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.
So what Paul? The majority of pedophiles AND the majority of Nazis were heterosexuals. Up next… beastiality.
annie – my dear frenemy, please carefully follow the discussion.
Elaine….. In full force today are the Mindless Strawmen….. Not as awesome as the Headless Horsemen….
Elaine – the spam filter has eaten a very long article I posted which backs up exactly what I said.
rafflaw,
What does the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum know? There must be a left-wing group that runs the institution!
😉
Elaine,
Thanks for providing the evidence of how gays were really treated by the Nazi’s.
Nazi persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/persecution-of-homosexuals/
Excerpt:
1. INTRODUCTION
Between 1933 and 1945, Germany’s National Socialist (Nazi) government under Adolf Hitler used its monopoly of authority to attempt to rid German territory of people who did not fit its vision of a “master Aryan race.” Foremost among the so–called racial enemies, according to the Nazis’ antisemitic ideology, were the Jews. When Germany’s pursuit of “living space” led to World War II and the conquest of much of Europe, the Nazis undertook the systematic murder of every Jew in Europe.
Many other groups were targets of persecution and even murder under the Nazis’ ideology, including Germans with mental and physical disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (“Gypsies”), Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war. Millions perished in this state–sponsored tyranny.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of all who suffered during this unprecedented tragedy. This online exhibition examines the campaign of persecution and violence against the homosexuals of Germany.
The Nazi campaign against homosexuality targeted the more than one million German men who, the state asserted, carried a “degeneracy” that threatened the “disciplined masculinity” of Germany. Denounced as “antisocial parasites” and as “enemies of the state,” more than 100,000 men were arrested under a broadly interpreted law against homosexuality. Approximately 50,000 men served prison terms as convicted homosexuals, while an unknown number were institutionalized in mental hospitals. Others—perhaps hundreds—were castrated under court order or coercion. Analyses of fragmentary records suggest that between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexual men were imprisoned in concentration camps, where many died from starvation, disease, exhaustion, beatings, and murder.
Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/nazi-persecution-of-homosexuals
Excerpt:
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis persecuted homosexuals as part of their so-called moral crusade to racially and culturally purify Germany. This persecution ranged from dissolution of homosexual organizations to internment of thousands of individuals in concentration camps. Gay men, in particular, were subject to harassment, arrest, incarceration, and even castration. In Nazi eyes, gay men were weak and unfit to be soldiers, as well as unlikely to have children and thereby contribute to the racial struggle for Aryan dominance…
DID YOU KNOW…
– Under Paragraph 175 of the criminal code, male homosexuality was illegal in Germany. The Nazis arrested an estimated 100,000 homosexual men, 50,000 of whom were imprisoned.
– During the Nazi regime, the police had the power to jail indefinitely—without trial—anyone they chose, including those deemed dangerous to Germany’s moral fiber.
– Between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men were interned in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. These prisoners were marked by pink triangle badges and, according to many survivor accounts, were among the most abused groups in the camps.
– Nazis interested in finding a “cure” for homosexuality conducted medical experiments on some gay concentration camp inmates. These experiments caused illness, mutilation, and even death, and yielded no scientific knowledge.
Thar ya go Elaine…. Confusing distortion with facts……
Anti-Gay Pastor Equates Gays With Cannibals
Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church — located at 3283 Providence Mill Rd, Maiden, NC 28650 — is seen here from a service posted to the church’s website dated May 13, 2012 calling for the concentration and ultimate death of “queers and homosexuals.”
Anti-gay religious crusaders claim homosexuals helped mastermind the Holocaust. They’re not telling the truth
By Bob Moser
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/spring/holy-war/making-myths
For decades now, “Holocaust revisionists” in the U.S. and Europe have published pseudo-scholarly papers and books claiming to prove that the Nazis never carried out a systematic extermination of Jews. In 1995, a book called The Pink Swastika made similar claims about the Nazis’ treatment of homosexuals during the Holocaust.
Written by fundamentalist activists Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika says that rather than being victimized by the Nazis, gay men in Hitler’s inner circle actually helped mastermind the Holocaust.
“While we cannot say that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their central role in Nazism,” write Lively and Abrams. “To the myth of the ‘pink triangle’ — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the ‘pink swastika.'”
Historians agree that this “reality” is utterly false. But many anti-gay crusaders have used the “gay Nazi” myth as proof that gay people are immoral and destructive.
“When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany,” Pat Robertson once warned viewers of his 700 Club. “Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were satanists. Many of them were homosexuals. The two seem to go together.”
