Support for Fisher

Most County Delegation members won’t call for state rep. to resign after news of misogynistic website

By ROGER AMSDEN, for THE LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — Several members of the Belknap County Delegation say it's up to two-term Rep. Robert Fisher (R-Laconia) to decide whether to stay in the state Legislature.

Fisher, 31, who has been accused of creating a misogynistic online forum, has been called on to resign by Gov. Chris Sununu, House Speaker Shawn Jasper and State Republican Party Chairman Jeanie Forrester.

The Daily Beast reported last week that Rep. Fisher founded The Red Pill, which calls itself a "discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men."

Fisher has said he has no intention of resigning and claims that some of the quotes attributed to him were taken out of context.

Belknap County Delegation Chairman Herb Vadney (R-Meredith) said he won't be pressing Fisher to resign. "He was freely elected and hasn't broken any laws. I know him well and he's a thoughtful guy."

He said that in reading Fisher's defense of himself, which was published in Friday's Laconia Daily Sun, that Fisher was at times acting as a "devil's advocate" in his Red Pill writings and trying to work in the other side of an argument.

"It was a poor way of doing it but he thinks that you can't just discuss the parts you like. He says that he grew up in a family which respected women and I've never seen any sign of him being antagonistic towards women," said Vadney.

He also defended Fisher's attendance record, noting that Fisher has a full-time job and often works late but has always said he will be available for important issues when his vote is needed.

Rep. Marc Abear (R-Meredith) said he disagrees strongly with what Fisher wrote but won't call on him to resign. "I have a wife of 40 years and a daughter, so he and I might not have the same views. But he hasn't broken any laws or violated any ethics laws."

Rep. Peter Spanos (R-Laconia) said that he thinks the situation is something that Fisher alone can deal with. "I think the remarks he made are something he needs to resolve on his own," said Spanos, who said he would not move to try and get Fisher to resign.

Rep. David Huot of Laconia, the only Democrat on the county delegation, said that Fisher should resign. "His views are not consistent with what most people believe. They are mysoginstic and he should resign."

Rep. Valerie Fraser said that she had no idea what was going on and that as far as she can tell the charges against Fisher "came out of the blue. You're innocent until proven guilty," she said in dismissing the call for him to resign.

Fisher is reported to have written of "divorce rape" as women entrapping men into marriage then leaving them while taking advantage of the laws bearing on child support and alimony to enrich themselves at men's expense. Elsewhere he referred to the "sub-par intelligence" of women, whose personalities he found "lackluster and boring, serving little purpose in day-to-day life." In one Reddit forum he wrote that "It is literally the body that makes enduring these things worth it."

Sununu described Fisher's comments on the site as "horrendous and repulsive" and last week called for his resignation, as did House Speaker Jasper, who said "I wish he would resign. It's the honorable thing to do under the circumstances."

Forrester, former state senator from Meredith, said, "His comments are offensive, and the fact that he made them under the shadow of Internet anonymity tells you he knows they are offensive."

In a written statement, Fisher said that he "lived through a nightmare" in his early 20s and "said some injudicious things about the opposite sex following a bad breakup." He said he would not comb the internet to find the source and context of remarks attributed to him, but let those who question him "judge if that sounds like something I believe." He said that conclusions drawn from these remarks "border on slanderous."