Box Turtle Bulletin

Scott Lively Warns of “Outbreak of Homosexuality” In Moldova, Part of a “Secret Plan By the Homosexual Powers of the EU”

Jim Burroway

March 6th, 2011

According to this clunky Google translation of a Moldovan news report:

Public Association “Pentru Familie” / “For the family / states that adopted recently by the Government bill threatens the institution of family and social morality as homosexuality is pick up swing in the Republic of Moldova. Visiting Association, an international expert in the field of human rights Lively Scott, warned of “an outbreak of homosexuality” in Moldova, in case the parliament adopts the bill, reports Info-Prim Neo.

This is a bill to prevent and combat discrimination, government-approved on February 17. 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.

…Foreign visitor Lively Scott stressed that this law has caused dire consequences in other countries where it was passed. “I guarantee you, if this bill passes, all the evil that struck the European Union, the collapse and to the Republic of Moldova”, – said the expert in the field of human rights.

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.

I’m having a hard time finding any more info on what Lively’s doing or saying in Modova, but here’s something I found interesting coming from what looks like an email to supporters from Lively posted to a Canadian web site:

However, in God’s divine schedule I arrived just after the first move of a secret plan by the homosexual powers of the EU to push an anti-discrimination law based on sexual orientation through the Moldovan government.

I wish I had known at the beginning of my ministry in the early 1990s what I know now. We might have stopped the homosexual agenda in America. What I know now, and have taught the Moldovans, is that the anti-discrimination law is the seed that contains the entire tree of the homosexual agenda, with all of its poisonous fruit. It is the cornerstone of their legal and political strategy, putting the power of the governernment [sic] behind the legal premise that the practice of homosexuality deserves public approval and that opposition to homosexuality, including that which is rooted in the Biblical world view, must be discouraged. From that premise the conclusion is logically inevitable.

The Moldovan version of the bill however went much farther than usual and included a far reaching provision to give homosexual activists power in the national school system, teacher training and the preparation of instructional materials. They normally don’t include such power-grabbing measures at the beginning, which indicates to me that they had extreme confidence that this law would pass with very little scrutiny or opposition.

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.

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. In 2009, he unleashed what he called a “Nuclear Bomb” in Kampala, Uganda. That sparked yet another round of anti-gay vigilantism and violence, culminating in the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in that nation’s Parliament.

Scott Lively endorses anti-gay violence in Uganda

Timothy Kincaid

February 3rd, 2011

It is not by coincidence that the three organizations with which anti-gay activist Scott Lively is associated are all deemed by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be Hate Groups. Lively has earned that well-deserved designation. And his latest commentary is not an exception. (RyanSorba)

Having accused gays of orchestrating Hitler’s Nazi regime and being responsible for genocide in Rwanda, it certainly isn’t beyond him to take the opportunity of David Kato’s horrific murder to declare that it is “lavender Marxists” that are murdering Uganda.

Uganda is being murdered. The nation once called “The Pearl of Africa” by Winston Churchill, a lush and beautiful country as fertile as the Nile Delta.

It is the nation that retained its self-rule through centuries of African colonialism, the society that survived even the atrocities of the cannibal cultist Idi Amin, the culture that has been thriving in Christian revival for over a dozen years.

This great and honorable nation, alone in Africa to have all but conquered the scourge of AIDS through abstinence – and whose First Lady led a holy gathering of thousands of believers on the eve of the millennium, dedicating her homeland “to Jesus Christ for a thousand years” – this Uganda, a shining light in the Dark Continent, is being murdered.

But while this nonsensical rhetoric is troubling, even more so is Lively’s endorsement of anti-gay violence in Uganda:

It is as if the militant ranks of “Code Pink” were transported back to 1890s America to agitate for “sexual freedom.” Our great grandparents would not have countenanced this. There would have been violence, as there has now been in Uganda. [emphasis added]

Lively claims that it is the gays themselves, “agents provocateur”, who deliberately goad naive innocents to murder them so as to “poison the gullible against the Ugandans.” It’s all a George Soros sponsored plot.

So violence is justified. Murder is justified. Pogroms are justified. Such things aren’t evil, just “reactions” to the murderous gays.

There is indeed evil in Uganda today, but it is not the reaction of Christian and Moslem citizens to the rape of their culture. It is the pink-gloved hand of western powers that are cutting the throat of Africa’s most God-fearing country, and one of the world‘s most promising Christian democracies.

Scott Lively responds to David Kato’s murder

Timothy Kincaid

January 28th, 2011

If you ever questioned whether holocaust revisionist, anti-gay activist Scott Lively is a truly reprobate man, consider this explanation of David Kato’s murder:

CNN is reporting that money and clothing had been stolen from his house, which would suggest a run-of-the-mill criminal intent. There is also the possibility that he was killed by a “gay” lover, as was the case with another homosexual activist two weeks ago in New York. Carlos Castro was castrated with a corkscrew by his boyfriend and bled to death in his hotel room.

Even after all this time, I’m still shocked when confronted by pure evil.

Manager At Scott Lively’s Coffee Shop A Convicted Child Molester

Jim Burroway

January 13th, 2011

Anti-gay extremist Scott Lively, who travels the world to preach that the international gay cabal is recruiting young children into homosexuality through child molestation, hired a convicted child molester as manager of his Springfield, MA coffee house. The manager, Michael J. Frediani, 38, who lived in an apartment above the coffee house was arrested this morning by Springfield police for failing to register as a Level 2 sex offender.

In New York, Frediani was convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree and aggravated sexual abuse in the second degree in 1996.

The charge relates to an arrest by police in Canandaigua, N.Y., in 1995 in which the victim was an 11-year-old girl. The description of the offense was “deviate sexual intercourse.”

He was sentenced to two to four years in state prison, serving at the Midstate Correctional Facility from September of 1996 to February of 1999, according to Carole Weaver, a spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Parole.

New York determined that Frediani was a level 3 sex offender under that state’s classification which indicates that Frediani is considered most likely to reoffend again. Lively says he didn’t know about Frediani’s past, and didn’t appear too concerned about it:

Frediani had told Lively that he had a “rough past before he became a Christian,” Lively said, adding that he did not know any specifics and that he saw no need for a criminal background check.

