Judge Orders Anti-Gay Scott Lively to Stand Trial for Crimes Against Humanity

As noted frequently on this blog, one of the ugly fruits of religion - especially far right Christianity and Islam nowadays - is hatred of other and the desire to criminalize or kill those who do not subscribe to the frightening beliefs of these foul individuals and their cults.  For American Christofascists, one of the favored targets of their venom is the LGBT community and, as they lose the culture wars in America, their work to export their foul beliefs overseas, especially to ignorant and uneducated areas of the world such as Africa.  Now, in a stunning development, Scott Lively, who is believed to be an architect of Uganda's "kill the gays" bill has been ordered to stand trial in federal court for crimes against humanity for his anti-gay efforts.  Lively, of course, is only one of many "godly Christian" hate merchants and one can only hope that Lively will be convicted and that addition Christofascists will find themselves on trial down the road.  For too long Americans have refused to see conservative Christianity for what it is: a pernicious evil.  It deserves no special preferences under the law. Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

For the first time, a federal US judge has ruled a persecution of LGBT people is a crime against humanity.  This sets a precedent ensuring the fundamental human rights of LGBTI people are protected under international law.

It comes as a Ugandan LGBTI advocacy organization filed a lawsuit against prominent US anti-gay extremist Scott Lively. 

Accused of helping to play a part in the persecution, arrest and murder of gay people in Uganda, Lively’s lawyers requested to dismiss the lawsuit. Michael Ponsor, the US District Judge in Springfield, Massachusetts, said: ‘Widespread, systematic persecution of LGBTI people constitutes a crime against humanity that unquestionably violates international norms.’

‘The history and current existence of discrimination against LGBTI people is precisely what qualifies them as a distinct targeted group eligible for protection under international law.  ‘The fact that a group continues to be vulnerable to widespread, systematic persecution in some parts of the world simply cannot shield one who commits a crime against humanity from liability.’

The lawsuit states Lively collaborated with key Ugandan government officials and religious leaders that allegedly resulted in the introduction of the ‘Kill The Gays’ bill. 

The founder of Abiding Truth Ministries, Lively has made a career of stirring up anti-gay feelings in the USA and across the world.  He co-authored The Pink Swastika, which suggests ‘homosexuals were the truth inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities’ and the rainbow flag is a symbol of the ‘end times’. In 2007, Lively also toured 50 cities in Russia where he is accused of recommending a ban on 'gay propaganda'.

Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, said: ‘Today’s ruling is a significant victory for human rights everywhere but most especially for LGBTI Ugandans who are seeking accountability from those orchestrating our persecution.’

Scott Lively - the Face of Ant-gay Hate

Lively with fellow liar and hate merchant, Peter LaBarbera

There are many in the professional Christian class who disseminate anti-gay hate and lies on literally a daily basis, but few - other than perhaps Paul Cameron - rise to the level of Scott Lively who in his thoroughly debunked "Pink Swastika" maintains that gays were the cause of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.  More recently, Lively has taken his message of lies and hatred to Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, with his most pernicious work having taken place in Uganda where Lively played a large role in causing the hysteria behind that nation's newly enacted draconian anti-gay law.  Mother Jones offers a look at Lively and his anti-gay animus.  Here are highlights:

In late February, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the nation's harsh new anti-gay bill into law, he claimed the measure had been "provoked by arrogant and careless western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality." What he failed to mention is that the legislation—which makes homosexuality a crime punishable by life in prison in some cases—was itself largely due to Western interlopers, chief among them a radical American pastor named Scott Lively.

Lively, a 56-year-old Massachusetts native, specializes in stirring up anti-gay feeling around the globe. In Uganda, which he first visited in 2002, he has cultivated ties to influential politicians and religious leaders at the forefront of the nation's anti-gay crusade. Just before the first draft of Uganda's anti-gay bill began circulating in April 2009, Lively traveled to Kampala and gave lengthy presentations to members of Uganda's parliament and cabinet, which laid out the argument that the nation's president and lawmakers would later use to justify Uganda's draconian anti-gay crackdown—namely that Western agitators were trying to unravel Uganda's social fabric by spreading "the disease" of homosexuality to children. "They're looking for other people to be able to prey upon," Lively said, according to video footage. "When they see a child that's from a broken home it's like they have a flashing neon sign over their head."

Lively is not the only US evangelical who has fanned the flames of anti-gay sentiment in Uganda. As they lose ground at home, where public opinion and law are rapidly shifting in favor of gay equality, religious conservatives have increasingly turned their attention to Africa. And Uganda, with its large Christian population, has been particularly fertile ground for their crusade. Journalist (and past Mother Jones contributor) Jeff Sharlet has reported at length on the Family, a politically connected US-based ministry, which promotes hard-line social policies in the East African nation.

But, according to Ugandan gay rights activists, Lively has played an unparalleled role in fostering the climate of hate that gave rise to Uganda's anti-gay law. "The bill is essentially his creation," says Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of gay rights organizations. Mugisha's group has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in US federal court, accusing Lively of international crimes against humanity on the grounds that he and his Ugandan allies allegedly conspired to deprive gay Ugandans of basic human rights.