The Pink Swastika has been promoted by anti-gay groups like the Family Defense Council. The FDC’s Dr. Howard Hurwitz called the book “a thoroughly researched, eminently readable, demolition of the ‘gay’ myth, symbolized by the pink triangle, that the Nazis were anti-homosexual.”
In fact, while the number of homosexuals who died in the Holocaust does not approach the number of Jewish or Gypsy victims, the historical record shows that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. They were routinely sent to concentration camps and marked with a pink triangle on their prison garb.
They were not systematically exterminated. But huge numbers are believed to have died in the work camps, along with an untold number of homosexual Jews, Gypsies and other “defectives” who were sent to extermination camps.
The myth that Nazis condoned or promoted homosexuality sprang up as a slander against Nazi leaders by their socialist opponents in the 1930s. Only one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernest Rohm, is believed by credible historians to have been gay.
The “gay Nazi” slander stuck, though, partly because German laws against homosexuals remained in place for a quarter of a century after World War II ended. That effectively silenced many homosexual victims of the Holocaust from telling their stories. A landmark survivor’s memoir, The Men With the Pink Triangle, began to break that silence in 1972.
There is no question that the Nazis saw homosexuality as one aspect of the “degeneracy” they were determined to extinguish. When it came to power in 1933, the Nazi Party moved quickly to strengthen Germany’s existing penalties against homosexuality. On Oct. 11, 1936, Hitler’s security chief, Heinrich Himmler, went further, announcing that homosexuality was to be “eliminated” in Germany, along with miscegenation between the races.
In 1942, the death penalty was instituted for homosexuality. Offenders in the German military were routinely shot. “That wasn’t a punishment,” Himmler explained, “but simply the extinguishing of abnormal life. It had to be got rid of, just as we pull out weeds, throw them on a heap, and burn them.”
Elaine, While it is true that the Nazis were intolerant of most gays, the fact is that politics of them were far more important and gays were tolerated as long as they were politically correct. There were many prominent gays in positions of power in Nazi Germany and occupied countries who were not subject to the anti-gay laws. The head of the SA, Roehm was a notorious homosexual which Hitler knew from the beginning. He was only killed because he was getting too big for Hitlers purposes, not because he was gay. Gertrude Stein spent all of WWII in Paris with no problem even though she was a Jew, a lesbian, and an American, and a fascist. The same held true in the McCarthy era in the US with Roy Cohen being a notorious gay man, Joseph Alsop, and other prominent right wing gays who led their lives normally with no consequences for their gayness. It is one thing to say that the gays contributed to the Holocaust, and quite another to say that they were the moving force which is clearly not the case.
“A number of the SA leaders, including Röhm, were homosexuals. Prior to the purge, Hitler for the most part ignored their behavior because of their usefulness to him during his rise to power. However, their usefulness and Hitler’s tolerance had now come to an end. Later, their homosexual conduct would be partly used as an excuse for the murders.”
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/roehm.htm
The History Place – World War II in Europe
The Night of the Long Knives
The four million brown shirted Nazi storm troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung), included many members who actually believed in the ‘socialism’ of National Socialism and also wanted to become a true revolutionary army in place of the regular German Army.
But to the regular Army High Command and its conservative supporters, this potential storm trooper army represented a threat to centuries old German military traditions and the privileges of rank. Adolf Hitler had been promising the generals for years he would restore their former military glory and break the “shackles” of the Treaty of Versailles which limited the Army to 100,000 men and prevented modernization.
For Adolf Hitler, the behavior of the SA was a problem that now threatened his own political survival and the entire future of the Nazi movement.
The anti-capitalist, anti-tradition sentiments often expressed by SA leaders and echoed by the restless masses of storm troopers also caused great concern to big industry leaders who had helped put Hitler in power. Hitler had promised them he would put down the trade union movement and Marxists, which he had done. However, now his own storm troopers with their talk of a ‘second revolution’ were sounding more and more like Marxists themselves. (The first revolution having been the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933.)
SA Leader Ernst RoehmThe SA was headed by Ernst Röhm, a battle scarred, aggressive, highly ambitious street brawler who had been with Hitler from the very beginning. Röhm and the SA had been very instrumental in Hitler’s rise to power by violently seizing control of the streets and squashing Hitler’s political opponents.
However, by early 1934, a year after Hitler came to power, the SA’s usefulness as a violent, threatening, revolutionary force had effectively come to an end. Hitler now needed the support of the regular Army generals and the big industry leaders to rebuild Germany after the Great Depression, re-arm the military and ultimately accomplish his long range goal of seizing more living space for the German people.