“That’s the beauty of the salvation of Christ,” Lively said. “When you come to Jesus Christ, and you accept his forgiveness for your sins, then you are forgiven by Him and enter a new life. It doesn’t surprise me that he had a rough past, that he has a criminal record.”

Right. He warns everyone that they should keep gay people away from their children, but just anybody can hang out with the local teens at Lively’s coffee shop. Yeah. Good thinking.

Lively’s coffee shop drew criticism last week from local officials when his new storefront ministry became a hangout for truent teens while skipping school.

Oh, and that bit about Lively turning over a new leaf and no longer being interested in anti-gay activism? I was skeptical. ”‘Let’s see where we are, say, a year from now,” I wrote. Well…

Lively said he continues to serve as a conference speaker around the world on the topic of homosexuality, but “it has nothing to do with the ministry in Springfield.”

That wasn’t even a full week.

Scott Lively’s New Leaf?

Jim Burroway

January 5th, 2011

The Boston Globe has an interesting profile of Scott Lively this morning, in which he claims that he is turning aside his old ways and focusing more on helping the downtrodden in his adopted hometown of Springfield, Massachuetts:

Every day, patrons stream to the Christian folk shows and Bible classes at Holy Grounds Coffee House, the café he opened about two months ago on a block not far from downtown. A thousand people turned out for the March for Jesus he led from the café to the steps of City Hall on the day before Easter. And dozens of children and parents flocked to a city park for his annual Family Day celebration, featuring a water slide, face painting, and grilled food. Even the mayor stopped by that event.

“You can’t walk down the street without being greeted by somebody saying, ‘Hey, Rev. Scott!’ ’’ said Lively, an evangelical pastor who moved to Springfield from California in January 2008. “It’s very satisfying.’’

…“He has won the hearts of his people with his sincerity and the things he’s doing in the community,’’ said Archbishop Timothy Paul, pastor of the Basilica of the Holy Apostles and president of the Council of Churches of Greater Springfield. “But I don’t believe people in Springfield really know who he is.’’

Who Scott Lively really is, is the virulently anti-gay activist whose Abiding Truth Ministriues has been on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s very short list of  anti-gay hate groups for a few years now.  Not only that but Lively is co-founder of Watchmen On the Walls, another identified hate group (it was those Watchmen connections that brought him to Springfield), and he has worked with Massachusetts-based School of Christian Activism and MassResistance, two more identified hate groups. He is the author of author of the widely discredited book, The Pink Swastika, in which he claims that the Nazi movement was, at its core, a gay movement, and that the inevitable result of LGBT equality would be the imposition of murderous fascism.

In 2009, he took his message to Uganda with Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge (Brundidge went on behalf of IHF head Richard Cohen). He would later brag that his messages was  a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda, which helped to prepare the groundwork for the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament.

The Globe provides considerable coverage of those events. Lively is unrepentant in his views about gay people, but he now says he has changed his focus.

“We’re not fighting the culture wars here in Springfield,’’ he said. “The issues here are more fundamental than that. You can’t deal with the culture wars with people who are struggling to survive. Those issues are not relevant. These are people who are trying to live.’’

“This whole mission in Springfield is to show by example the positive side of all this — that when you follow the Biblical approach and try to be as true to him [God] as you can, you get the maximum positive benefit for yourself and society,’’ he said. “It’s completely different from all the things that I’ve done in the past, which is going against the wrongs. We’re working toward what is right.’’

…Lively’s café features soft music and free Bibles, but no copies of “Pink Swastika,’’ or “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child.’’ On a recent day, two teenagers chatted at one table, and two lounged on a sofa, while a few regulars talked with the long-haired manager, Michael Free, who offers blessings to patrons.

So, has Lively fully abandoned the culture war? I doubt it. He’s made similar noises before, but since then has argued that repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would result in a Nazi takeover of the U.S. military, and he went on The Daily Show to say that gay men exhibit absolutely no moral restraint whatsoever. More recently, he ran as a write-in candidate for Massachusetts governor with MassResistance’s endorsement.

The Globe closes with Lively saying;

“If someone were looking for Scott Lively to stop being involved in the other stuff, this is it,’’ he said in an interview in his café. “Those people who criticize me, they should be happy.”

Believe me, I will be very happy when I never have to write about him again. Let’s see where we are, say, a year from now.

MassResistance Endorses Scott Lively As Write-In Candidate for Governor

Jim Burroway

August 13th, 2010

MassResistance, the most prominent group in Massachusetts that has been fighting a quixotic battle against ‘the state’s same-sex marriage law since the Goodridge decision, has become increasingly rabid in its anti-gay opposition. So much so, that they are one of only fourteen anti-gay hate groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (That’s out of 932 active hate groups in the United States the SPLC tracked in 2009.) But to give you an indication of how firmly entrenched they are in the politics of personal vilification, MassResistance has now endorsed holocaust revisionist Scott Lively as write-in candidate for Massachusetts governor in the GOP primary:

Lively is everything that (GOP primary front-runner) Charlie Baker is not. He is principled, pro-family, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-2nd-amendment, pro-religion, pro-parents’ rights, and utterly fearless.

Send a clear message to the RINO establishment

There’s nothing quite like voting for someone you actually support, rather than the lesser of two (or three) evils.

And by thousands (we hope!) of people voting for Scott Lively as a write-in candidate in the September 14 Republican Primary, a very strong statement will be made to the RINO Republican establishment, especially since relatively few people vote in most primaries. Don’t assume you own us. What you’re selling, we’re not buying. The people running the Massachusetts Republican Party love to use social conservatives to do the grunt work on campaigns, but they arrogantly see themselves as above “dirtying” themselves with the principled issues that conservatives care about.

Scott Lively is best known as the author of the widely discredited book, The Pink Swastika, in which he claims that the Nazi movement was, at its core, a gay movement, and that the inevitable result of LGBT equality would be the imposition of murderous fascism. He recently argued that repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would result in a Nazi takeover of the U.S. military, and he told The Daily Show that gay men exhibit absolutely no moral restraint whatsoever.

In March 2009, Lively was one of three American anti-gay activists to deliver what he called his “Nuclear Bomb against the gay agenda” at a conference in Kampala, Uganda which ultimately led to the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament. That bill calls for the death penalty against LGBT people under certain circumstances, and virtually criminalizes knowing or providing services to gay people. Lively has called that bill “a step in the right direction” and “the lesser of two evils,” although he claims to oppose the death penalty and has falsely claimed on multiple occasions that the death penalty has been removed from the bill. It has not. The bill, while unchanged, now appears stalled in two Parliamentary committees following international outcry.

