text: Notoriously homophobic Pastor Scott Lively last weekend won a spot on the ballot in the upcoming Republican Party primary in Massachusetts. He is running against gay-friendly Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
  Pastor Scott Lively at the Republican Party convention on April 28. (Photo courtesy of WBUR)
  Lively has actively promoted anti-LGBT laws in Uganda and Russia and hopes to bring them to the United States as well.
  In a lawsuit filed by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) for Lively’s activities in Uganda, the U.S. judge found that Lively had engaged in “a vicious and frightening campaign of repression against LGBTI persons in Uganda,” but dismissed the suit last year for technical reasons. Lively is appealing to have the judge’s comments removed from the record.
  At the Republican Party convention last weekend, Lively won 28 percent of delegates’ vote, enough to qualify him for the Sept. 4 primary ballot.
  In an impassioned speech to the convention, Lively apparently won over conservative delegates by accentuating his support for President Donald Trump and not even mentioning his extreme positions about sexual minorities. The Boston Globe reported: “Lively emphasized his conservative credentials and did not mention gay people — ‘I’m 100 percent pro-life. I’m 100 percent pro-Second Amendment. I stand on the original intent of the Constitution. I’m 100 percent pro-Trump.’ ”
  Metro Weekly reports:
  Anti-gay pastor Scott Lively has qualified for the Republican primary in Mass. governor’s race
  Lively has a long history of statements advocating for the criminalization of homosexuality
  A conservative pastor with a long history of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has obtained the necessary support to challenge Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker in the Republican primary for governor.
  Scott Lively, a Springfield-based pastor who runs Abiding Truth Ministries, received 28% of the vote of nearly 2,400 delegates at the GOP state convention in Worcester over the weekend — significantly more than the 15% needed to qualify for the primary ballot.
  GOP officials, and Baker supporters, had hoped to avoid a primary, given Baker’s crossover appeal to Democrats and independents in the general election. As governor, Baker has amassed a pro-LGBTQ record, even signing a law providing nondiscrimination protections in public accommodations. Interestingly, that law is now being challenged at the ballot box, and Baker has promised to defend it on the campaign trail.
  Anti-gay Pastor Scott Lively (Photo courtesy of Out.com)
  When asked about Lively’s qualifying for the ballot, Baker told the Springfield, Mass.-based newspaper The Republican: “I’m more interested in the 70 percent of the delegates who supported my message and supported our administration.”
  Asked about Lively’s attacks on him as insufficiently conservative and insufficiently supportive of President Trump, as well as his more controversial statements on hot-button social issues, Baker said, “Look, there’s no place and no point in public life, in any life, for a lot of the things Scott Lively says and believes.”
  He also declined to discuss why Lively garnered more than one-quarter of the delegates in attendance at the party’s convention.
  “Look, I can’t get into the minds of people who made decisions to support us or support anybody else,” Baker said. “But I can tell you that Scott Lively, a lot of what he says and a lot of what he believes doesn’t belong in public discourse.”
  For LGBTQ Massachusetts residents, Lively’s candidacy is particularly concerning, given his past anti-LGBTQ statements or political positions. On his campaign website, Lively says that he supports the traditional definition of marriage, writing: “The natural family of a man and woman united in life-long marriage for mutual love and support and the bearing and nurturing of children — through birth or adoption — is the self-evident foundation of all civilization.
  “I believe the primacy of the natural family must be preserved and protected in the mainstream of society, with tolerance for those who choose to live discretely outside the mainstream,” adds Lively.
  He also appears to link political corruption to sexual immorality, writing: ” All corruption is rooted in the selfishness of people who put their personal lust for money, sex or power ahead of the best interests of others. The longer that corruption goes unchallenged, the deeper and wider it spreads through a society — like cancer — and the more harm it causes.”
  Lively made headlines a few years ago for his involvement with a network of right-wing pastors that encouraged governments abroad, most notably, the government of Uganda, to institute tougher penalties for those convicted of homosexual behavior, which is criminalized in the country. He told Ugandan lawmakers that gays were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust — a claim he first made in his 1995 book The Pink Swastika — and the Rwandan genocide, and characterized LGBTQ people as rapists and pedophiles.
