former American Vision board member and longtime anti-union activist J. Robert Brame III to the National Labor Relations Board; Brame was forced to withdraw from consideration after media reports documented American Vision's advocacy of a right-wing Christian Reconstructionist theocracy.