Lively has an unusual history for a family-values crusader. A former alcoholic, he spent his late teens and 20s drifting around the country, occasionally sleeping under bridges and begging for spare change. After finding God in a Portland, Oregon, treatment center in the mid-1980s, he joined a conservative evangelical church and took a job as communications director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which was loosely affiliated with the then powerful Christian Coalition and was deploying radical tactics to fight abortion and the gay rights movement. In 1992, OCA introduced a ballot initiative with the first faint outlines of the legislative strategy Lively would later deploy abroad. 

Measure 9, as it was known, barred the state government from offering any "special rights" to gays or "promoting" homosexuality. It also required public schools to treat "homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism" as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse." The backlash was fierce. Opponents likened Lively and his colleagues to Nazis and lobbed bricks wrapped in swastika flags through the windows of businesses supporting the measure. OCA's aggressive campaign, likening gays to pedophiles, was also blamed for a steep uptick in gay hate crimes.

In 1995, he coauthored what would become his signature book, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party. It argued that gay elements in the Nazi regime tried to wipe out the Jews because their religion condemned homosexuality. And it claimed that gays intentionally spread immorality and corruption so others were "less likely to oppose homosexuality on moral grounds."

Lively's theories have also gained currency in foreign countries, including former Soviet republics, where he has helped advance anti-gay legislation. But nowhere has his influence been more keenly felt than in Uganda. During his first visit there in 2002, he spoke at an anti-pornography conference and warned participants that Western cultural Marxists, backed by liberals (such as George Soros), were trying to erode Uganda's independence by attacking family values—a message that played on lingering colonial-era resentments. One of their core tactics, Lively argued, was deploying homosexuals to infiltrate Ugandan society.

At one point, he scrawled "Causes and Types of Homosexual Dysfunction" across the top of a white board and, beneath this, drew a continuum with what he claimed were the various types of gay men. On one extreme sat the transsexuals and transvestites; on the other were what Lively called the "super machos" and "monsters." "The Nazis were super machos," he said. "You also see them in prisons…brutish, brutish, animalistic, men that want to hurt other people…men having sex with boys and other men, usually in some sort of aggressive way."  

Moving on to "the monsters," Lively continued, "They are so far from normalcy that they're killers. They're serial killers, mass murderers. They're sociopaths. There's no mercy at all, there's no nurturing, no caring about anybody else…This is the kind of person it takes to run a gas chamber. " He added that the genocide in neighboring Rwanda "probably involved these guys." 

It is a long article and deserves a full read if one is to understand just how sick and dishonest Lively and his cohorts are in their anti-gay jihad.   In my view, Lively is mentally ill and belongs in an insane asylum rather than on the lose disseminating hate and lies.

Far Right Cat Fight: Scott Lively v. Warren Throckmorton

To me it's great entertainment to see those on the far right lose it and launch into total batshitery which does nothing other than to expose their insanity and their contempt for the truth.  Or at least any truth that gets in the way of their psychotic religious extremist agenda.  One of the nuttiest of the nutcases is Scott Lively (pictured at right), who has been a frequent subject on this blog for his extreme anti-gay lunacy which has ranged from his totally discredited box, The Pink Swastika, that claims the Nazi regime was founded and run by a gay conspiracy, to his advocacy for the "Kill the Gays" bill in Uganda.  The latest target of Lively's spittle spraying ranting is Warren Throckmorton who for years preached the "ex-gay" myth and supported reparative therapy until he apparently became convinced that it simply doesn't work (and probably saw that his license would be in jeopardy if he kept pushing that snake oil).  What has launched this right wing contretemps is Throckmorton's repeated criticisms of David Barton's fraudulent book on Thomas Jefferson.  Box Trutle Bulletin looks at the cat fight and here are some highlights:

Purported historian David Barton has not had a good week. His NYT bestseller, The Jefferson Lies (which presents Jefferson as more of an orthodox Christian than evil secular historians would have you believe), has been pulled by its publisher, which “lost confidence” in the book after a host of historians — including many conservative Christians — pointed out its abundant flaws.

Barton has a few champions left. One of them — Scott Lively, author of The Pink Swastika — may be familiar to you, and he offers the most hilarious defense of all: The whole thing is a gay conspiracy. And you (yes, you) are involved.

Lively points out that Warren Throckmorton is one of Barton’s harshest critics. Throckmorton is a professor at a Christian university who has made a fascinating journey when it comes to his views on homosexuality. I doubt he would describe himself as pro-gay, but his steady and determined search for what is true has led him to speak out for the dignity and humanity of LGBT folk.

That’s enough for Lively: Throckmorton is a villain. And if you don’t think so…

just do a search of his name on the websites of the nastiest of these anti-Christ blogs such as Box Turtle Bulletin [!], Truth Wins Out and Joe My God. You will find that Throckmorton is a hero to these people and apparently a willing collaborator with some of them.

See, if gays admire Throckmorton, then Throckmorton must be bad — and therefore, David Barton must be good. Seriously, that’s the crux of Lively’s 1500-word analysis. And nowhere in those 1500 words does he actually debunk a single criticism against the Barton. In fact, Lively suggests that minor issues like accuracy and truth are of secondary importance.

