Abiding Truth Ministries founder Scott Lively sparked international outrage when he worked with anti-gay forces in Uganda to foster legislation that would impose the death penalty for homosexual activity. While the future of that bill is still up in the air, a Ugandan LGBT group is suing Lively for crimes against humanity in Massachusetts federal court.
Scheduled to begin Monday at 11am, the caseis believed to be the first use of the Alien Tort Statute—which gives American courts the right to hear human-rights cases brought by foreign citizens for conduct committed outside the US—involving sexual orientation.
The New York Times reported in March:
The lawsuit alleges that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that homosexuals would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture. The Ugandan legislature considered a bill in 2009, proposed by one of Mr. Lively’s Ugandan contacts, that would have imposed the death sentence for homosexual behavior. That bill was at first withdrawn after an outcry from the United States and European nations that are among major aid donors to Uganda, but a revised bill was reintroduced last month.
Mr. Lively is being sued by the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda under the alien tort statute, which allows foreigners to sue in American courts in situations alleging the violation of international law. The suit claims that Mr. Lively’s actions resulted in the persecution, arrest, torture and murder of homosexuals in Uganda.
Lively, who is being defended by the anti-gay legal Liberty Counsel. has distanced himself from the bill’s original death-penalty clause but endorsed an allegedly revised version that imposed life imprisonment.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
He’s made a real habit of stirring up virulent homophobia overseas: Lively co-authored The Pink Swastika, which posits that “homosexuals [were] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities,” and formed the anti-gay Watchmen on the Walls in Riga, Latvia. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, the Watchmen “are known for presiding over anti-gay rallies where gays and lesbians are pelted with bags of excrement.”
Below, Lively delivers an hate-filled address at a 2009 conference in Uganda.
h/t: Joe.My.God
Cam
If he loses my guess is he flees to Uganda or some other country to avoid penalties.
Ron Jackson
Lively is the embodiment of religion and the curse it has put upon humanity.
1EqualityUSA
“Mr. Lively” will be a verb by the time he makes it out of prison.
Nicholas
@Cam: And from there, he’ll film a profile in courage for NOM’s “marriage anti-defamation alliance.”
Barry
I am very happy to see LGBT Ugandans fighting back! We GLBT Americans need to do the same and support GLBT Ugandans. This guy hates in the name of religion. Gay people deserve equality everywhere and certainly should not be murdered for loving their partners. Insanity
Little-Kiwi
Good. the man should be in jail for life.
2eo
@Ron Jackson: This, absolutely this, the movement of money from American religious organisations to military juntas organising mass murder and gang rape on hundreds of thousands of innocent people can NOT be ignored forever.
The actual face of religion are these people, every religious person who won’t work against them is completely implicit in these crimes.
MACDONALDBANK
Being black, left-handed or being gay is just as natural. It is a sometimes rare occurrence to fall in Love and to hold that person in your heart and be loved in return … it is something that should be celebrated! If it’s between two guys or two girls — all the better. It takes even more courage to defend that LOVE!
I am the son of a catholic father who never went to church and a protestant mother who took us to church and Sunday school. Onward christian soldiers; I think not. Such absolute drivel. To be manipulated by a santa claus; an easter bunny and worst of all a bogus cross?
It’s now time to shut down the synagogues and churches with the torah & bibles with Leviticus 18:22 and Deuteronomy 13:12-16. To see the religious lunatics manipulate government and peoples’ lives — is shameful.
Many theologians state quite correctly that the birth; crucifixion; resurrection and other elements of christianity actually didn’t even happen! Churches are committing hate crimes and more succinctly a violent criminal offence against a federally protected minority namely the gay community. It is actually a bigger moment in history … gays standing up for equality … the realization that there is something far more evil at work — hateful religion which should be discharged from society – period.
Religion and the churches should now be exposed as a bigoted structure that gets away with hate mongering. It is a criminal offence to cause harm onto others physically or with written items; torahs – old testament/new testament bibles have been getting away with corruption and cultism based on bogus hocus pocus.
There is no scientific evidence to prove any of the cross related bogus elements of christianity and other religions. Our early human ancestors; on this earth … go back more than 6 million years … 5,996,000 years before the Greeks, Romans and the Jews. Christianity is basically a 2012 year old fictional cult. In the year 300 AD when Emperor Constantine, who to some was the first pope; went on to fabricate & market Christianity! Christianity is a fantasy; which turned out to be one of the most hateful & evil concoctions ever perpetrated on the world.
It is written; so therefore it shall be? We are the chosen people; such a wicked fantasy.
Einstein stated in a letter recently auctioned that the bible was a collection of primitive legends. He said believing in God was childish and he as a Jew is no different than another person and are not chosen by God.