Scott Lively himself is no stranger to the SPLC’s list of anti-gay hate groups. His own Abiding Truth Ministries, now based in Springfield, Massachusets, is also listed as an anti-gay hate group. He has worked closely with the other two Massachusetts-based anti-gay hate groups. He delivered a series of lectures at the School of Christian Activism, which is a ministry of the New Generation Christian Center. New Generation itself is a ministry of Latvia-based pastor Alexey Ledyaev, founder of the New Generation Movement. Lively and Ledyaev co-founded an international anti-gay movement known as Watchmen On the Walls, which is also listed as an anti-gay hate group by the SPLC.

(By the way, here’s a trivia note. The picture that MassResistance posted in their endorsement of Scott Lively is a cropped version of my screen-capture from video of Lively speaking on the first day of a Watchmen On the Walls conference in Riga, Latvia. What, they couldn’t get a headshot from their good friend?)

Which means, for those of you keeping track, that Lively is now working very closely with four of the fourteen anti-gay hate groups tracked by the SPLC.

Scott Lively’s ties with MassResistance are deep. He has appeared on MassResistance’s podcast as far back as 2006, and his writings are promoted in MassResistance’s web site. Last March, Lively joined Peter LaBarbera to speak at a MassResistance banquet. Last March, Lively joined Peter LaBarbera to speak at a MassResistance banquet.

MassResistance’s Brian Camenker spoke at a rally put on by the Plymouth Rock Tea Party last July. This appearance followed the cancellation of another Tea Party rally on the Lexington Battle Green due to controversy over Camenker’s participation.  Camenker will also appear at a South Boston Tea Party rally on Aug 22, where the featured speaker will be Don Feder. It should come as no surprise that Feder, who once described himself as being “to the right of Attila the Hun,” was also a featured speaker at the Watchmen’s Riga conference. Anti-gay extremism forms a very tight little world.

Scott Lively on the Daily Show

Jim Burroway

July 29th, 2010

Jason Jones caught up with Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively on last night’s The Daily Show. Believe me, you so have to watch this:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Gay Reichs
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

 
 
I loved watching Lively’s facial expressions as he understood how completely crazy he sounded at times. I wonder at what point did he realized that this was not your typical deferential documentary?

Scott Lively is co-author of The Pink Swastika, now in its fourth edition, in which he claims that Nazism and fascism were, at its core, a gay movement, and that in any country where LGBT equality becomes a reality, violent and murderous fascism would be the inevitable result. Last June, Lively warned that if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were repealed, the U.S. military would be taken over by modern-day Nazis. In March of 2009, Lively was one of three American anti-gay activists who put on a conference in Kampala, Uganda, which laid the groundwork for the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. He told that audience that murderous gay men were likely responsible for the 1994 Rwandan massacre.

Zagreb Pride

Timothy Kincaid

June 23rd, 2010

The Pride Parade in Croatia seems to have gone off without much problem. Yes, the neo-Nazis protested (they seem not to have read Scott Lively’s Pink Swastika), but riot police were on hand to protect the marchers. Check out some great pictures and commentary here.

Scott Lively Warns of Nazi-Like Takeover If DADT Is Repealed

Jim Burroway

June 2nd, 2010

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.

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.

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.

Whether or not a segregated service was initiated, a homosexual subculture of servicemen would form, characterized by intense internal loyalty and political ambition. Eventually, this “army within an army,” buoyed by pro-homosexual “affirmative action,” and the ability to act covertly (due to the fact that some would remain “closeted“) would come to dominate the services. What would they do with such power? The historical precedents are uniformly bad.

And just when the gay-Brownshirts have their own private army, that’s when the gay-hating Muslims gang up and attack. The end.

You know, I hope Lively does succeed in getting his message to every U.S. Senator. If he didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.

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.

Scott Lively Struggles With Uganda’s Death Penalty

Jim Burroway

May 27th, 2010

Current TV’s Vanguard reporter Mariana van Zeller has posted some outtakes from her outstanding documentary “Missionaries of Hate“. Already, we saw a six-minute interview with Ugandan MP David Bahati, who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Parliament in October 2009. What follows is an extended clip of her interview with Scott Lively, the American holocaust revisionist who delivered his infamous “Nuclear Bomb” at the March 2009 conference in Kampala that set the stage for the bill.

Lively leads off with the boast that he was “one of the people that helped to start the pro-family movement there. … This was all new to them.” And so they asked him to speak. It’s an interesting boast.  Lively claims credit for parachuting into this lost country and setting up a “pro-family” movement. Those poor Ugandan’s couldn’t have done it without him. But criticizing him for firming up the conditions that facilitated the Ugandans who put forth and supported the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, well, that’s racist to suggest Ugandans weren’t capable of doing this all on their own. (Of course, nobody has suggested such a thing. We’ve only noted his active participation in the process.) Yet there’s not even the slightest hint that this glaring contradiction has ever crossed his mind.

This clip also provides clearer context to Lively’s statement in the documentary where he calls the bill the “lesser of two evils,” the two evils being the bill itself or allowing the so-called “gay agenda” to take over Uganda. In the documentary, it wasn’t entirely clear whether the form of the bill he was endorsing as the “lesser of two evils” included or excluded the death penalty. In this clip, he’s more clearly against the death penalty, but he really has to struggle with it for quite a while before he gets there. After mulling over a few possibilities for its inclusion, he finally says, “I don’t believe that it’s… that I could support it that way.” Even still, it looked to me as though he was reluctant to say even this much against the bill. He looks as if he still needs some convincing.

Watch:

Click here to read a rush transcript of the interview.

Myths and Consequences: The True Impact of the Kampala Anti-Gay Conference

Jim Burroway

May 26th, 2010

One criticism of the coverage of the three American Evangelists who held their anti-gay Kampala Conference in March 2009 and its aftermath is over the inference that without the conference, we wouldn’t be in this mess today. Critics of our coverage have charged that we have blamed Uganda’s rampant homophobia on these American activists — a position we have never held. Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, one of the principal American speakers who delivered his “nuclear bomb” at that notorious conference  has even played the race card: “It’s racist to suggest that Africans have no will of their own to produce public policy to suit their own values.”