Scott Lively provides us with some insight here — not into the working of the vast gay conspiracy, but into his own head. Lots of people are delighted by this setback to Barton and his alternative reality; gays are just a small subset of that population, and a minor one at that. But if you’re as obsessed with homosexuality as Lively is, then anything with a remote and tenuous connection to the gays must be all about the gays.

Rarely have I seen such a direct and blatant statement that something so trivial as the truth must never get in the way of what is, um, right. It’s nice to have stuff like that from our opponents out in the open, stuff we later outrage them with by quoting it verbatim.

Lively is a certifiable nutcase in my opinion.  He'd be laughable except for the fact that the ignorant and uneducated can be easily misled by such a fraud - Uganda being perhaps the best example of the evil that Lively seeks to perpetrate.

Wingnuts Freak Out That the Gay Culture War is Nearly Lost

I take everything posted on World Net Daily - a/k/a Wing Nut Daily - with a grain of salt. Few alleged "news" sites are less tethered to objective reality than the extremists and Bible beaters at WND. Nonetheless, on occasion it can be informative (and at times entertaining) to follow some of the batshitery that is taken for serious discourse by WDN's contributors and their intellectually challenged followers. A case in point is a post by Scott Lively - author of "The Pink Swastika" and who has been implicated in the Uganda Kill the Gays bills and who, in my opinion, is an individual who is likely clinically insane - who has a column lamenting that the gays have just about won the "culture war." Sure, Lively is likely looking to spur some donations to his utterly deranged organization and/or spur some sheep like Bible thumpers to action, but deep down, I suspect that he realizes that he and haters like him have lost the younger generations and that their ultimate defeat is in the cards. Here's some of his spittle flying hyperventilating over the situation that Christianists are faced with longer term:

Many Christians are only now awakening to the seriousness of the threat to our society posed by the homosexual movement. But, unfortunately for us all, it is only the sounding of the victory trumpets by "gay" activists that has stirred Christians from their slumber. The watchman's walls have been broken and breached, the village is in flames, and triumphal "gay" culture warriors are leading a long string of young prisoners by their necks into the woods. Most disturbingly, many of the captives, including some of the children of these still sleepy-eyed Christian parents, seem happy to go.

I have long warned that the homosexuals agenda is not about tolerance but control. It started, of course, with a plea for tolerance, but then immediately shifted to a demand for acceptance and in due time to celebration of all things "gay."

[T]he agenda continued to unfold to another level, requiring forced participation in "gay" culture. Much of the country is on that cusp of celebration/coercion today, led by California with it's new aggressive K-12 homosexual advocacy curriculum, mandated by law.

That is the end game for the "gays." The final stage of their agenda, which has always been about taking control of things, is the power to punish dissent: to silence or crush their detractors. They only have this level of control in a few places yet, but they are moving fast to achieve it everywhere, and the momentum is on their side. And wherever they have it, they use it.

"Gay marriage," "gay" curriculum, "gay" parades, "gay" TV shows, "gay" soldiers, "gay" adoption, "gay" diseases, "gay" recruitment and on and on. So many seemingly separate issues that are really just one issue: the unnatural, dysfunctional, personally and socially destructive phenomenon of homosexual sin. We are warned clearly and emphatically about it in the Bible. We have seen its corrupting effect in history. And we are literally watching its ethic of sexual anarchy supplant the biblical model of family as the guiding value system of our society.

I'm not saying here that Christians are without hope of overcoming the challenge before us. Nothing, after all, is impossible with God. What I am saying is that we cannot possibly win, especially at this late stage of the game, if our "heroes" continue to fiddle about with the "definition of marriage" and fall all over themselves trying to prove they're not haters by endorsing other, non-marriage-related bits of the "gay" agenda.

We need to stand firmly and unapologetically on the hard truth that homosexuality is not a benign, morally neutral social phenomenon. It is an insidious and contagious form of sexual perversion condemned by God as an abomination.

The homosexual agenda represents an existential threat to Christian civilization and we're in the final phase of the war, losing badly. It all hinges upon you, Christian reader. Either get into the "game" in earnest, immediately, or wave goodbye.

The irony, of course is that if I were going to describe any group as unnatural, dysfunctional, personally and socially destructive, it would be Lively and his fellow Christianist who market hate, division and intolerance of anyone who is different as their principal stock in trade. Meanwhile, I believe that Lively - who some have suggested is a self-loathing closet case based on long standing rumors - needs a major mental health care intervention.

Last Known "Pink Triangle" Holocaust Survivor Has Died

Bryan Fischer and the hate merchants at American Family Association rant a revisionist history that blames fascism on gays even as they themselves would likely like to force LGBT Americans into concentration camps. Meanwhile, for those living in the real world, a news report out of Europe indicates that the last known survivor of the Nazi "Pink Swastika" program that incarcerated gays in concentration camps has passed away at age 98. Here are some highlights of a translation of the French site AFP:

The last known survivor of the "pink triangles", deported by the Nazis because of their homosexuality, Rudolf Brazda, died Wednesday at 98 years, four months after being made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in April. He co-authored with Jean-Luc Schwab "Itinerary of a Pink Triangle" recounting his 32 months in concentration camps, forced labor, death everywhere, beatings, harassment.