The pope is running a bigger fraud than Madoff’s $50 billion ripoff.
Today’s evangelical extremists are like the nazis who cast others into ovens & are actually supremacists – who practice their bogus hocus pocus – and are trying to suppress and deprive others of their happiness and their legal rights in an open and proud society.
ctalluto
People are so stupid. The funny thing is that he looks like the average bear that you would see at any Gay Pride celebration. You know what the say, the ones who protest the loudest…..
bmwblonde
I’m going to add to ctalluto’s comment. Duh. Guess what totally SELF-HATING assholes always do? The project their self-hatred outwards and try to inspire others to do likewise. Gee “Lively” a closet case? Ya think? Pretty major self-hatred to try to inspire an ignorant third-world country to MURDER the outward projection of his hated self (FAGS).
Really, you just couldn’t make this stuff up. Or to quote a Psychologist friend of mine: “At LEAST he could have some ORIGINAL material!” (Nope, small minds — big cliches).
goweho
Tyrannical men first attempt crimes against humanity in other nations before pointing them inward. Until we have marriage rights, gays will always risk extinction and even then must be vigilant to keep them.
daniwitz13
@MACDONALDBANK: Actually Homosexuality is the biggest FRAUD on this Planet and so are you. To “claim” others have ‘no proof’ when you yourself has ‘no proof’ is Hilarius. You “seem” to be smart by your Co. advertizement but it ‘seem” to end there. You don’t know what you are promoting here. You “seem” to be parroting old cliches of programmable ramblings. You sir, have ‘no proof’ of what you say and what you advocate. Pity.
darkmoonman
I hope that Mr. Lively has an abundance of Christian arrogance (the kind that allows them to pat themselves on the bad for spreading hatred and prejudice in their god’s name) so that he will still be on US soil when the court finds him guilty.
jmmartin
I’ve posted this elsewhere, so if you have read it, I apologize; move on as you will. A short time back, I began to hear of the Right ReverEND Scott “Sis” Lively, a fine example of that most treacherous of animals, a religious nut lawyer. This guy has lurk-attack tendencies. I know, I exchanged a series of emails with the jerk. He has a cognate locally (I am in South Texas) in an attorney who had a good practice in civil law, with a specialty, even, and dropped it to research and write a book “about religion and the law.” He wrote a letter to the local daily about how church-state separation was a “myth,” and from reading his blog I got the distinct opinion he is a bigoted Catholic or evangelical who writes apologist metaphysics and submits to obscure publications specializing in dogma and drivel. He and I had a little online jousting as well. If there is one thing these bigots have in common it is their intolerance and blind adherence to delusional fantasies about deities and eschatologies.
Humanedge
@daniwitz13: Hey, do everyone a favor, if you’re gonna troll, at least troll with style and finesse.
2eo
@Humanedge: I dunno, that’s a great level of gibberish, far in excess of the paid trolls here like Brent and BJ.
I actually have no idea what he’s talking about, which is a massive step up, I enjoy reading gibberish because this is how the mind of radicals actually are.
LadyL
What a despicable human being. I am rooting for Sexual Minorities Uganda and (ahem) divine justice. But whatever the verdict, my guess is that Mr. Lively is soon going to start packing.
Aaron
“Lively co-authored The Pink Swastika, which posits that “homosexuals [were] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities,””
I guess Lively is not familiar with the origins of the Pink Triangle, although I guess that symbol has fallen a bit out of favor. I’m sure the gays who were tortured and executed in prison camps alongside the Jews would like to know that they did it to themselves…
Aaron
While the number of homosexuals in German concentration camps is hard to estimate, Richard Plant gives a rough estimate of the number of men convicted for homosexuality “between 1933 to 1944 at between 50,000 and 63,000.”
After the camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, many of the pink triangle prisoners were often simply re-imprisoned by the Allied-established Federal Republic of Germany. An openly gay man named Heinz Dörmer, for instance, served 20 years total, first in a Nazi concentration camp and then in the jails of the new Republic. In fact, the Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, which turned homosexuality from a minor offense into a felony, remained intact in both East and West Germany after the war for a further 24 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle
Aaron
Sorry to go on about this, but I have no tolerance for people who try to re-write the Holocaust as anything other than what it was. I am not a hateful person, but I hope this man gets everything that he deserves in life and after. I do not believe in vengeance, but I DO believe in justice, and I hope for justice for the people whose lives have been lost through this man’s crusade of hatred.
My rant is ended for the night.
Brilliance
“homosexuals [were] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities,”
Except that the Nazis persecuted and killed homosexuals . . .
gaym50ish
Lively and co-writer of “The Pink Swastika,” Kevin Abrams, did NO original research for their book. They cited other research out of context and ignored the parts that refuted their claims.