  In response to lobbying from Lively and other anti-gay pastors, Ugandan lawmakers passed what critics called the “Kill the Gays” bill, which called for harsher penalties, up to and including the death penalty, for LGBTQ people. [Editor’s note: A life sentence was substituted for the death penalty before the “Kill the Gays” bill was enacted.] The law was eventually struck down as unconstitutional.
  Sexual Minorities Uganda, a group of LGBTQ Ugandans, eventually sued Lively, accusing him of being complicit in “crimes against humanity” for pushing lawmakers to pass the “Kill the Gays” bill.
  Although the lawsuit was eventually dismissed — not on the merits, but based on jurisdictional issues — U.S. District Court Judge Michael Ponsor found that the group likely could have made a compelling argument that Lively had played a role in pushing the anti-LGBTQ law. Even as he was throwing out the case, Ponsor made comments condemning Lively’s “crackpot bigotry” and accusing the pastor of aiding and abetting “a vicious and frightening campaign of repression against LGBTI persons in Uganda.”
  Beyond his work in Uganda, Lively has also claimed credit for Russia’s 2013 law banning “propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations among minors.” Russian authorities have since used the law to crack down on LGBTQ gatherings and to arrest activists. Under the law, anyone who speaks positively about homosexuality — or even neutrally — can potentially be punished for spreading pro-LGBTQ propaganda.
  Following Trump’s election, Lively said he hoped to see Trump push for laws similar to those in Uganda and Russia that would criminalize homosexual behavior, or positive portrayals of homosexuality or transgenderism, in the United States.
  Pastor Scott Lively claimed that his prayers persuaded God to create a natural gas explosion in 2012 that injured 18 people and leveled a building in Springfield, Mass., that was the location of a strip club. “I believe this was the hand of God at work in answer to our prayers,” he wrote.
  … Lively wrote on his blog that an explosion under a Springfield strip club, which injured 18 people, was a form of divine intervention. He also said he would pray “for the further cleansing of Springfield.”
  “I believe this was the hand of God at work in answer to our prayers,” he wrote. “We are giving Him all the glory and praise for this occurrence, since it is only by His power that any of our prayers can have any effect. We also thank God that no one was seriously injured in this blast, though it was enormous.”
  He then offered a prayer in which he asked God to “destroy the works of Satan in this city and ask you demolish them in such a way that it is clearly by your hand alone and not the works of men, saving the people but destroying the institutions that have set themselves against your truth.”
  Related articles:
  U.S. court: Pastor is ‘crackpot bigot,’ but not ours to punish ( June 2017, 76crimes.com)
  Scathing ruling dismisses lawsuit against anti-LGBT hate group leader Scott Lively on narrow jurisdictional ground (June 2017, Southern Poverty Law Center)
  Ugandan activists travel to U.S. seeking trial of anti-gay pastor (November 2016, 76crimes.com)
  AIDS panelist: Disagree on theology, but shun genocide ( July 2012, 76crimes.com)
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  Written by Colin Stewart
  Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern California. He is the president of the St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation, which supports LGBTQ+ rights advocacy journalism, and editor / publisher of Erasing 76 Crimes. Contact him at [email protected]
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  3 Comments
  Leave a Reply
  Lindy Miles says:
  May 5, 2018 at 5:01 pm
  Obviously Scott Lively does not believe in separation of Church and State. Also it is ironic that he professes to be pro-family yet supports our philanderer-in-chief. Through his religious crusades and associations with politicians, Lively has caused LGBTIQ people in Uganda and Russia to be mugged, shunned by families, and even killed. Scott has blood on his hands. Furthermore, to say that God caused that explosion in that nightclub as an answer to prayers shows me Scott has no moral compass.
  Reply
  Domingo Torres says:
  May 7, 2018 at 2:06 am
  This man is responsible for the many gay murders, assault and battery in Uganda as he brought gay porno movies to show the courts and e the ex-president Museveni to persuade the passing of the Anti-LGBT laws. President Museveni held from passing the law, but with one option, and that was he was waiting for the results of the testing for the search of homosexul gene, which never existed, but likewise neither does there exist a heterosexual gene by the same means. The man is a monster and all gay people should never forget him and people like him.
