You know that the GOP has gone off the rails when Bryan Fischer can claim to be the party’s kingmaker in a nationally respected magazine.

In the current issue of The New Yorker, Fischer, the director of issue analysis for the American Family Association and a leading contender for title of America’s Biggest Homophobe, is portrayed as a growing force among Republicans. “His goal is to make his view the official stance of the Republican Party,” according to writer Jane Mayer.

Fischer’s getting a lot of help: After a destructive tenure in Idaho, Fischer now has Focal Point, a radio program that reaches a million listeners daily. His spittle-flecked rants against gays includes calling us to Nazis, sexual predators and (our favorite) face-eating cannibals.

In the New Yorker profile, he opines:

“A rational culture that cares about its people will, in fact, discriminate against adultery, pedophilia, rape, bestiality, and, yes, homosexual behavior.”

Not surprisingly, Fischer one of the leading intellects of today’s Republican party, thanks to Prince Mitt, the Craven. The former bible scholar’s power was evident when he led the charge to fire gay spokesman Ric Grenell as Romney’s foreign policy point person.

Grenell is such a war hawk that he might as well wear feathers instead of a suit, but Fischer only cared that Grenell was gay.

“What if he’s traveling for Mitt Romney on government business? He’s overseas somewhere and he’s got top-secret information in his hotel room, and he just can’t help himself? He’s gotta have an anonymous tryst with some homosexual?”

Romney’s campaign obliged by greasing the skids for Grenell’s “resignation.” Letting gay people work was just too much for Fischer, who kindly admits to Mayer that at least he doesn’t want to turn gay men into eunuchs.

When I visited [Fischer’s] office, I asked him if he could name anyone who had more conservative social beliefs. “Well, Thomas Jefferson,” he said. “He wanted to castrate homosexuals.”

If that remark reveals anything about the AFA’s director, it’s that he’s hung up on men: Women hardly hold a place in Fischer’s universe because they are not equal to men in authority. He likes his Christianity to be muscular and manly, maintaining the only reason he is on a crusade against gay rights is because it’s like having “a guy who takes off his clothes and howls at the moon in your living room.”

How can you ignore that? And why would you conjure up that image in the first place?

The other thing that comes across in Mayer’s profile is that a lot of Fischer’s professional and personal relationships end abruptly because of what might euphemistically be called Fischer’s strong personality (i.e., he’s a jerk). The article is littered with quotes from former friends who report that Fischer no longer has anything to do with them. Among the excommunicated is Fischer’s own sister, who is living on welfare and Social Security, programs Fischer believes should be abolished.

If charity begins at home, it’s worth noting that Fischer hasn’t seen her for a decade.

Fischer is clearly expecting to ride the current election to greater power while pushing the GOP so far to the right it’s likely to fall off the face of the political map: Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, told Mayer “Bryan is definitely ascending. His influence is growing because he says publicly, in an unfiltered way, what many evangelical leaders think privately. He’s fearless.”

Too bad that the same can’t be said about Romney and his willingness to stand up to Fischer’s bigotry.

Image: Southern Poverty Law Center