The average German also feared and disliked the SA brownshirts with their arrogant, gangster-like behavior, such as extorting money from local shop owners, driving around in fancy news cars showing off, often getting drunk, beating up and even murdering innocent civilians.
At the end of February, 1934, Hitler held a meeting attended by SA and regular Army leaders including Röhm and German Defense Minister General Werner von Blomberg. At this meeting Hitler informed Röhm the SA would not be a military force in Germany but would be limited to certain political functions. In Hitler’s presence, Röhm gave in and even signed an agreement with Blomberg.
However, Röhm soon let it be know he had no intention of keeping to the agreement. In April he even boldly held a press conference and proclaimed, “The SA is the National Socialist Revolution!!”
Within the SA at this time was a highly disciplined organization known as the SS (Shutzstaffel) which had been formed in 1925 as Hitler’s personal body guard. SS chief Heinrich Himmler along with his second-in-command, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Göring, began plotting against Röhm to prod Hitler into action against his old comrade, hoping to gain from Röhm’s downfall.
On June 4, Hitler and Röhm had a five hour private meeting lasting until midnight. A few days later Röhm announced he was taking a ‘personal illness’ vacation and the whole SA would go on leave for the month of July. He also convened a conference of top SA leaders for June 30 at a resort town near Munich which Hitler promised to attend to sort things out.
On June 17, Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen, who had helped Hitler become Chancellor, stunned everyone by making a speech criticizing the rowdy, anti-intellectual behavior of the SA and denouncing Nazi excesses such as strict press censorship. Papen also focused on the possibility of a ‘second revolution’ by Röhm and the SA and urged Hitler to put a stop to it. “Have we experienced an anti-Marxist revolution in order to put through a Marxist program?” Papen asked.
His speech drastically increased the tension between German Army leaders and SA leaders and further jeopardized Hitler’s position. But for the moment Hitler hesitated to move against his old comrade Röhm.
A few days later, June 21, Hitler went to see German President Paul von Hindenburg at his country estate. Hindenburg was in failing health and now confined to a wheelchair. Hitler met with the Old Gentleman and Defense Minister Blomberg and was stiffly informed the SA problem must be solved or the president would simply declare martial law and let the German Army run the country, effectively ending the Nazi regime.
Meanwhile, Himmler and Heydrich spread false rumors that Röhm and the SA were planning a violent takeover of power (putsch).
On June 25, the German Army was placed on alert, leaves canceled and the troops confined to the barracks. An agreement had been secretly worked out between Himmler and Army generals ensuring cooperation between the SS and the Army during the coming action against the SA. The Army would provide weapons and any necessary support, but would remain in the barracks and let the SS handle things.
On Thursday, June 28, Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels attended the wedding of Gauleiter Josef Terboven in Essen. Hitler was informed by phone that he faced the possibility of a putsch by Röhm’s forces and also faced the possibility of a revolt by influential conservative non-Nazis who wanted Hindenburg to declare martial law and throw out Hitler and his government.
Hitler then sent Göring back to Berlin to get ready to put down the SA and conservative government leaders there. The SS was put on full alert.
Friday, June 29, Hitler made a scheduled inspection tour of a labor service camp and then went to a hotel near Bonn for the night. He was informed by Himmler that evening by phone that SA troops in Munich knew about the coming action and had taken to the streets.
Hitler decided to fly to Munich to put down the SA rebellion and confront Röhm and top SA leaders who were gathered at the resort town of Bad Wiessee near Munich.
Arriving in Munich near dawn, Saturday, June 30, Hitler first ordered the arrest of the SA men who were inside Munich Nazi headquarters, then proceeded to the Ministry of the Interior building where he confronted the top SA man in Munich after his arrest, even tearing off his insignia in a fit of hysteria.
Next it was on to Röhm. A column of troops and cars containing Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and others, sped off toward Röhm and his men.
At this point, the story is often told (partly conceived by the Nazis) of Hitler arriving at the resort hotel about 6:30 a.m. and rushing inside with a pistol to arrest Röhm and other SA leaders.
However it is more likely the hotel was first secured by the SS before Hitler went near it. Hitler then confronted Röhm and the others and sent them to Stadelheim prison outside Munich to be later shot by the SS.
An exception was made in the case of Edmund Heines, an SA leader who had been found in bed with a young man. When told of this, Hitler ordered his immediate execution at the hotel.
A number of the SA leaders, including Röhm, were homosexuals. Prior to the purge, Hitler for the most part ignored their behavior because of their usefulness to him during his rise to power. However, their usefulness and Hitler’s tolerance had now come to an end. Later, their homosexual conduct would be partly used as an excuse for the murders.
