Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Scott Lively, the head of Abiding Truth Ministries, is a resident of Springfield, Massachusetts. Lively is a controversial evangelical pastor known for having a homophobic agenda. He “specializes in stirring up anti-gay feeling around the globe.” When he was a young man, Lively said he had a “live and let live” attitude toward gays. Once a liberal, he admits that he was an alcoholic and a drug addict until he “got saved” in 1986. He says that since then his “focus has been to restore a biblical focus with regards to marriage and sexuality.”
Jack Rodolico (Latitude News) says that after coming to Christ, Lively began to view social issues “from God’s perspective”—and his “faith began to fuel the fire of his activism.” According to a report in the National Journal, “Lively became a lawyer, author, and advocate in pursuit of the cause.” In 1992, Lively got involved in Oregon’s Ballot Measure 9. That measure “would have amended the Oregon Constitution to summarily recognize ‘homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism and masochism as abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse.’” Rodico reported that Oregon voters denied Lively and his anti-gay colleagues a victory—but only after “an ugly political battle ensued.” Rodico said that the defeat left a lasting impression on Lively.
BALLOT MEASURE 9
About a decade ago, Lively gave up on the United States “when one of his cases (challenging an antidiscrimination law) failed.” Lively said, “I began shifting my emphasis, which is going to the other countries in the world that are still culturally conservative to warn them about how the Left has advanced its agenda in the U.S., Canada, and Europe—and to help put barriers in place. And the goal is to build a consensus of moral countries to actually roll back the leftist agenda in my country.”
According to Mariah Blake (Mother Jones), Lively first visited the country of Uganda in 2002. Blake said that Lively “has cultivated ties to influential politicians and religious leaders at the forefront of the nation’s anti-gay crusade.”
Blake:
Just before the first draft of Uganda’s anti-gay bill began circulating in April 2009, Lively traveled to Kampala and gave lengthy presentations to members of Uganda’s parliament and cabinet, which laid out the argument that the nation’s president and lawmakers would later use to justify Uganda’s draconian anti-gay crackdown—namely that Western agitators were trying to unravel Uganda’s social fabric by spreading “the disease” of homosexuality to children. “They’re looking for other people to be able to prey upon,” Lively said, according to video footage. “When they see a child that’s from a broken home it’s like they have a flashing neon sign over their head.”
Alex Seitz-Wald (National Journal) said that Lively and a small band of “incredibly influential” American activists “spend their time crisscrossing the globe to meet with foreign lawmakers, deliver speeches, make allies, cut checks, and otherwise foment a backlash against the so-called international gay-rights agenda…” Seitz-Wald says that—in a large part of the world—they’re winning. Seitz-Wald wrote that in the month of December 2013 alone India’s Supreme Court “re-criminalized homosexuality, Nigeria outlawed LGBT advocacy (gay sex was already punishable by up to 14 years in prison), and Uganda passed a watered-down version of its infamous ‘kill the gays’ bill, which allows for life prison terms—if not the death penalty—for ‘aggravated homosexuality.’”
Mariah Blake wrote that when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the new harsh anti-gay bill into law in late February, he said that the measure had been “provoked by arrogant and careless western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality.” She said that what Museveni “failed to mention” was that the legislation itself was “largely due to Western interlopers, chief among them a radical American pastor named Scott Lively.”
Blake—like Seitz-Wald—reports that Scott Lively isn’t the only US evangelical “who has fanned the flames of anti-gay sentiment in Uganda.” She says that as the anti-gay groups continue to lose ground at home, religious conservatives are increasingly turning “their attention to Africa. And Uganda, with its large Christian population, has been particularly fertile ground for their crusade.”
In The Uganda Anti-Gay Bill’s U.S. Roots, Michelle Goldberg writes about Uganda being an African country “where American-style evangelical Christianity is exploding.” Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, has reported that the sponsor of the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is David Bahati—the secretary of the Uganda branch of The Family…and that the bill’s champion C. Martin Ssempa “was a protégé of Rick Warren.” Goldberg added that Stephen Langa, a major anti-gay activist, is the head of Uganda’s Family Life Network, which happens to be “an affiliate of the Phoenix-based group Disciple Nations Alliance.” Note: The Family, a secretive American evangelical organization, has a number of powerful and influential members—including “Sens. James Inhofe, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn.”
Goldberg says that American Christians never urged their counterparts in Uganda “to try to institute the death penalty for homosexuality.” Still, she notes that the “ideology underlying the bill comes from American conservatives.” She adds, “It is Americans who have elaborated a vision of homosexuality as a satanic global conspiracy bent on destroying society’s foundations, akin to the Jewish octopus in classic anti-Semitic narratives.” Goldberg also reports that according to Warren Throckmorton—“an evangelical psychology professor once associated with the ex-gay movement”—anti-gay activists in Uganda “cite materials by Scott Lively and Paul Cameron, two of the fiercest American opponents of the so-called homosexual agenda.”