While we do reject the notion that homophobia in Uganda is an American import, I think it is proper nevertheless to hold the three Americans — Lively, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer, and the International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Brundidge — accountable for the conference and its aftermath. As many independent observers have noticed, this particular conference, with the unwieldy title “Exposing the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda,” turned out to be – as I correctly feared when I first learned about it a week before it took place – the prime catalyst for the massive convulsion of anti-gay hysteria which followed and ultimately led to the tabling of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament.

Bishop Christopher Senyonjo is a rare straight allies for LGBT people in Uganda, and he’s paid a very heavy price for his support. Last Friday, I asked him whether the link between the conference and the events following were overstated:

Jim Burroway: Over here in the US, we often get an unclear, distorted view of what’s happening in Uganda. But when we look, we find that there have been a lot of outing campaigns in the 2006, 2007. To put things in perspective, did that conference really make things worse for LGBT people in Uganda? Or was it just that the rest of us in the Western world, we noticed it because we hadn’t been paying attention before? Did it really make things worse?

Bishop Senyonjo: What we saw coming to the office, it made things worse. Because soon after that conference, we saw the introduction of the bill, you know what I mean? Because I think it was October something when Bahati came out with that bill, And we knew, I knew, different ones were at that conference that before the people come to speak to us, Lively and his company, they had also met with some members of Parliament and talked with them, even I think with the Minister of Integrity. So they had met with him and of course they spoke with someone in power behind them. Right? And not long after, this bill comes up.

Burroway: So, some of the people that you counsel, have they talked about their fears about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill?

Senyonjo: Oh yeah.

Burroway: Do you have any particular examples you can share without breaking anybody’s confidentiality?

Senyonjo: Many, many are afraid, and they have been coming and talking to me about it. And they are afraid and would like to run out of the country. And that is something very difficult. They don’t know how they can live in Uganda like that because their life will be in great danger, because they feel they cannot change what they are. And because many are losing their employment, we are trying to see that we can have some place where people can have what they call self-employment in a certain way so that they may not live a destitute kind of life. We’re trying to do what we can, to have some possible room where you can have people, even if for a short time in a transition to allow them to see where they are going. Some people would need some shelter for some time, they could need transit to get to work…

Burroway: Because a lot of them loose their family, too, is that correct?

Senyonjo: Oh yeah. That’s true. … so it is not easy. There is real fear of what is going to happen if this bill passed. And that is why many of us feel everything possible should be done to reject this bill.

Bishop Senyonjo was an eyewitness to all three days of the three-day conference, so I pressed him to talk more about Lively’s talk –particularly Lively’s assertion that homosexuality and Nazism are inextricably linked, and his blaming the Rwandan genocide on gays — but he was reluctant to touch those topics. “It creates a lot of unnecessary fears,” he said. “It does, and we may probably not want to repeat those.” Besides, he felt that those who attended the conference didn’t place much weight to those two points, which surprised me because I thought that those were the most incendiary parts of the entire conference.

Instead, it turns out that the centerpiece message that came out of the conference was Lively’s,  Brundidge’s and Scmierer’s reinforcement of the myth that gays recruit school children through child sexual abuse. That was the message which struck a particular chord in Uganda. Bishop Senyonjo concurred:

Burroway: One of the things that I keep reading in the newspapers in Uganda that are on the Internet is that there’s a widespread belief that gay people are recruiting children in the schools, and then I heard basically Scott Lively say the same thing at his conference. Do you think that his talk helped confirm some of those fears that people have?

Senyonjo: Yeah. In fact, even myself, I was at one time accused that I was going to schools and trying to recruit, as it were, people into homosexuality, which is actually blackmail. And you can see, what are the intentions of these people to do this? …. People who will say this, they have very evil intentions which I don’t understand. Because I don’t go to schools to recruit young people. In each …. People develop into what they are, they know themselves whatever they are, what kind of sexual orientation they are. They are not being recruited into it.

Buroway: I know. I mean nobody recruited me.

Senyonjo: [Laughs] That’s what I’m saying there’s a lot of work we have to do in education. They threaten the parents, they say that people are going to schools trying to recruit their children into being gay or what?  This is not true, you know?

This reinforcement of the already prevalent myth — and it truly is a myth – is perhaps the worst legacy of the conference. As NPR’s East African correspondent Gwen Tompkins reported last December:

Scott Lively’s philosophies have been deeply internalized here among those who are proponents of the law, and for people who are listening to these public dialogues on homosexuality, they’re hearing Scott Lively’s words reiterated by Ugandan Evangelicals and others who are proponents of the bill. And they believe it to be Gospel. They believe it to be scientific fact, what they’re listening to.

The Vanguard episode, “Missionaries of Hate,” which premieres tonight on Current TV, further confirms the critical role that March 5-7 conference played in propelling this myth as “scientific fact.”  Here is one exchange between Pepe Onziema of Sexual Minorities Uganda and Peabody-award winning reporter Mariana van Zeller:

Pepe Onziema: (SMUG) The conference basically introduced the idea that homosexuals, their agenda is to recruit children into homosexuality.

van Zeller: So before this conference this concept didn’t really exist in Uganda?

Onziema: No.

The truth is, despite Pepe’s recollection, this allegation didn’t originate with the conference. I’ve seen these allegations in Uganda media long before the conference took place. But Pepe’s faulty memory reinforces what NPR’s Tomkins reported, that because those prior suspicions are now regarded as “scientific fact,” the March 5-7 conference has now been thoroughly associated with being the origin of the charge. Where before, the myth was passed on as rumor, this conference led by three American “experts” elevated this rumor to ”fact.” Human rights advocate Julius Kaggwa told van Zeller confirms, “The theme of this conference was the gay agenda and the gay agenda was that there is a massive recruitment of school children into homosexuality.” He added:

There is a culture of fear among gay people and among non-gay people. I mean the non-gay people are fearing that the gay people are invading our culture and want to recruit children into this thing. The gay people are scared because there’s a massive onset of hatred, if you look like you’re gay then you might be arrested, you might get mob justice, you might just get assaulted. So there is generally fear on every front.

And to match what Bishop Senyonjo told me about his clients’ fears in the conference’s aftermath, van Zeller followed the story of “Long Jones,” a gay man who was arrested by police following the conference. Because of the conference, he said, “people became more out and spying and mentioning others.”