"In accordance with his will, his remains will be cremated and his ashes placed alongside those of his life partner of more than 50 years, Edward Mayer, who died in 2003 in Mulhouse," add friends. Rudolf Brazda had been part of some 10,000 deportees under Hitler because of their sexual orientation, the Nazis considering homosexuality as a threat to the perpetuation of the race.

In 1937, he was sentenced to six months in prison for "debauchery of men", then deported to Czechoslovakia. There, after the annexation of the Sudetenland by Hitler, he was again tried and convicted for similar facts, this time to 14 months in prison. This time served, Rudolf, considered a repeat offender, was interned in the concentration camp of Buchenwald in central Germany. He survived 32 months of hell in this camp, thanks to his friendship with a kapo communist and "a little luckier than others."

The drama of the "pink triangles" remained unknown until, in the 1980s, a play, books and movies are starting to raise the issue. When, in May 2008, Germany formally inaugurated in the heart of Berlin, a monument to their memory, the organizers explain that this tragedy not count any witnesses alive. Only then Rudolf Brazda, who had lived in anonymity since 1945 near Mulhouse, decided to break the silence. A month later, he was the guest of honor at the "Gay Pride" in Berlin. Dressed in a pink shirt, he lays a flower at the foot of the new memorial, attended by the mayor of the capital Klaus Wowereit, also gay.

Stories like that of Brazda need to be known and widely circulated so that the hate merchants and religious extremist are recognized for the agents of evil that they represent.

Scott Lively Warns of “Outbreak of Homosexuality” In Moldova

Speaking of the clinically insane, anti-gay douche bag and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively - who not too long ago supposedly swore off anti-gay demagoguery in foreign countries - is at it again. This time the self-loathing homophobe is in Moldova - a portion of the former Soviet Union - ranting about an alleged secret plan by the homosexual powers of the EU to push an anti-discrimination law based on sexual orientation through the Moldovan government. Given the insane drivel found in Lively's "The Pink Swastika" which claimed that homosexuals were behind the Nazi Party, I guess it should be no surprise that Lively sees a conspiracy under every bush. The bigger question is why anyone remotely rational would even listen to the man. Here are highlights from Box Turtle Bulletin on Lively's latest effort to disseminate lies and hatred:
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A Moldovan news report: Public Association “Pentru Familie” / “For the family / states that a recently adopted Government bill threatens the institution of family and social morality as homosexuality is increasing in the Republic of Moldova. An international expert in the field of human rights, Lively Scott, warned of “an outbreak of homosexuality” in Moldova, if the parliament adopts the bill, reports Info-Prim Neo.
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Chairman of the association “Pentru Familie” Vasile Filat said at a news conference on Monday that if this law is passed in parliament, this would entail the legalization of same-sex marriages, adoption of children couples gay acceptance of homosexual practice as the norm in schools.
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Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively is up to his old tricks again, even though it was not even two months ago that he said he was through with anti-gay activism. Shocking, I know.
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Lively is adding a new twist to his vast worldwide homosexual conspiracy. Again, from the Moldovan web site: Lobbying for the legalization of homosexuality is made from outside the Republic of Moldova, by agents of millionaire George Soros, who is interested in the fact that homosexuals have become a force, said Lively, Scott.
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I wish I had just a tenth of the the imagination it takes to to make this up. The unfortunate thing however is that Moldova has a serious problem with severe anti-gay violence. In 2008, a gay pride march was in the Moldovan capital of Chisina was attacked and broken up by a mob of skinheads and Moldovan nationalists. Violence and calls to violence has a habit of following Lively around, which is just one of many reasons for his “ministry” being among the very few in the U.S. who is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Evidence Of Scott Lively's Complicity In The Murder Of David Kato

