Christian group wants 'self-mutilating' Obama appointee fired

The conservative American Family Association is calling on President Barack Obama to fire Amanda Simpson, Obama's transgender appointee to the Commerce Department, because the appointment "puts the weight of the federal government behind the normalization of sexual deviancy."

"'Amanda' is a biological male in every cell of his body, and no amount of surgical mutilation is ever going to change that," AFA President Tim Wildmon said in a press release circulated Thursday. "It's a mistake for our president to appoint such a sexually confused individual to a position of public responsibility."

Wildmon went on to say that "gender is assigned by the Creator at the moment of conception, and no healthy society should ever regard sexual mutilation, even if it's self-inflicted, as something that's normal and merits approval."

He ended by saying the "appointment should be rescinded immediately."

Throughout the press release, Simpson is referred to as "he" and the name Amanda is put in quotation marks. That appears to be a tactic now employed by opponents of Simpson's appointment. Media watchdog MediaMatters pointed out that the conservative WorldNetDaily did the same thing in an article about Simpson that stated she ("he") had spent $70,000 on sex-change operations since 2000.

The gay-issues Queerty blog warns that the rumblings in the right-wing media about Simpson's appointment could be a prelude to a "slime" campaign a laKevin Jennings.

Her real worry should be with groups like MassResistance and Fox News, which have spearheaded efforts to slime other LGBT Obama appointees, including Kevin Jennings. These radical right-wing mouthpieces don't care about the substance of your work nor your job qualifications, but about what makes you different. And we fully expect an assault on Simpson's character, disguised as her "work ethic" or "prior missteps."

The AFA was recently behind a boycott of Pepsi, on the grounds that the soda maker has backed gay rights, despite assertions by gay-rights activists that Pepsi's main competitor, Coca-Cola, has arguably done more for the gay rights movement. The AFA claims half a million participants in its Pepsi boycott.

The AFA also ran a pressure campaign last year against the 7-11 convenience store chain, arguing the company was corrupting youth by displaying an issue of Playboy magazine that featured cartoon character Marge Simpson on the cover.