As we noted yesterday, van Zeller talked to Scott Lively, who admitted that he knew that Ugandan lawmakers were considering new legislation to “strengthen” their already draconian anti-homosexuality law (life imprisonment is already the current penalty, depending on how it is prosecuted). And as we have reported multiple times, the three Americans also met with Ugandan members of Parliament as part of their tour in March, 2009.  Van Zeller also spoke with MP David Bahati, who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Parliament. She asked him why he wrote the bill. His response:

I did that for the sake of protecting our children. Here in Uganda we have a problem of people promoting homosexuality, especially using money and materials to recruit young people.

And we know exactly where he got his ”facts” from.

“Missionaries of Hate” airs Wednesday on Current TV at 10:00 EST. A preview is also available on Hulu.

(See also part 1 and part 2 of our talk with Bishop Senyonjo.)

Missionaries of Hate: Where Killing Gays Is the “Lesser of Two Evils”

Jim Burroway

May 25th, 2010

Wednesday night’s premiere of the Vanguard documentary “Missionaries of Hate” represents the most complete video record so far of the past year’s anti-gay turmoil in Uganda that began when three American Evangelical held an anti-gay conference in Kampala in March, 2009. That conference set the stage for a long, drawn-out anti-gay convulsion that rocked the nation and ultimately led to the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Parliament.

Reporter Mariana van Zeller interviewed most of the key players in the drama that we’ve been following closely for the past year, including the bill’s sponsor MP David Bahati, Ugandan pentecostal pastor Martin Ssempa, and many LGBT people who were most directly affected by the conference and its aftermath. But for me, the most riveting interview came near the end of the program when Mariana sat down with Scott Lively:

van Zeller: Do you then support the rest of the bill if you remove the death penalty part of it?

Lively: I would not have written the bill this way. But what it comes down to is a question of lesser of two evils. What is the lesser of two evils here? To allow the American and European gay activists to continue to do to that country what they’ve done here? Or to have a law that may be overly harsh in some regards?  I think the lesser of two evils is for the bill to go through.

Maybe this explains why Lively has decided to go on the offensive, so to speak.

Lively also admits that he knew they wanted to introduce a “strengthened” anti-homosexuality bill before he conducted his anti-gay conference in Kampala alongside Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Brundidge. He says however that he didn’t know what the new bill would contain. The earliest draft of the bill that we have been able to find was one dated April 20, about six weeks after the conference. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced into Parliament on October 15.

One of the producers provided me with a preview of the documentary, and apart from a very few minor quibbles I cannot recall any other report in print or video which delves so completely and thoroughly into the aftermath of the infamous March 2009 anti-gay conference. Martin Ssempa’s bombastic presence looms large in the documentary, where we learn that his much-mocked predilection for showing gay porn was far more widespread than first reported. In fact, I lost count of the number of times he brought out his trusty laptop. We also see brief interviews with MP David Bahati who introduced the bill into Parliament (He believes that God chose Uganda for this battle), and we see footage of Lou Engle’s rally earlier this month on a sports field at Makarere University.

But most importantly, we see the effects of the bill through the eyes of LGBT people living in Uganda, some of whom were outed in the newspapers, experienced death threats, were arrested by police and beaten, and driven from their homes by their neighbors. Almost all of them remember the March 5-7 conference as the key instigator of the anti-gay hysteria that swept the nation last year. Referring to the three American evangelicals who lead that conference, Julius Kaggwa asked aloud, “I wonder if they are aware of just how much damage their visit caused?”

Whether they have been aware of it up until now, this documentary will leave no doubts about their culpability from today forward.

“Missionaries of Hate” airs Wednesday on Current TV at 10:00 EST.

Update: A preview of “Missionaries of Hate” is also available on Hulu.

Scott Lively Initiates Renewed Push to Pass Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill

Jim Burroway

May 24th, 2010

After laying low for a while amid news reports that Ugandan leaders may quietly drop the draconian Anti-Homosexuality BIll, it appears that Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively has decided become a pitchman for the bill’s passage, albeit in a slightly altered form.

Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton discovered via an email sent to supporters that Scott Lively has decided to “get off defense and counter-attack the false witnesses with hard facts about Uganda.” Toward that aim, Lively yesterday posted a letter on his web site dated March, 2010,  addressed to Edward Ssekandi, the speaker of Uganda’s Parliament. In that letter, Lively urges the prompt passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with some minor modifications. Lively suggests that the death penalty be dropped from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, but as Dr. Throckmorton notes, Lively’s position “sound(s) pragmatic rather than principled.” Lively writes:

First and foremost, the inclusion of capital punishment for what you have classed as “aggravated homosexuality” is, in my view, a disproportionately harsh penalty. You may not be aware that capital punishment has been banned in numerous countries, even for the most extreme cases of aggravated murder. This is held as such an important policy that these nations will often refuse to extradite criminals to their home countries (including the United States) if there is any possibility that they will be subject to capital punishment there. Advocating the “death penalty” for “mere” sexual crimes evokes such a severe negative reaction in most Western nations that all other aspects of the law, and the rationale for drafting it is ignored, and very “gay” movement we seek to oppose is strengthened by public sympathy they would not otherwise enjoy.

Conversely, if the “death penalty” provision were removed, it would take the wind out of the sails of their current campaign against the bill. With so much of the international opposition rooted in the idea that this is a “Kill the Gays” law, the removal of this provision would represent enough of a concession on your part that a great many of the people who are now siding with the homosexual movement out of sympathy would consider the matter resolved. The “gay” activists and their political allies will, of course, continue to attack the bill, but from a much weaker position.

Lively also argues that the provision requiring individuals to report gay people to police should be dropped as well. “it is too vague,” he writes, “and because it targets people who may live as homosexuals in their private lives, but who do not seek to recruit others or legitimize their lifestyle in the larger society.” He argues instead that they should enact a “provision along the lines of child abuse reporting requirements in the U.S.”, but with the cut-off age for reporting being extended to the age of twenty-five, which is well into adulthood:

I believe you could easily adapt this model to your purposes by imposing this same reporting requirement on anyone with knowledge of homosexuals who involve themselves with anyone under a certain age. If, for example, you encompassed all youths under the age of twenty-five within this shield of protection, you would stop virtually all “gay” recruitment in your country, since normal young men and women are usually firmly set in their heterosexual identity by their mid-twenties.

