Here's the context - last week, from the right over to the liberal John Stewart Show, media lambasted Webster's political opponent Alan Grayson, contending for a Congressional seat in Florida's 8th district, for taking Webster's words out of context, in a recent Grayson political attack ad.

But the words Grayson took "out of context" were from a speech Webster gave at a 2009 Nashville conference of an evangelist, Bill Gothard, who has been preaching a doctrine of female submission for over three decades, and Daniel Webster has been close to Bill Gothard for over three decades as well

As I've detailed in a recent Alternet story, Alan Grayson's GOP Opponent Directly Tied to Christian Group That Wants Permanent Subordination of Women, Daniel Webster's intimate, over three decade long involvement with evangelist Bill Gothard appears similar to a classic guru-disciple or mentor-pupil relationship and has included speaking multiple times at Gothard's conferences, traveling with Gothard to Korea in 1996, using Bill Gothard's material to homeschool his six children, making an instructional video for Gothard's Institute For Basic Life Principles, and, when Webster became speaker of the Florida legislature in 1996, hiring four of Gothard's IBLP employees as high-level Florida State House staffers.

In her 2007 book God's Harvard - A Christian College On a Mission to Save America (link to New York Times review), author Hanna Rosin described Bill Gothard's advice as being "like sharia law" (note - Rosin seemed to be referring to far-right, fundamentalist Islamic interpretations of sharia law.)

As Rosin writes,

"In their advice to women, the books [Gothard's books] read like sharia law, with strict instructions on how to dress, date, and run a home, and with strict consequences for disobedience." - Hanna Rosin, God's Harvard, page 92 "Once they are married, the husband "gives the law" and the wife "works out the proper procedure to carry it out." Equal authority in marriage is "Satan's goal." The key to a happy marriage is "the wife's submission and the husband's sacrifice." - Rosin, quoting Bill Gothard, page 93

As Daniel Webster described his feelings about Bill Gothard to the Florida St. Petersburg Times, for a story published on February 16, 1997, "I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth."

As Bill Gothard described the consequences of wives initiating divorce, in his 1982 book Rebuilder's Guide, published by Gothard's Institute For Basic Life Principals, in a chapter titled, When a Wife Initiates Divorce,

"

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?



1. She exposes herself to Satan's power [...] Wives are instructed to submit to their husbands. (See Ephesians 5:22, I Peter 3:1) This means they are to "get under the protection of their own husbands."



The alternative to scriptural submission is not freedom, but defeat by Satan and exploitation by others. 2. She destroys many families



By disobeying God's word and taking matters into her own hands, the wife destroys both her own family and her husband's family. She sows the seeds of destruction in her families of her children and her grandchildren "to the third of fourth generation." (See Deuteronomy 5:9.) "

Enter Bryan Fischer, who fulminates in a new op-ed, Alan Grayson, Daniel Webster, and the submission of wives,

"Rep. Alan Grayson, a miserable creature if there ever was one, created one of the most reprehensible and despicable political ads in recent memory by twisting the words of his opponent, Daniel Webster... He accused Webster of fostering the same kind of degrading oppression of women that is called for in Islam and practiced in Muslim-dominated backwater countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. The truth, of course, is exactly the reverse of what Grayson implied, which perhaps will come as no surprise once people discover that Grayson is a Democrat, an ilk for whom lying, twisting and distorting the facts seems to be second nature."

Bryan Fischer is a rising star at the American Family Association, which has long pushed the bounds of acceptability - but during the Obama Administration the $14 million dollar a year ministry has gone over the edge.

In Spring of 2009, the AFA promoted Fischer to head its daily radio program who, as covered by Kyle Mantyla of People For The American Way, has over the past year on the AFA radio show,



Called for a whale at Sea World which had killed its trainer to be stoned to death in accord with Biblical scripture

Praised the Old Testament figure of Pinehas, who speared a man and woman because the tribe of Israel had begun worshiping Gods other than Jehovah.

Declared "that Adolf Hitler was gay and that he surrounded himself with gay soldiers because only gays were willing to be savage and brutal enough to carry out his agenda" (see below for video of Fischer making those claims.)

Called for Muslims to be barred from serving in the US military.

Claimed that inbreeding has caused Muslims to become stupid and violent.

[video, below: on the American Family Association radio show, Bryan Fischer claims that Hitler and top Nazi leaders were gay]