  Reply
  Domingo Torres says:
  May 7, 2018 at 2:18 am
  The demon Scott Lively 5.6.2018 10.15 PM
  This man is responsible for the many gay murders, assault and battery in Uganda as he brought gay porno movies to show the courts and e the ex-president Museveni to persuade the passing of the Anti-LGBT laws. President Museveni held from passing the law, but with one option, and that was he was waiting for the results of the testing for the search of homosexual gene, which never existed, but likewise neither does there exist a heterosexual gene by the same means. The man is a monster and all gay people should never forget him and people like him.
  I wrote this below when that demon got many gay Ugandans killed and assaulted in Ugandan. He was sited my the USA for human right violations for what he did and now he is back, probably going to use the last days unstable weather to claim his throne.
  Uganda Anti-Homosexual bill ‎Tuesday, ‎January ‎12, ‎2010, ‏‎112730 PM
  This is the first quote of The Principle 1.1 of the Anti-homosexual bill propose by Uganda. “The object of this bill is to establish comprehensive consolidated legislation to protect the traditional family by prohibiting (i) any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex; and (ii) promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any government entity in Uganda or any governmental organization inside or outside the country”.
  The source of this absurdity is of a conscience that violates the very root of what it says it’s trying to protect. The fact of the matter is that this directive depersonalizes and dissociates and divides a member of a family unit, who is born instinctively homosexuality. Given that a violent or murderous person is also part of a family unit, it is within the common sense of a community to mandate a law against those particular types of acts, which are grievous and horrendous. However this particular legislation is an act of hate and an excuse to legitimize the murder of innocent people who are born different from others. The conscience of this particular society lacks the intellectual development in understanding acceptable and tolerable differences in what the brotherhood of mankind is within God’s mandate of love. It is another form in the attempt to legitimize the incrimination of murdering or ruining the lives of innocent human beings.
  The people of Uganda and all those African countries must be enlightened and not be deceived by these political and religious evangelistic shenanigans who want to control people’s lives at the cost of depraving and segregating innocent lives, through their misunderstanding of Biblical scriptures. Yes it is unnatural for a heterosexual man or woman to take part in the act of homosexuality, but to a family member who instinctively does incorporate the heterosexual instinct as heterosexual do for one another, you are committing a grave injustice and colossal mistake.
  The fact of the matter is that procreation overbreeds population in all the species of this planet and from time to time becomes catastrophic, truth be told. Whereas resources to maintain a healthy life for a family unit becomes lacking because of this ignorance. Whereas also plague of locusts or rodent as in the black plague can be totally devastating. As such this behavior could only come from a conscience who wants to use the people of its nation to become a power for their purposes of maintaining the whims of the arrogant and their wealthy. This act is no different than the ethnic purging of one group of people against another.
  The scripture have warned us about minister like Scott Lively & Rick Warren and rest of them who follow suite. These are minister who make their livelihood on the backs of those who they judge and condemn when they are supposed to be teaching love and peace. They are taking advantage of the AIDS epidemic, in that it is not only in gay men as they have oppose the use of condoms from the beginning, when condoms came out, but heterosexuals also infect each other. Putting your follow men in prison for being who they are is not the answer to stopping this epidemic, but intense education is.
  Ro 13:1
  ¶ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
  Ro 13:2
  Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
  Ro 13:3
  For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
  Ro 13:4
  For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
  Ro 13:5
  Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
  2Co 3:6
  ¶ Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
  2Co 3:7
  But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
  2Co 3:8
  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
  2Co 3:9
  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
  2Co 3:10
  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
  2Co 3:11
  For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
  2Co 3:12
  ¶ Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
  2Co 3:13
  And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
  2Co 3:14
  But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
  2Co 3:15
  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
  2Co 3:16
  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
  2Co 3:17
  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
  2Co 3:18
  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
  Heb 1:14
  Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
  Mt 7:15
  Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
  Tony aka DJ Sunday Towers God’s DJ Conscience Truth Be Told
  3/2/2014 1:58:54 PM
  You know this things with the gays have nothing to do with the gays or anywhere around the world. Why all of the sudden certain countries are now against the gays as if though they were going to take over the world? In comparison to the heterosexual world population, the gays are a very small minority group of people, who do not even have the financial power to militarily or politically come into power. This anti-gay movement is being powered by three things; the religious groups of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Catholics, Episcopalians and Islam in an effort to hide the truth about their teachings on the subject to those who do not read or understand Biblical scripture on the subject.