Lively also argues that the bill should encourage “rehabilitation,” which, given the already draconian lifetime imprisonment penalties under current Ugandan law for homosexuality, would amount to coercing LGBT people into unproven and harmful conversion therapies.

Individual leaders at Exodus International, North America’s largest ex-gay organization whose board member, Don Schmierer, spoke the March 5-7, 2010 conference in Kampala alongside Scott Lively prior to the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, have come out against forced therapy schemes, although to date we are still unable to find an official Exodus International position statement on its web site.

Officials with The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), the so-called “secular” arm of the ex-gay movement, have also come out against coerced therapy schemes, although at this time I also cannot find a position to that effect on NARTH’s web site either. Because Lively refers to both organizations as “experts” in ex-gay matters, I believe, once again, that it is essential for Exodus and NARTH to place such statements on their web sites, since this is most certainly not the first time this issue has arisen.

Lively’s letter to Speaker Ssekandi does not appear to have reached the speaker directly, and the only reply that Lively posts on his web site comes from MP Charles Tuhaise, who received a copy of Lively’s letter via Ugandan pentecostal pastor Martin Ssempa. Tuhaise says that dropping the death penalty may be considered, but rejects Lively’s other suggestions, labelling them as part of the same failed strategy which allowed pornography to “[break] barriers in Western society and became insidious.” Tuhaise continues, “It’s like the proverbial ‘Camel and herdsman story’. Today it is a foot in the hut, tomorrow it is a leg in the hut, next day its the head in the hut; before long, the herdsman is tossed out of the hut.”

Tuhaise says, “Ultimately, I see no way out in taking a stand and paying the price,” and comments Luively for having “stood up to homosexual intimidation for so long as a lone voice.”

Scott Lively Endorses “Revised” Ugandan Bill. Do Exodus And Cohen?

Jim Burroway

January 10th, 2010

Scott Lively issued a statement dated today saying that he now supports the “revised” Anti-Homosexuality Bill. We have no idea what the revisions might be. Media reports indicate that it’s merely an elimination of the death-penalty provision, leaving the life imprisonment aspect intact, which is hardly an improvement given the prospect of spending the rest of one’s life rotting away in a Ugandan prison. Lively indicates that there is a forced conversion option, which would please him to no end. Of course, without knowing what the text of the “revised” bill might be, we have no way of verifying any of his claims which must be taken with a grain of salt.

In the lead-in to his statement, Lively says:

“I can’t say that I necessarily agree with every element of the revised bill, but I believe this revision is an acceptable compromise under the circumstances and well within the prerogative of a civilized sovereign nation”

The bill, as currently written, has the following provisions:

• It expands the definitions for homosexual acts, making conviction easier. Current law requires evidence of penetration. The new law would expand the definition of homosexual activity to”touch(ing) another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” Touching itself is defined as “touching—(a) with any part of the body; (b) with anything else; (c) through anything; and in particular includes touching amounting to penetration of any sexual organ. anus or mouth.”
• Affirms Uganda’s lifetime imprisonment for those convicted of homosexuality.
• Defines a new crime of “aggravated homosexuality” for those who engage in sex with someone under the age of 18, who are HIV-positive, who is a “repeat offender” (so broadly defined as to include anyone who has had a relationship with more than one person, or who had sex with the same person more than once), or who had sex with a disabled person (consensual or not). The penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is death by hanging.
• Requires anyone arrested on suspicion of homosexuality to undergo HIV testing to determine the individual’s qualification for prosecution of “aggravated homosexuality.”
• Criminalizes “attempted homosexuality” with imprisonment of seven years.
• Criminalizes “promoting” homosexuality with fines and imprisonment of between five and seven years. This overly-broad provision would criminalize all speech and peaceful assembly for those who advocate on behalf of LGBT citizens in Uganda . It could also be used against anyone extending counseling or otherwise aiding gay people. It would also criminalize any attempt to repeal or modify the law in the future, as those moves could also be seen as “promoting” homosexuality.
• Criminalizes the act of obtaining a same-sex marriage abroad with lifetime imprisonment.
• Adds a clause which forces friends or family members to report LGBT persons to police within 24-hours of learning about that individual’s homosexuality or face fines or imprisonment of up to three years.
• Labels landlords and hotel owners as proprietors of “brothels” and penalizes them with five to seven years imprisonment for renting to LGBT people.
• Adds an extra-territorial and extradition provisions, allowing Uganda to prosecute LGBT Ugandans living abroad.
• Voids all international treaties, agreements and human rights obligations which conflict with this bill.

Since Lively has lent his endorsement to a revised version of this bill apparently sight unseen. Assuming the death penalty is stricken and the alternative to rotting away the rest of one’s life in a dank Ugandan prison is the false “choice” of forced conversion, it is incumbent upon him to answer which of these provisions he thinks are “well within the prerogative of a civilized sovereign nation”?

Let’s face it, Scott Lively is irredeemably evil, fully earning his three spots on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-gay hate groups. But what about the others? Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge cast their lot with Lively when they agreed to speak on the same platform with him. They haven’t fully condemned his continuing agitation in Uganda for a bill that he calls “a step in the right direction.” And, more importantly, they haven’t condemned Scott Lively’s hate-filled vendetta itself.

In fact, when Exodus International removed their link to Lively’s online condensed version of The Pink Swastika (which blames gays for Nazism and the Holocaust), they kept the tantalizing title “Homosexuality and the Nazi Party” which a quick Internet search lands the unsuspecting searcher onto Lively’s exercise in Holocaust revisionism. As for the link, Exodus now explains, “This opinion article by Scott Lively from 1995 is no longer offered by Exodus International.” Why not? Is it because they suddenly found Lively’s article objectionably after having provided that link since at least 2005? Or is it just because the “research” is out of date or that it’s no longer hosted on LeadershipU’s web site? Nobody knows and Exodus appears satisfied with that ambiguity. As of tonight, it’s still there. International Healing Foundation’s Richard Cohen hasn’t denounced Lively either for that matter.

Since they have not unambiguously disentangled themselves from Lively himself, their reputations remain entangled in his ongoing meddling in Uganda’s legislative process. And with that entanglement, they need to answer these questions: Do they agree than any part of this bill is a step in the right direction? If so, which parts?

