Fischer leaving Idaho

Christian activist Bryan Fischer announced today that he’s leaving Idaho to move to Tupelo, Miss. to host a talk show for the American Family Association. His Idaho Values Alliance, as a result, will “go into whisper mode on July 1,” Fischer said. Fischer, former pastor of Community Church of the Valley and a former Idaho State Senate chaplain (2001 session), has been a frequent sight at the Statehouse in recent years, in his alliance’s quest to make “Idaho the friendliest place in the world to raise a family.” The organization first backed the successful anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment; this year, he testified against day care licensing legislation, which passed; and in favor of a new conscience law for pharmacists to allow them to refuse to dispense prescriptions; that bill passed the House but died in the Senate. In his farewell message on his Web site , Fischer claims credit for defeating Gov. Butch Otter’s proposed gas tax increase, through helping organize “tea party” rallies in April and May that “helped to stave off a tax increase which would have harmed Idaho families.”

His move to Mississippi, he said, “represents a remarkable and unanticipated opportunity for me, an opportunity to do what I have done with the IVA on a larger scale.”