  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that gays should be put to death or even put them into what these countries are doing. Real Theologians know the truth about the subject, just as well as I do, if they really studied the literature. The fact of the matter is that it was the heterosexual community back in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah that were practicing the act of homosexuality, as they were not homosexuals. There were no gays then, just married and wicked heterosexuals being promiscuous.
  The second thing that is motivating this anti-gay movement is the spreading of AIDS, between gay men, but not just gay men as there are many heterosexuals and children that have AIDS. Contrary to popular belief the fact of the matter is that AIDS originated from Africa itself, whereas there was already people infected and mostly the woman. Actually these African countries want the USA and Europe to stop sending financial and health aid to those countries, so as to blame their genocide on those countries and frankly this will not fly.
  The third is that they are seeking political allies to buy weapons from and stock up on their weapons arsenal. Like Saudi Arabia they have plenty of oil to sell and many other natural resources that they want to protect from other countries invading them for it. Israel has already offer them, weapons in exchange for their African detainees who they have in asylum and want to return to them back to Africa. They want to sacrifice the lesser of their minorities in exchange for attention to their ulterior motives.
  First they blame western influences for their gays, as if though they never had any gays in their country before the colonial days. There was and there is documented proof that there was. Nevertheless, as they have accepted the technologies of the west which has made their life easier and have made their industries operate efficiently and have educated many within their population to the standards of world colleagues, they now want to backstab the west with these false accusation, the west is indoctrinating their young people to become gay. In fact this is about the lowest inhuman act that a government can do to its own people, under the excuse of being immoral and unnatural, which is neither for those born that way.
  However, yes it is immoral for heterosexual families to do this, but if their offspring is born that way that trumps the immorality issue within the gay community, as this is their nature. Yes I agreed that it is unnatural as oppose to heterosexuality, but it is natural to a born gay person? So here we now are challenged to prove whether it is natural for a gay person to be born this way. Scientist have found no genetic markers to identify a gay gene. However the behavior has not been studied enough on a genetic level to make such an assumption that there is no genetic gay gene.
  Thus this behavior falls under the mental configuration of gay individuals. This is to say that being this way is not exclusive to any particular race or the world’s countries. Gay people have always been around from time memorial since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. One would think that destroying those two cities, would have totally eliminated the tendency from the birth of male and females, but it has not from the time of Jesus Christ. Killing all the gays in the world or even incarcerating them will not stop this natural, but unnatural phenomenon to intellect of those close minded people..
  So why is this? Nature has a way of controlling population and this is what this is believe it or not, accept period. However morally speaking it is prohibited for married heterosexuals to take part in this behavior which was not meant for them to do, period. Do not be fooled by the rhetoric, that a gay man will steal a woman’s man, and vice or versa, but in fact no real heterosexual man or real heterosexual woman, would give in to that all. All in all there is more to this new phenomenon that meets the eye.
  It’s my suggestion, is that all civilized countries stay away from doing business or giving any kind of aid to the entire continent of Africa; as they have said that they do not need outsiders to help them. If they are infected with any disease and died their blood is on their head until they all repeal this unnecessary anti-gay laws and revert to their international human rights agreement.
  Tony aka DJ Sunday Towers God’s DJ conscience
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  The “Erasing 76 Crimes” news site focuses on the human toll of 69+ countries’ anti-LGBTQ+ laws and the struggle to repeal them.
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  Members of the African Human Rights Media Network publish news articles and other media that educate readers about sexual minorities’ struggle for recognition of their human rights.