With values like these, who needs bigotry?

I love a good “issue analysis.” Almost as much as a nice, righteous fistfight.

Wouldn’t it be great if today’s Values Voters Summit delivered both?

I’ve got the right guy for fresh, out-of-the-box analysis – Idaho’s own Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for the American Family Association. And I’ve got a dream that sometime today in the nation’s capital among voters of value, between the Heritage Foundation Breakfast and the American Values Luncheon, between “Straight Talk on Gay ‘Marriage’ ” and “How the Welfare State Erodes the Family,” Mitt Romney will punch him.

Fischer, who was a Boise pastor and right-wing gadfly for 25-plus years, brings a unique bag of nuts to his political analysis. Here’s one: Homosexuality caused the Holocaust. Here’s another: The government “incentivizes” African-Americans to “rut like rabbits.” And another: Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from holding any sovereignty on American soil.

Analytical as all get-out.

Fischer will take another step into national, mainstream crackpottery today, when he appears at the Values Voters Summit along with actual candidates for president. In fact, Fischer is sharing the stage this morning with Romney, which is interesting given that one of Fischer’s recent analyses includes his assertion that Mormons aren’t protected by the First Amendment.

“My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion,” Fischer said on his radio program. “Mormonism is not an orthodox Christian faith. It just is not. They have a different Gospel, they have a completely different definition of who Christ is and so forth. I mean, the list could be multiplied endlessly.

“And it was very clear that the Founding Fathers did not intend to preserve automatically religious liberty for non-Christian faiths, so when Mormonism came along, they practiced polygamy, they believed in polygamy, just like Muslims do today.”

It would be nice to hear Romney’s take on this, and maybe we will. It seems more likely that he and everyone else will simply patronize Fischer and Fischerites while grasping for the bigot vote.

But I’d like to offer Mitt a deal: Punch this guy, and I’ll vote for you.

Seriously, Mitt. It’ll be better for your self- respect, the liberal media will cover it like crazy, and it will win over Mormon Democrats.

OK – just kidding about that last part. But still: Punch him, and I’m in.

Fischer and guys like him are a tiresome but energized part of politics these days. A lot of what he believes is right down the middle for “Values Voters”: gay people are perverts, America is a Christian country, the Bible tells us God favors low taxes and opposes welfare, etc. But he goes farther than a lot of his fellow travelers – or at least he’s willing to go farther in public.

Here is a Bryan Fischer values platter, a little “straight talk,” culled from his website and media reports:

• “Homosexuality gave us Adolph (sic) Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”

• “For the sake of our children, we should screen out homosexuals who want to immigrate to the United States.”

• “In all the discussions about the European settlement of the New World, one feature has been conspicuously absent: the role that the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality of Native Americans played in making them morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil.”

• Christianity is “not a religion of pacifism.”

His blog is also very analytical. Some recent headlines:

“Why should U.S. support Israel? Easy – because God does”

“Obama’s platform: Breaking the 8th and 10th commandments”

“Gays aren’t born that way – a lesbian says so”

I hope Fischer makes it clear to Romney – as well as Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and anyone else seeking the values vote – that when it comes to gay folks and Israel and the Holocaust and superstition and whatever else might cross his mind, his analyses are based on impeccable sources: God and one lesbian.

Analysis, baby. In a recent blog post, Fischer argued that Obama fast-tracked the health care appeal to the Supreme Court in order to lose and then take that loss and capitalize on it in the next election. I’m not sure how Fischer became such a wily political strategist living in Boise – the same way he gained his expertise about the sex lives of African- Americans, I guess – but it was apparently good enough for Rush Limbaugh to pick up and repeat. Rush Limbaugh, who has an audience of millions known as Dittoheads.

So, come on, Mitt. Don’t pander to them – pander to me. I have values. What’s more solidly American than a good old retributive fistfight?

Punch this guy, and the bumper sticker goes on. God and this one lesbian I know want you to.