How bad is Mix It Up at Lunch Day, a program that encourages school kids to sit next to someone different in the cafeteria? "It's like poisoned Halloween candy. Somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide." Yikes!

That was the viewpoint of the American Family Associations's Bryan Fischer, who appeared on CNN earlier today to give his conservative group's opinion about the decade-old project of the Southern Poverty Law Center's decade-old program to encourage tolerance in schools. This year, the AFA has been counter-campaigning against the program and has convinced  200 or so schools have canceled the event after general concerns that the SPLC is a "homosexual activist group" and that Mix It Up at Lunch Day is "an entry-level 'diversity' program designed specifically by SPLC to establish the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools." On with CNN's Carol Costello this morning before she ended the interview for his claim that Hitler's Stormtroopers were homosexual, Fischer elaborated on his concerns about the group's objections to lunchtime "diversity": "It's interesting to me they're doing this on October 30, the day before Halloween, and what this program is, it’s like poisoned Halloween candy. Somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide ... it’s not until you internalize it that you realize how toxic it is."

The rant isn't far off from what Fischer has preached about before, when he said that gays and lesbians shouldn't have kids because they'll molest and rape them, that gays are driven by a "dark, venomous, demonic hatred," and that gays are like the face-eating cannibal in Miami and deserve discrimination. (Those are just some of Fischer's most recent hits.).  

But let's give Fischer the benefit of the doubt: maybe there's something about switching of lunch buddies that could drive a completely normal person to such rage. So we looked at the official images (propaganda as Fisher would probably call it) concerning Mix It Up Day. These are our results.

These are kids that Fischer and the AFA says are establishing "the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools, including elementary and junior high schools."

Here's a poster promoting the "anti-bullying policies" that have "become a mechanism for punishing Christian students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that should be normalized": 

This balloon is said to have a homosexual agenda; 

And here's the "toxic" first and second grade activity list recommended on Mix It Up Day:

Lunch Mixers

• Compliment Tag
• Human Scavenger Hunt
• That’s Teamwork
• Buddies
• It’s About Me

Classroom Activities

• Me and We: We Are All Similar and Different
• Happy Faces
• It’s Okay to Feel Different
• Everyone’s a Helper
• Developing Empathy

And in case you were wondering, here's the skinny on the controversy-stirring activity Compliment Tag!:

Students sit in a circle and decide on one person to be “it” first. This student has to tag another person in the group. However, unlike a typical  game of tag where you run and use your hands, this game requires you to tag a person with your words. The student who is “it” will say another student’s name in the group, give her a compliment, and then say, “Tag you’re it.” The person who gets tagged responds by saying, “Thank you,” and the person who gave the compliment responds with, “You’re welcome.” The person tagged then picks someone else and so on until everyone has had a chance to give and receive a compliment.

Scary right? 

Photo by : KellyBoreson via Shutterstock

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at aabadsantos at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Alexander Abad-Santos