I wrote earlier in the day about the brutal murder of Ugandan LGBT activist David Kato who was bludgeoned to death in his home. Not surprisingly, some of the Christian extremists who have agitated and inflamed anti-gay hysteria in Uganda and other parts of East Africa are trying to deny any responsibility for the fruits of their carefully sown and cultivated homophobia. The denials have about as much legitimacy to them as the denial of someone who yells fire in a crowded theater and then disclaims any responsibility for those who are trampled to death in the ensuing stampede for exits. Joe My God has a excellent take down of Scott Lively who has made a career out of spreading lies and falsehoods against gays with deadly results. Lively and those like him indeed are turning Christianity into something foul and evil. The truth is that denunciations by LGBT allies like Hillary Clinton are nice, but until there are severe consequences for inciting hatred and exporting it oversees, we can expect to see more deaths like that of David Kato. Here are highlights from Joe Jervis' post:
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The inspiration for Uganda's gay death penalty bill, and surely, Kato's murder, arises from the work of American evangelists, chief among them the repulsive anti-gay activist Scott Lively, whose infamous book The Pink Swastika blames the rise of the Nazi Party and the Holocaust on gay men. One year ago, the New York Times profiled Lively's hand in Uganda's burgeoning pogrom against homosexuals, which began after Lively hosted a three-day meeting attended by thousands of Ugandan police, teachers, and politicians.
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Yesterday Scott Lively's "nuclear bomb" against Ugandan gays went off in the form of the iron bar which crushed the skull of David Kato. In some countries, it's possible that Lively would be under arrest today. Also complicit in this murder is Peter LaBarbera, who for years has worked to publicize and praise Scott Lively's evil agenda. Then there's Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, who last year paid lobbyists $25,000 to convince members of Congress to block a planned resolution denouncing Uganda's gay death penalty bill. And let's not forget Pastor Rick Warren, who supported, funded, appeared with, and publicized the work of Uganda's leading anti-gay activist, Pastor Martin Ssempa.
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Today we mourn David Kato, a brave LGBT activist who paid the ultimate price in defense of his brothers and sisters. But we've also got start looking at some serious legal remedies to the actions of American anti-gay activists in other countries. Outside of the United States, many legals systems are not so constrained by the American concept of freedom of speech. What can we do to leverage that difference to end this madness? Lawsuits? The Hague?
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To the list of those responsible, I would add Pope Benedict XVI, Maggie Gallagher and every Republican elected official who give haters such as Lively, Perkins, et al, legitimacy by their constant pandering to such nasty individuals.

Wing Nut Daily Is Selling Discredited "The Pink Swastika" Book

It's not as if I didn't already hold World Net Daily - a/k/a Wing Nut Daily on this blog - in low esteem, but Joseph Farah, and his rag of a publication have stooped to new lows in marketing the thoroughly discredited "The Pink Swastika" authored by certifiable fruitcake Scott Lively who heads up Abiding Truth Ministries - a Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") registered hate group. With this type of advocacy of the work of a known hate group, one can only wonder if the fundies at Wing Nut Daily are trying to make the hate group list themselves. As Alvin McKwen at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters reports (and I have noted on the blog in the past), The Pink Swastika has been shown to be little more than the delusional rant of a very disturbed homophobe. Alvin notes in part as follows:
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At its online superstore (yes World Net Daily has a "superstore"), interested individuals can buy a discounted copy of The Pink Swastika. According to the description on the page: The Pink Swastika is a thoroughly researched, eminently readable, demolition of the "gay" myth, symbolized by the pink triangle, that the Nazis were anti-homosexual. In other words, The Pink Swastika supposedly gives proof that the gay community was behind the Nazi Party in Germany during World War II.
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[I]n the case of The Pink Swastika, Lively clearly outdoes himself. It was written in 1995 (although World Net Daily seems to be selling an "updated version") and since that time, it has been routinely criticized. According to SPLC: The Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an earlier (1994) Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their thesis.
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As for Lively and his lunatic organization, SPLC has a lengthy run down on the totally mis-named Abiding Truth Ministries. Here's a sampling of SPLC's litany of Lively's hatefulness:
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Abiding Truth Ministries serves mainly as a launching pad for an international anti-gay campaign. Its founder, Scott Lively, is also responsible for a book, widely cited by gay-bashers, accusing homosexuals of running the Nazi Party.
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Lively first emerged as an anti-gay activist when he became communications director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which was backing that state’s notorious Measure 9 vote in 1992. The measure, which failed, would have added language to the state constitution listing homosexuality, along with pedophilia and masochism, as “abnormal behavior.” Lively later served as California director of the American Family Association, another particularly hard-line anti-gay group.
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Lively has taken his message abroad to Eastern Europe (see Watchmen on the Walls, below), Africa and Russia. In a 2007 open letter to the Russian people, he asserted that “homosexuality is a personality disorder that involves various, often dangerous sexual addictions and aggressive, anti-social impulses.” In 2009, he went to Uganda to speak at a major conference on the evils of homosexuality, saying, among other things: “The gay movement is an evil institution. The goal of the gay movement is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.” He also met with Ugandan lawmakers. A month after Lively left the country, a bill was introduced that called for the death penalty for certain homosexual acts and prison for those who fail to disclose gays’ identities.

Jon Stewart and The Daily Show Destroy Delusional Scott Lively

I have written about Scott Lively many times before and we've had a few e-mail debates where lively has shown himself to be truly irrational. He's not only vociferous in his homophobia, but in my view literally insane. Unlike opportunistic parasites like Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins and others of the professional Christian set who enjoy living well off of monies suckered from the ignorant and gullible, Lively is freaking insane. His totally discredited book, The Pink Swastika underscores the man's delusional world where there's a gay plot under every bush and rock. Well, this past week, The Daily Show exposed Lively's utter lunacy to a whole new generation in the way only they way that show can do it. Mediate has some details and here are highlights followed by a video clip:
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More than half a century later, the journalists of The Daily Show have uncovered the real reason for the inhuman cruelty of the Third Reich: every last one of those Nazis was gay. Or at least that’s what Scott Lively, the president of the organization Defend the Family, contends. In search of the truth, Jason Jones went deep into the heart of New York’s gay community to find evidence for Lively’s argument.
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Lively argues, with full certainty, that all the soldiers in the Nazi army, and especially Adolf Hitler and the people in his inner circle, were gay. The reason for the high concentration of homosexuality in the Naxi party, according to Lively? “Adolf Hitler,” he explained, “used homosexual soldiers because they were more savage than natural men… They didn’t have the restraint that a normal man has, and so it was easier for them to do some of the terrible things the Nazis did.” And not only were the Nazis gay, “they met in a gay bar.” As for that whole “persecution of the Nazis” thing, Lively contends that the Nazis persecuted gays to”distract public attention away from their own homosexuality.”
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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gay Reichs
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