Now more than ever, it is incumbent on Exodus president Alan Chambers, Cohen, Brundidge and Schmierer to fully and resolutely condemn Scott Lively and the other provisions of this bill, and issue a full apology to the LGBT citizens of Uganda who are suffering from the public vigilante campaigns which their conference sparked. They need to do this now before the idea of a “revised” bill being acceptable gains any further ground. It is long past time for them to call out evil by name.

But as I said, I doubt they will. To date, none of them have shown the integrity, the guts, nor the authentic witness of the Christian faith that they claim to hold so dear. Unless they separate themselves completely, forcefully, and without reservation from this unconscionable mess, Uganda will forever be their legacy and their cowardly silence will become the indelible image of Christ seen by LGBT people the world over. And thousands of Ugandans — and many more thousands of Americans — will never forget it.

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

BTB Videos: Scott Lively Delivers His “Nuclear Bomb” To Uganda

Jim Burroway

January 6th, 2010

Scott Lively was one of three American activists to speak at an anti-gay conference in Kampala, Uganda on March 5-7, 2009. The other two participants were Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge. Two weeks after the conference, Lively bragged that he had delivered a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Ex-Gay Watch and Box Turtle Bulletin have obtained some videos of that conference, and for the first time we get to see what that “nuclear bomb” looks like.

This first video explores that “nuclear bomb” and its repercussions. In this video, you will see:

• 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.

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.

Is it any wonder Ugandans want to kill gay people?

By the way, notice how Lively considers himself as one who “knows more than almost anyone else in the world” about homosexuality. 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 an entirely different and unrelated category of sexual paraphilias. (Ex-Gay Watch’s longer unedited video segment is here.)

In the last video, we see Lively explaining his three causes of homosexuality. Yes, just three of them. Unfortunately, none of his theoretical causes are supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature. (Ex-Gay Watch’s unedited video segment is here.)

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Scott Lively: Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill “A Step In the Right Direction”

Jim Burroway

January 4th, 2010

Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, one of three Americans who put on an anti-gay conference in Kampala last March which served as a catalyst for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that is now before Uganda’s Parliament, appeared on Alan Colmes radio program to discuss the proposal. He called the bill “a step on the right direction” because “they want to actively discourage the mainstreaming of homosexuality.” But Lively said that the bill “goes way over the line in punishment.”

For quite a long time, Lively was unwilling to say what an appropriate level of punishment would be. After several minutes of hemming and hawing, Colmes finally pinned Lively down. With seconds left in the segment, Lively conceded that they should be no imprisonment.

Update: Here is the last part of the segment, in which Lively tries to defend Uganda’s bill being “a step in the right direction”:

Here is the entire interview:

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of the past year’s anti-gay developments in Uganda.

NARTH: Forced Therapy Is “Unethical and Unworkable”

Jim Burroway

December 29th, 2009

Getting the National  Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) to say specifically whether coercing people into conversion therapy is unethical or not appears to have been extraordinarily difficult, but Grove City College professor has managed to get them to do just that.

The issue has arisen again lately in Uganda, where the Parliament is currently taking up the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would provide for the death sentence for LGBT people under certain circumstances. While the entire bill is wide-ranging and dangerous for straight people as well as gays, the death sentence has garnered particular scrutiny. Now backers of the bill say that they may drop the death penalty and add a clause to provide forced conversion therapy for those convicted. It is unknown whether the forced therapy would be as an alternative to the lifetime prison sentence, or an adjunct to it.

The idea of forced conversions appears to have come from Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, one of three American anti-gay extremists who led a conference in Kampala last March. The other two Americans, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge, were there as conversion therapy “experts,” but they remained completely silent as the idea was allowed to fester for the succeeding nine months. NARTH also remained silent, even though Scott Lively touted NARTH as the leading experts on conversion therapy during the conference.

Finally, Warren Throckmorton was able to get a statement from NARTH. The group’s past president, A. Dean Byrd, wrote this reply to Throckmorton:

Dear Dr. Throckmorton,

As you are aware, NARTH’s Governing Board has accepted the Leona Tyler Principle which states that NARTH, as a scientific organization, takes no position on any scientific issue without the requisite science or professional experience.  NARTH members, as individuals, are free to speak on any issue.

NARTH values the inherent worth of all individuals and respects individual right of autonomy and self determination.

NARTH’s position on homosexuality was clearly articulated by Dr. Julie Harren Hamiliton in a recent edition of the APA Monitor: homosexuality is not invariably fixed in all people – some people can and do change.  And psychological care should be available to those who seek such care.

NARTH encourages its members to abide the Code of Ethics of their respective organizations and such codes proscribe the coercive efforts. It goes without saying that NARTH would support the humane treatment of ALL individuals.

We are aware of the situation in Uganda but thank you for bringing this to our attention. I am sure that you are aware that as a scientific organization, NARTH does not take political positions; however, we are happy to provide a summary of what science can and cannot say about homosexuality for those who do.

Dr. Throckmorton, if history is a good indicator, you will likely not be happy with this response. However, I hope such responses will help you understand NARTH’s mission as a scientific organization.

With warm regards,

A. Dean Byrd, PhD, MBA, MPH

The line about NARTH not taking political positions is utterly laughable. You don’t even have to go beyond the front page on NARTH’s web site before you find links decrying the supposed “dangers” of same-sex marriage.

That aside, it was difficult to find the denunciation of forced conversion therapy. If you blinked, you might have missed it. But here it is again, with my emphasis:

NARTH encourages its members to abide the Code of Ethics of their respective organizations and such codes proscribe the coercive efforts.

After further inquiries from Throckmorton, Byrd clarified:

Research tells us that forced therapy is almost always a failure. It is unethical and unworkable.

Scott Lively specifically recommended NARTH to his Ugandan audience, saying, “After my web site, this is the one I consider the most important.” But if Ugandans go to  NARTH, they will not find a single statement anywhere which provides guidance on coercive therapy. Exodus also continues to refrain from placing a statement on their web site as well, although Exodus President Alan Chambers did say in a Facebook posting, “I am NOT for forced therapy for gay and lesbian people.”

It’s good that NARTH and Exodus leadership has now come out against forced therapy. But since this is not the first time this issue has come up — and it certainly won’t be the last time either — isn’t it time these two organizations finally made these statements official and accessible? What reason could they possibly have for keeping them hard to find and off of their own web sites?