Scott Lively on how homosexuals supposedly prey on children
SOURCES
Barney Frank: ‘Repudiated’ U.S. ‘hatemongers’ are promoting anti-gay laws in Uganda (Raw Story)
The painful case of Pastor Scott Lively, homophobe to the world (Washington Post)
Evangelicals Are Winning the Gay Marriage Fight–in Africa and Russia: Evangelical advocates, having failed here, are finding friendlier audiences all over the world. (National Journal)
The Crusader (Boston Magazine)
Uganda’s anti-gay bill refocuses attention on US evangelical influence: Uganda’s President Museveni signed into law Monday a bill that criminalizes homosexuality with life sentences and punishes efforts to raise or discuss gay issues. (Christian Science Monitor)
U.S. exporting homophobia to Uganda: And debate in Uganda divides evangelicals back in U.S. (Latitude News)
Scott Lively & Rick Warren: The PR Campaign to Whitewash the Right’s Anti-Gay Uganda History (Political Research Associates)
The Uganda Anti-Gay Bill’s U.S. Roots (The Daily Beast)
U.S. evangelicals on the defense over Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act (Religion News Service)
~ Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Did I say I taught …. Hmm… I think I said I worked for the education industry……
Hmmm… I don’t think that is how your phrased it originally or I would not have been asking what you taught. Working for the education industry is broad enough to cover the guys who deliver the books. I have both taught and worked for the world’s largest educational publisher as a fact-checker. I and probably 50 others are co-authors of one of the current high school literature texts. I was responsible for all of the ELL and Gifted questions for the textbooks as well as specific units. Just some of what I did for them.
Yep…. But some folks are cute without effort…
Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, Ugandan Cleric, Ministers To Gays Despite Nation’s Law
AP | by RODNEY MUHUMUZA
Posted: 03/30/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/30/bishop-senyonjo-uganda-gays_n_5056746.html
Excerpt:
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Young men sing hymns and recite the Bible before the Rev. Christopher Senyonjo gives a sermon on human sexuality. When the service is over some go to his desk, one by one, for counselling no other Ugandan religious leader is known to offer gays.
Dressed in a purple shirt and white collar that highlight his Anglican faith, Bishop Senyonjo doesn’t organize his Sunday evening prayers for homosexuals only. But his sermons attract many gays who are familiar with his sympathetic views in a country where other Christian preachers have led Uganda’s anti-gay crusade.
For ministering to homosexuals, Senyonjo has become estranged from Uganda’s Anglican church. He was barred from presiding over church events in 2006 when he wouldn’t stop urging his leaders to accept gays. The parish that he once led doesn’t even acknowledge his presence when he attends Sunday services there, underscoring how his career has suffered because of his tolerance for gays in a country where homosexuals —and those who accept them — face discrimination.
“They said I should condemn the homosexuals,” he said, referring to Anglican leaders in Uganda. “I can’t do that, because I was called to serve all people, including the marginalized. But they say I am inhibited until I recant. I am still a member of the Anglican church.”
Paul,
I don’t need to “look it up.” Still, you can continue to dig a hole for yourself beyond the pail.
😉
Elaine – you have now insulted an entire race. A race known for long memories and payback.
Elaine,
I’m of the club…. Once it’s out there…. I can’t do too much about it…. So unless the syntax affects my meaning…. Why, take more time…. Kinda like footnotes that go on for about 4 pages…. Seems like a waste….
I just find it aPauling that this has been allowed to go on….
AY – I bought your story about teaching at face value, now I am beginning to doubt it. The more I read your writing, the more I am of the opinion that you were blowing smoke.
Paul,
“AY – cute, but maybe you just can’t spell.”
Says the man who told me that I had spelled “beyond the pale” incorrectly…when I hadn’t.
Elaine – technically it is “beyond the Pale” which you have yet to look up. 🙂
Well aPauling…. Maybe I just didn’t care….
AY – cute, but maybe you just can’t spell.
Is paranoia as rampant as homophobia?
OMG…. Someone made a spelling error…. Omg…..
AY – Sadly, you did not catch your spelling error. omg…..
really = rarely
Paul, yes Jesus was a nice Jewish boy, and it might surprise you to learn that, other than the Orthodox Jews, the other denominations do accept gays and many perform gay marriages. They are far more tolerant than many Christian denominations.
chestercat1 – I am really surprised at anything. I know that some Jewish denominations are so reformed they are non-denominational. 🙂
Elaine… You sure stirred the fleas up today….. You know fleas are amazingly resistant….. And they can jump many times there size…… Eventually you can get rid of them…. But it takes effort and the right cleanser…..
Max-1:
“many pedophiles are homosexuals”
That is a pretty bold statement dont you think? What are you selling? I aint buying it.
Paul,
How do you ever stay so into yourself that others can have the pleasure of your company…. I bet you get better looking each day…. That’s why it’s so hard to be humble…..right?
With respect to me…. You’ll never know…. At one time… I was an Elf……
Max, I agree with Annie…. Pay the person behind the curtain no attention….. If I recall he was just a snake oil salesman on a bad cocaine trip….
AY – some things are genetic. I have no control over them. Personally, I am unconcerned with how I look.
annie – I am blonde to begin with and as my hair turned gray it blended with the blonde so I looked blonde until just a year ago or so when it all went gray/white. Drove my sister crazy that it was not looking gray. 🙂
Max, you made a lot of sense to me.
AY – you are just jealous you were not good looking enough to be hit on by your professors. 😉
Oh and my hair color is a bit lighter than that now, the whiter my hair gets, the lighter shade of hair dye I get to use, my hope is to one day be a blond. 😀
Thanks Chuck. And you look mahvelous dahlink! Life and sorrow will age one’s appearance, but it’s a badge of courage, IMO. I wear my wrinkles in pride.