The myth that the Nazis condoned homosexuality was started by socialist opponents as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay, and he was murdered on Hitler’s orders in 1934.
When the Nazi party came to power in 1933, Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s security chief, announced that homosexuality was to be “eliminated” in Germany. Between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to concentration camps and many thousands died there.
In 1942, the Nazis instituted the death penalty for gay men. Offenders in the German military were routinely shot.
Dpille
We need to fight these kind of monsters. We cannot take away their freedom of speech, but we can redefine what a charity is, and isn’t. If we take away their 501c3 charity status’s, hate groups like these will no longer be able to raise money and spread their message of “Hate the Gay’s” throughout the world. Please sign my petition;
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/783/478/762/stop-the-funding-for-hate-groups/
Also, join me on facebook at; https://www.facebook.com/AmericansFightingIntolerance
Thank You.
Mykey
Pity how the Africans and Arabs are used by religion to perpetuate superstition and hatred!
Daggerman
..can anybody really believe this ****head! How does he or the rest of the world define a GAY person? How stupidly ignorant can one be? He’s only referring to out of the closet homosexuals anyway. I.E. the obvious ones, the effeminate, camp and outrageous gays. Well for a start most gay men aren’t gay acting at all so what on earth is this t***t on about. How can anyone tell?? He really ought to be killed himself….for being so immature.
gppm1103
@daniwitz13: You really are trolling today. Please learn to spell and use some comprehendible sentence structure.
Sorry to tell you the truth but actually MCDONALDBANK is right.
There is no “God”.
BigCat
@MACDONALDBANK: MACDONALDBANK – you are cut from the same mold as Lively- you group and condemn religions as being “a bigoted structure” and call for the banishment of Christianity. How is your assessment that all religious (and Christian) people are bigoted and should be done away with any different than Lively’s attempt to do away with all homosexuals because he feels that all homosexuals are predatory pedophiles?
Both of these notions are imperialistically and ideally wrong- and have no business being postured in today’s world. What is needed are ways for communities to work together in the support of human rights for all- for are we really free from bigotry if our argument stems out of hatred for another culture? Please take the time to actually read the New Testament instead of making outlandish and obscure generalities based on the lack of understanding you have. Many in the gay community are actually Christians.
2eo
@MACDONALDBANK: Well said Mac, well written, intelligent and morally accurqate, only a cretin could disagree, and then he should top himself, because it would be funny.
Redpalacebulleaglesox
@MACDONALDBANK The Biblical passages you have quoted have been taken out of context by those who hate. They actually are in the context of referring back to the Commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and describe various adulterous acts. Therefore, there is no condemnation of homosexuality, only extra-marriage acts of sex by those who are married. The reference by “Paul” (who knows who actually wrote the Epistles) in Romans refers not to homosexuality but the hypocrisy of the Roman ruling class by accepting any sexual act committed by the rich and royal but executing the common folk for doing the same things (the Tiber River isn’t known as the “River of Corpses” for nothing). Do not take English translations of scripture as being totally accurate either, they are translations of translations of translations ad infinitum ad nauseum. I invite you to check out my church in the web or Facebook, The Church of St Paul and St Andrew on West 86th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. If you’re in the neighborhood, check us out any Sunday at 11:00am. Also check out Reconciling Ministries Network and Methodists in New Directions. We are organizations and congregations which do not accept what the denomination (United Methodist Church in our case) spews out on sexuality and we actively, to the point of conducting marriages for all in our churches, practice a policy of “biblcal obedience” as described by Bishop Talbert following the spiritual violence inflicted on the LGBTTQS community by the 2012 United Methodist General Conference. We will not allow the haters and bigots to pervert God’s Holy Word, “You will love God with all your heart, soul and might; and you will love your neighbor as yourself.” Those who do pervert God’s Holy Word, those who deny God’s unconditional and iniversal love for all of God’s creation is in denial of God’s Holy Word. Those who deny are in voluntary separation from God, which places them in the state of being known as Hell.
Redpalacebulleaglesox
Reference my last comment, Scott Lively (he should change his name to Deathly) has placed himself in Hell by his words and deeds. Let the Massachusetts Court confirm that in secular law. Also, in the next to last line of my previous post, there is a typo. The word is “universal,” not iniversal. Many apologies, I do try to proof read but I don’t catch everything.
Basicbull
Ironic that a nation like the United States can have such a law that its citizens can be brought to trial for such deeds committed in a foreign land, and yet in so many of our states gay citizens are denied the right to marriage equality. However, I would be very proud as an American to see this man locked behind bars for the misery he’s helped inflict upon the people of Uganda and anywhere else in the world.
Sluggo2007
@Aaron: “My rant is ended for the night.” THANK FUCKING GOD!!!