American Family Association demotes rabidly anti-gay mouthpiece Bryan Fischer

Today, on the very date that the American Family Association's loosest canon, Bryan Fischer, had to walk back yet another attack on LGBTs, he was fired as the organization's so-called Director of Issue Analysis.

AFA president Timothy Wildmon cited a years-old, over the top attack on LGBTs when asked about his reasons for demoting Fischer, who will still host, for now, his AFA radio program.

Many people think there's more to the contretemps than this. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been sharply critical of the AFA and wants the Republican National Committee to disassociate itself from the AFA.

Tonight, Rachel Maddow seemed to favor the all-expense-paid trip to Israel over the wildly anti-gay history of Bryan Fischer as a reason for the AFA's actions:

If the United States is a country for Christians only and the purpose of the United States is specifically to advance the faith of Christians — and incidentally, not Jews — how does that fly in Israel, let alone among American Jews — and Muslims, and anybody else who's not Christian, anybody? What is the Republican Party advertising about itself to be taking this kind of a trip, with this kind of a group, and do they really think that the firing of Bryan Fischer is going to end this story?