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Lively is the true face of the Kool-Aid drinkers that most follow the anti-gay mantra. One can only hope that the more exposure people have to exposes and spoofs like this one, the less credence the homophobes will receive.

The Far Right's Never Ending War Against Kinsey

Whenever I want to visit a fantasy world I check out sites like AFA, CWFA, Focus on the Family or Wing Nut Daily. The lunacy and fabrication of false story lines is often nearly breath taking. Today was no exception when I went to Wing Nut Daily and found the latest so-called book by (in my view, the seriously disturbed) Judith Reisman (pictured at left). Her latest diatribe on Alfred Kinsey is entitled "Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America." Indeed, Reisman has made a full time job out of trashing Kinsey, gays and anyone who doesn't subscribe to her particular views/beliefs on sexuality. It would almost be funny except for the fact that as reported by the New Yorker, under prior Republican administrations Reisman made out like a bandit in terms of tax moneys received for bogus research (she was given seven hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars by Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department to study pornography). Reisman's latest screed allegedly:
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documents how Kinsey refused to hire Jews, blacks, Catholics or anyone with religious or ethical beliefs, forced his own research team to reveal their innermost sexual secrets, subjecting themselves to blackmail and humiliation, and manipulated and manufactured data to persuade Americans to abandon their sexual mores and commitments to marriage, family and fidelity.
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The sad truth, however, is that Reisman is nothing short of crazy and in need of some heavy meds and no small amount of mental health intervention. That she is a doyenne of the far right speaks volumes about the fantasy based world in which the theocrats live. The New Yorker describes her as follows:
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Most Americans no longer give much thought to Kinsey as a societal force, but his detractors believe that his significance can hardly be overstated. A recent newsletter of the abstinence-education group Why know? compared the publication of “The Kinsey Report,” in 1948, to the attacks of September 11th, and labelled Kinseyism “fifty years of cultural terrorism.” Judith Reisman is the founder of the modern anti-Kinsey movement.
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In one article, Reisman describes Kinsey as “a scientific and moral fraud, a certifiable sexual psychopath as well as a sadomasochistic pornography addict and a sexually harassing bully.” Though largely unknown outside social-conservative circles, Reisman has been influential within them. She has served as a consultant to the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and was given seven hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars by Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department to study pornography. More recently, she has been active in the rise of abstinence-only education;
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To a reader of Reisman’s scholarly papers, it sometimes appears that there is little for which she does not hold Kinsey responsible. In her research on gays, for instance, she has written that the “recruitment techniques” of homosexuals rival those of the Marine Corps. The Kinsey paradigm, she holds, created the moral framework that makes such recruitment possible. Reisman also endorses a book called “The Pink Swastika,” which challenges the “myths” that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party and the Holocaust itself, she writes, were largely the creation of “the German homosexual movement.” Thanks to Alfred Kinsey, she warns, the American homosexual movement is poised to repeat those crimes. “Idealistic ‘gay youth’ groups are being formed and staffed in classrooms nationwide by recruiters too similar to those who formed the original ‘Hitler youth.’

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Once again, Wing Nut Daily has proven itself to be the platform for the seriously demented and seriously disturbed voices of the Christianist and neo-con far right.

Christo-Facsist Loon Warns of "Gay Take Over" of Military

I have written about Scott Lively before and his involvement in both "ex-gay" programs and his book, "The Pink Swastika" which has been discredited by legitimate historians. In my opinion, to say that Lively belongs in a mental institution is being kind. From e-mail exchanges and other run ins with the man I had some years back, Lively is beyond unhinged and I would wager that he is another George Rekers. Simply put, no one is that hysterically anti-gay unless they are a self-loathing closet case (and there are such rumors about Lively and alleged same sex activities).