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Scott Lively Denies Responsibility for Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill

Jim Burroway

December 18th, 2009

NPR’s East Africa Correspondent Gwen Tompkins reports on NPR today:

Scott Lively’s philosophies have been deeply internalized here among those who are proponents of the law, and for people who are listening to these public dialogues on homosexuality, they’re hearing Scott Lively’s words reiterated by Ugandan Evangelicals and others who are proponents of the bill. And they believe it to be Gospel. They believe it to be scientific fact, what they’re listening to.

NPR’s Michel Martin then spoke to Scott Lively about the March conference, in which he defends his role in the events in Uganda. Lively acknowledges being “a consultant” on the law before it was drafted. Here is the audio:

As you can hear, this is a typical soft-ball NPR interview. There’s no mentioning of the fact that Scott Lively has played a leading role in three of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ten anti-gay hate groups. There’s no examination of Lively’s Holocaust revisionism aside from an oblique reference to his “controversial” book at the beginning. In fact, none of his controversial beliefs surrounding Nazi Germany and the Holocaust came up. Instead, Lively pretends that he was simply asked for his opinion and he gave it. Whatever happens after that is none of his concern.

But here’s the kicker (at the 4:47 mark), when Lively said:

“It’s racist to suggest that Africans have no will of their own to produce public policy to suit their own values, and that three little-known, not very influential figures from American could come in and basically dominate this process. That’s pretty racist. We don’t have that kind of influence. We gave our opinion. And if it was true that our opinion was so weighty, then they would have backed off immediately, hearing all of us saying that we don’t agree with what they did.

The problem with that is that he’s constructed a very easily defeated strawman, as he is wont to do. First, we have long reported that Uganda’s violent hatred of its LGBT citizens had already provided fertile ground for the March anti-homosexuality conference to take root. It was that awareness of Uganda’s recent violent history that made the conference by Lively, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Brundidge so alarming. Lively’s rhetoric — which Gwen Tompkins reported had been repeated and accepted “as Gospel” among influential religious leaders in Uganda — included blaming gays for a “pedophilia” problem in the country, blaming gays for Fascism and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and blaming gays for the Rwandan genocide of 1994. And we know through video evidence that Lively’s historical revisionism has played a role in this year’s anti-gay hysteria.

But not only does he discount his own inflammatory rhetoric he also ignores the repeated assertions by Ugandan politicians that “homosexuality is a learned behavior” (which comes straight out of Schmierer’s and Brundidge’s talks in March). He also he also ignores the very real influence his pronouncements continue to have in Uganda. Uganda’s political and religious leaders are now talking about including Livey’s forced conversion therapy option as a possible amendment to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. That was his idea, which he proudly owns.

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

The Hate Bus stops in Manhattan

Timothy Kincaid

December 11th, 2009

As discussed earlier, I believe that the Manhattan Declaration is an attempt to divide the Christian community into two camps and give a platform for which conservatives can appear to be the voice of Christendom. Further, it appears in many ways that the sole differentiation between those who signed on to this movement and those who did not is the degree to which they are opposed to inclusion of gay Christians into the body of believers.

Now the Manhattan Declaration is posting “additional signatories“, those who were not part of the original collection but whom they believe have significant stature in the Christian community. Two of the new signers are worth note.

16. Andrea Lafferty
Traditional Values Coalition

17. Dr. Scott Lively
Abiding Truth Ministries

There are at present only ten groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “anti-gay hate groups“. Two of them are the Traditional Values Coalition and Abiding Truth Ministries.

Scott Lively is also one of the American participants at the conference in Uganda that is tied to the proposed “kill gays” bill.

Andrea Lafferty joins her father, Lou Sheldon, who was an original signatory and is the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition.

(hat tip GoodAsYou)

Scott Lively Issues Statement On Uganda

Jim Burroway

December 11th, 2009

Today, Scott Lively, one of three American anti-gay activists who participated in an anti-gay conference last March in Kampala, decided to drop his two cents’ worth on the Uganda debacle that he helped to create. In a statement posted on his Defend The Family web site, Lively says that he’s against the death penalty. But he also supports the rationale and hatred that is driving that proposal, while excusing his own actions and repeating his earlier suggestion that Uganda institute forced conversion therapy instead.

Lively begins his piece by recounting the story behind Uganda’s Martyrs Day, an official holiday which marks the deaths of 22 young men who refused to submit to rape by King Mwanga II of Buganda between 1885 and 1887. Lively is not to first to equate predatory rape with consensual relationships of affection between people of the same gender, and he won’t be the last. But he uses this canard to claim that “By official count 22 young men were executed under Uganda’s law on homosexuality.”

Such is the state of bigotry in Uganda that conflating homosexuality with rape is so commonplace that it has become a part of the national lore, and such is Lively’s eagerness to exploit that hatred to justify his actions. Lively’s statement builds on the image of all gays being predatory by spreading the oft-repeated rumors circulating in Uganda that wealthy foreigners are “converting” Uganda’s youth to a lifetime of homosexuality through the influence of wealth. And what does he think should be done about it?

Scott Lively speaking at a 2007 Watchmen On the Walls conference in Riga, Latvia

Let me be absolutely clear. I do not support the proposed anti-homosexuality law as written. It does not emphasize rehabilitation over punishment and the punishment that it calls for is unacceptably harsh. However, if the offending sections were sufficiently modified, the proposed law would represent an encouraging step in the right direction. As one of the first laws of this century to recognize that the destructiveness of the “gay” agenda warrants opposition by government, it would deserve support from Christian believers and other advocates of marriage-based culture around the world.

Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren is now on record as saying that Christian leaders have a moral responsibility to oppose Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act. Warren goes further, saying, “I oppose the criminalization of homosexuality. The freedom to make moral choices is endowed by God.” This sets Lively in direct opposition to the most respected Evangelical pastor in the nation, and it leaves Uganda with a very clear choice. They can either do the Christian thing and drop the Anti-Homosexuality Act, or they can remove some of the most outrageous provisions and still be aligned with one of the world’s most venomous anti-gay Holocaust revisionists. That’s quite a position to be in.

Click here to see BTB’s complete coverage of the past year’s anti-gay developments in Uganda.