Religious right anti-hate crimes rally featured person from actual hate group

by: Alvin McEwen

Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 07:46:27 AM EST

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Submitted for your approval and laughter, scenes from the anti-hate crimes rally:

For those who are not aware of this fact, the first speaker at .09 seconds is Scott Lively, the head of Abiding Truth Ministries. Abiding Truth Ministries is an officially declared hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and mostly because of Lively.

A while back, Lively wrote a book, The Pink Swastika, which  incorrectly affiliated the Nazi Party in Germany with the lgbt community. The book has been repeatedly discredited, including in 2005 and in 2007:

Stephen Feinstein, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, said the book was "produced by a right-wing Christian cult and is as correct as flat earth theory."

In addition, Lively has been known to sanitize the reputation of  the discredited researcher Paul Cameron even to the point of lying about Cameron's work being published peer-reviewed journals (it wasn't) and claiming that Cameron's critics have no scientific merit to criticize him (they do):

While Cameron has been the subject of intense, unrelenting criticism (and mockery) by “gay” activists and their allies, he has produced an impressive body of work related to the homosexual issue, much of it published in peer-reviewed journals, and I do not believe the criticism of his work is merited on scientific grounds.

Also, according to Box Turtle Bulletin:

(Lively) is associated with not just one, not two, but three of just eleven organizations identified by the SPLC as a hate group (He co-founded Watchmen on the Walls, founded Abiding Truth Ministries, and he is now the leader of the School of Christian Activism). If that weren’t enough, he spoke at a banquet last winter for a fourth SPLC hate group, Mass Resistance.

This year, Lively was amongst the number of anti-gay figures who journeyed to Uganda for a three-day conference. In this conference, Lively helped to stoke a myriad of anti-gay lies and myths.

And anti-lgbt sentiments in Uganda are totally different than they are in America in terms of how the government embraces them.

Last month, the Uganda government was pushing an anti-gay bill which favored :

  . . .lifetime imprisonment on conviction of homosexuality, and defines a new category called “aggravated homosexuality” with provisions for the death penalty upon conviction. Among the factors which can lead to “aggravated homosexuality” is if one partner is HIV-positive. This bill would mandate HIV testing to determine eligibility for “aggravated homosexuality.”

The bill also pushed :

a complete ban on all LGBT activities — including blogging — which could be construed as “promoting homosexuality.”

So even after all of that, Lively didn't get arrested for what he said Monday. It's further proof that religious right claims about hate crimes legislation is inaccurate.

But it still bugs me how he tries to make himself into a noble soul during his speech when he goes on about how he will continue to say that homosexuality is wrong regardless of whether or not he gets arrested.

He needs to focus on his eagerness to lie.

Or does he think lying is okay.

One would think so based upon his history.

More than anyone could ever do, Lively puts the absolute hypocrisy of these folks on center stage. He is a perfect example of the old adage that action speaks louder than words.

The type of love that he and his cohorts claim to have is the type that no one needs.

More information about Scott Lively and Uganda can be found here at Truth Wins Out.