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Now, Lively - who helped set the stage for anti-gay legal persecution in Uganda - is foaming at the mouth and claiming that a repeal of DADT will result in a gay take over of the U.S. military. How individuals like Lively are not institutionalized, not to mention actually listened to by the ignorant and the bigoted is mind numbing. Lively's ability to continue disseminating utter lies and defamatory fiction against gays underscores yet again the failure of the mainstream media to call out the nutcases and flat out discredit them on a national stage. Out of apparent desire to appear solicitous to religion, utter frauds, lunatics and con-artists continue to fleece the unwary. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has good coverage on Lively's latest lunacy Here are some highlights:
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Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively has a new post up at his web site, in which he promises to personally go all-out to oppose the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by distributing copies of his book, The Pink Swastika to every member of the Senate — assuming he can get the donations he needs. Yes, there’s a fundraising angle, but that shouldn’t distract anyone from understanding that Lively is a true believer in his Holocaust revisionism whether it pays him a red cent or not.
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In the Pink Swastika, Lively posits that the German Nazi movement was, at it’s very core, a homosexual movement, and that militant and violent fascism is the core feature and goal of the LGBT equality movement. He uses that same twisted view of history to argue against DADT’s repeal.
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Lively certainly can’t be faulted for having an overly-active imagination. Consider his prediction of what will happen if DADT is repealed. First, if gays are allowed in the military, then straight people will refuse to serve. Those straights who remain will turn to violence in response to the unrelenting sexual harassment. That violence will lead to “politically correct” sensitivity training, which will prompt a further exodus. This then leads to a draft, which would be supported by the “anti-war Lefties.” But that sensitivity training? It won’t work, so they will have to segregate the services into gay and straight units. And that’s when the homosexuals take over all the branches of the military — just like, he says, what happened in Nazi Germany.
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But in all seriousness, the truly disturbing part of this whole thing is this: Lively’s lunacy is easy to laugh at when he lets his paranoia run wild here in the U.S. But when he exports it to Russia, Eastern Europe or Uganda, it causes real and lasting damage. He’s a buffoon, but that doesn’t mean he’s not mortally dangerous.
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As Jim notes, Lively's craziness would be comical but for the fact that there are those who gladly accept his deranged message. And with homophobic members of the senior brass at the Pentagon looking for ways and reasons to torpedo the repeal of DADT, Lively's poisonous lies need to be exposed and fully discredited.

Scott Lively'sAnti-Gay “Nuclear Bomb” in Uganda

Fortunately, more and more blogs and news outlets seem to be slowly adding coverage about the "kill the gays" legislation pending in Uganda. Better yet, increasing focus is being placed on the role played by hysterical, lying Christian activists in setting the stage for such legislation. In the forefront of the lies and bogus anti-gay propaganda disseminated by the (in my opinion, based on my past e-mail exchanges with him) utterly deranged Scott Lively. Aiding and abetting him - even though many are now disavowing their roles - have been The Family, Rick Warren, folks at Exodus International and others of their ilk. Jim Burroway at the Box Turtle Bulletin has secured copies of some of the videos presented by Lively back in March in Uganda. The bulk of the information in the videos is utterly untrue, relies on fraudulent "research" and is contrary to the findings of legitimate medical and mental health associations. These people are a clear and present danger to religious freedom and peace and order and the public needs to wake up to this reality. Jim summarizes the video presentations as follows:

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This first video explores that “nuclear bomb” and its repercussions. In this video, you will see:
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■Lively’s defense against being labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (Ex-Gay Watch has posted a longer unedited video segment of his defense),
■Lively’s equating homosexuality with Nazism and fascism, and blaming the 1994 Rwandan genocide on gay people,
■Lively’s reinforcement of the false stereotype of gay people as child molesters,
■Lively denouncing foreign influences to “promote” homosexuality,
■Lively describing AIDS as just punishment for homosexuality,
■and the aftermath of Lively’s “nuclear bomb” in Uganda.

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Of the three videos we are debuting today, this is the most important as it puts Lively’s presentation in context with existing homophobia in Uganda.
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In this second video, we show more clips of him pumping up his credentials and expertise. He then goes on to completely mangle the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of “sexual orientation,” conflating it with a completely different category of sexual paraphilias. (Ex-Gay Watch’s longer unedited video segment is here.)

Andrew Sullivanhas a relevant analysis of what Lively's video speechs reveal. Hopefully, more and more Americans will wake up to what the the Christianist and GOP anti-gay jihad ultimately comes down to. Here's a snippet of what Andrew had to say::

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Well, here's a video of Lively's talk in Uganda that reveals what he says when he doesn't think he's being watched by Americans. He likens gays to mass killers, as the kind of people who would create a holocaust, as terrible dangers to civilization. This is the core of the Christianist message and the Christianist message is now the core of the GOP. At some point, you have to take these people's words seriously.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has an excellent compilation of posts that looks at the movement behind the "kill gays" bill under debate in Uganda - a mind set that seems to be spreading to other African nations. What's behind it all? It would seem American Christianists who are Hell bent to see gays legislated out of existence in a manner that they have not been successful in implementing in the USA. As with the Roman Catholic Church, these far right religious extremists have found fertile ground in Africa with its relatively uneducated populace. Faux "facts" and arguments that fail to be accepted in educated nations are sadly believed by a public that doesn't know any better and a leadership happily pocketing money from American Christianists.

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It is truly a toxic combination. In addition to the trio of gay haters pictured above - Don Schmierer, Scott Lively, Caleb Brundidge - other Christianists involved include Obama's BFF, Rick Warren, and the secretive organization known as "The Family." The compilation of posts begins back in February, 2009, and follows the involvement of U.S. Christianists in Uganda and the fast dancing and denials they have utilized to try to shift blame from themselves to Ugandan officials for the proposed genocide and/or "re-education" of gays. I'm sure these false Christians expect to make nice money implementing reparative therapy "ministries" in Africa even as the American Psychological Association has declared their use to be unethical as well as ineffective.

