Portrait of a Radical Cleric

Bryan Fischer is currently the Executive Director of the conservative activist organization, Idaho Values Alliance.

A non-native Idahoan, Fischer was trained as a minister at the conservative evangelical Dallas Theological Seminary before relocating to Idaho in the 1980s.

For many years Fischer was associated with the Cole Community Church before founding the Community Church of the Valley (CCV). After a rocky tenure at CCV's strip-mall location in Garden City, Idaho, Fischer's congregation voted to relieve him of his ministry and remove him from their church. Following a series of bitter leadership disputes and the eventual concession of a generous severance package, Fischer left CCV.

The newly defenestrated Fischer subsequently founded, with daughter and wife, the Idaho Values Alliance (IVA), whose stated, and rhetorically unclear, purpose is to 'Make Idaho the Friendliest Place in the World to Raise a Family.'

Though it's non-profit, the IVA's work consistently reflects the fringe-conservative religious views held by Fischer. Concomitantly, a bulk of the organization's resources are dedicated to attacking homosexuals, working to restrict women's reproductive health rights, discrediting and dismantling the independent judiciary, working to elect like-minded conservative Christians, fighting to introduce religion into Idaho's public school and university classrooms, and more broadly demonizing those who do not share Fischer's political views.

Occasionally Fischer also comments on national politics.

Though his credentialed expertise are limited to Bible studies, Fischer regularly offers purportedly expert advice on matters of law, science, medicine, psychology, economics, history and public policy. He is frequently accused of intellectual dishonesty and is often reluctant to substantiate in writing questionable data and evidence he proposes as fact.

A capable writer, Fischer's preferred style involves the use of rhetoric to discredit, and frequently demonize, his opponents while supporting his views with carefully selected 'facts' from sources of questionable validity. He also routinely overstates the political power of the communities he attacks to paint them as invidious oppressors who seek to restrict the rights of his followers.

This rhetorical device often leads Fischer to co-opt the political discourse of social progress movements, often employing directly language from civil rights leaders and members of other socially oppressed groups. In so doing, Fischer is rhetorically able to frame his personal social and political positions as those born out of a climate of victimization at the hand of a powerful oppressor.

The IVA is also the Idaho affiliate of the American Family Association, a national conservative religious organization with a similar provenance.