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The involvement of Scott Lively in the anti-gay movement is particularly disturbing because, in my candid opinion, Lively is stark raving insane. One of the first posts at Box Turtle Bulletin looked at this frightening circumstance and in hindsight should have been a sign of where things might lead:

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When BTB first broke this story, we couldn’t believe what we saw. Exodus International board member Don Schmierer would join Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively and ex-gay “counselor” Caleb Brundidge in a three-day anti-gay conference in Kampala, Uganda. Scott Lively already had a notorious reputation as author of The Pink Swastika, in which he claims that the Nazi movement was, at its core, a gay movement, and that violent fascism is the natural consequence of “the homosexual agenda.” “The Nazi Party was entirely controlled by militaristic male homosexuals throughout its short history,” he writes in his book, which is available online for free, and would be made available to conference attendees. He also adds that “There is no question that homosexuality figures prominently in the history of the Holocaust,” saying that German gays were eager to target Jews for extinction because of Judaism’s traditional prohibition against homosexuality. He doesn’t explain why Christianity’s traditional prohibition against homosexuality — which held a far greater moral influence throughout Europe — was ignored.
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It is this sort of rhetoric that has brought him the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Watch project. There are only ten groupswith anti-gay rhetoric so violent-laden and provocative as to qualify to appear on the SPLC’s list of anti-gay hate groups. Mere opposition to homosexuality isn’t close to being enough. It’s a very easy list to avoid landing on. But Scott Lively serves in a foundational or leadership capacity with nearly one-third of those groups: Abiding Truth Ministries (his own personal platform), Watchmen On the Walls (Lively was a co-founder of th group) and the School of Christian Activism (affiliated with the Springfield, MA church he attends and where he is a regular lecturer).
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Seeing an official of Exodus International and Brundidge, a relative unknown who is a “counselor” for Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation, appearing alongside someone associated with three separate hate groups was shocking enough. To see the three of them putting on an anti-gay conference in Uganda, which already had a recent history of anti-gay vigilantism and extra-judicial torture at the hands of police, we feared the worst. The problem was, we had no idea what the worst would be.

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The compilation is lengthy, but a worthwhile read if one wants to understand just how much the U.S. Christian Right is intertwined with the exploding homophobia in Africa.

Scott Lively tries to Sanitize Paul Cameron

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters has a great piece on the never ending efforts of the Christianists to recycle the discredited "research" - actually fabricated anti-gay propaganda - of Paul Cameron. This time the effort is being made by the equally anti-gay obsessed nutcase Scott Lively who I have written about before. Time and time again one will see Pat Robertson, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and other virulently anti-gay organizations cite statistic that depict gays as diseased, child predators and other equally heinous things. Lively is a menace and his efforts to rehabilitate Cameron are despicable, yet all too typical of Lively and his rabid anti-gay allies. Alvin McEwen does a great job exposing the truth in his post. Here are some highlights:

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Author of a discredited book that tries to link the Nazi Party with the lgbt community (The Pink Swastika) Scott Lively has really reached the lines of lunacy.In a One News Now article, Free handbook on preserving traditional family values, Lively talks about a "textboook" he has authored, Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the Gay Agenda: According to Lively, the book is a useful tool for families with children in the junior high to high school range. He adds that the book takes a close look at how the homosexual movement pushes its agenda.

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This book is created by someone who knows that he is telling refuted lies and distortions. A perfect example of this is not only Lively's usage of the discredited work of Paul Cameron but his sad attempts to rationalize the usage.

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First of all, Lively is lying. Much of Cameron's work has been published in pay-for-pay publications.And while it's easy for Lively to dismiss repudiations of Cameron to the "nefarious work" of "gay activists and their allies," he conveniently does not mention a few facts: . . . And let's not forget the condemnations rained down on him by the medical community:

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“(Cameron) misrepresents my findings and distorts them to advance his homophobic views. I make a very clear distinction in my writing between pedophilia and homosexuality, noting that adult males who sexually victimize young boys are either pedophilic or heterosexual, and that in my research I have not found homosexual men turning away from adult partners to children . . . I consider this totally unprofessional behavior on the part of Dr. Cameron and I want to bring this to your attention. He disgraces his profession.” - Dr. A. Nicholas Groth in 1984 after discovering that Cameron distorted his work.

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"Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists - American Psychological Association, 1983.

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Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism" - American Sociological Association, 1985.

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The groups run by Cameron and Lively (The Family Research Institute and Abiding Truth Ministries), by the way, are considered anti-gay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have this classification not because they believe that homosexuality is a sin.

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It is important to know the truth about Lively and Cameron because their nefarious and dishonest anti-gay propaganda is repeated time and time again by Christianist organization who KNOW they are lying and simply do not care. Were they truly Christians, they obviously would honor the Commandment against bearing false witness and lying. Their total disregard for the truth exposes them for what they really are: lying snake oil merchants who peddle lies and hatred.