Saturday morning about 10 a.m. a phone call was placed from Hitler in Munich to Göring in Berlin with the prearranged code word ‘Kolibri’ (hummingbird) that unleashed a wave of murderous violence in Berlin and over 20 other cities. SS execution squads along with Göring’s private police force roared through the streets hunting down SA leaders and anyone on the prepared list of political enemies (known as the Reich List of Unwanted Persons).
Included on the list: Gustav von Kahr, who had opposed Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 – found hacked to death in a swamp near Dachau; Father Bernhard Stempfle, who had taken some of the dictation for Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and knew too much about Hitler – shot and killed; Kurt von Schleicher, former Chancellor of Germany and master of political intrigue, who had helped topple democracy in Germany and put Hitler in power – shot and killed along with his wife; Gregor Strasser, one of the original members of the Nazi Party and formerly next in importance to Hitler; Berlin SA leader Karl Ernst, who was involved in torching the Reichstag building in February, 1933; Vice-Chancellor Papen’s press secretary; Catholic leader Dr. Erich Klausener.
Saturday evening, Hitler flew back to Berlin and was met at the airport by Himmler and Göring in a scene later described by Hans Gisevius, a Gestapo official, present.
“On his way to the fleet of cars, which stood several hundred yards away, Hitler stopped to converse with Göring and Himmler. Apparently he could not wait a few minutes until he reached the Chancellery�From one of his pockets Himmler took out a long, tattered list. Hitler read it through, while Göring and Himmler whispered incessantly into his ear. We could see Hitler’s finger moving slowly down the sheet of paper. Now and then it paused for a moment at one of the names. At such times the two conspirators whispered even more excitedly. Suddenly Hitler tossed his head. There was so much violent emotion, so much anger in the gesture, that everybody noticed it�Finally they moved on, Hitler in the lead, followed by Göring and Himmler. Hitler was still walking with the same sluggish tread. By contrast, the two blood drenched scoundrels at his side seemed all the more lively�”
As for Ernst Röhm – on Hitler’s order he had been given a pistol containing a single bullet to commit suicide, but refused to do it, saying “If I am to be killed let Adolf do it himself.” Two SS officers, one of whom was Theodore Eicke, commander of the Totenkopf (Death’s Head) guards at Dachau, entered Röhm’s cell after waiting fifteen minutes and shot him point blank. Reportedly, Röhm’s last words were “Mein Führer, mein Führer!”
On Sunday evening, July 1, while some of the shooting was still going on, Hitler gave a tea party in the garden of the Chancellery for cabinet members and their families to give the appearance things were getting back to normal.
By 4 a.m., Monday, July 2, the bloody purge had ended. The exact number of murders is unknown since all Gestapo documents relating to the purge were destroyed. Estimates vary widely from 200 or 250, to as high as 1,000 or more. Less than half of those murdered were actually SA officers.
In one case, a man named Willi Schmidt was at home playing the cello. Four SS men rang the doorbell, entered and took him away, leaving his wife and three young children behind. They had mistaken Dr. Willi Schmidt, music critic for a Munich newspaper, for another Willi Schmidt on the list. Dr. Schmidt was assassinated and his body later returned to his family in a sealed coffin with orders from the Gestapo that it should not be opened.
On July 13, Hitler gave a long speech to the Nazi controlled Reichstag (Parliament) in which he announced seventy four had been shot and justified the murders.
“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people.”
“It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we spoke of it we called it ‘The Night of the Long Knives.’ Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”
By proclaiming himself the supreme judge of the German people, Hitler in effect placed himself above the law, making his word the law, and thus instilled a permanent sense of fear in the German people.
The German Army generals, by condoning the unprecedented events of the Night of the Long Knives, effectively cast their lot with Hitler and began the long journey with him that would eventually lead them to the brink of world conquest and later to the hanging docks at Nuremberg after the war.
A few weeks after the purge, Hitler rewarded the SS for its role by raising the SS to independent status as an organization no longer part of the SA. Leader of the SS, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler now answered to Hitler and no one else. Reinhard Heydrich was promoted to SS Gruppenführer (Lieutenant-General).
From this time on, the SA brownshirts would be diminished and all but disappear eventually as its members were inducted into the regular Army after Hitler re-introduced military conscription in 1935.
The SS organization under Himmler and Heydrich would greatly expand and become Hitler’s instrument of mass murder and terror throughout the remaining history of the Third Reich, another eleven years.
Copyright © 1996 The History Place™ All Rights Reserved
Scott Lively
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/scott-lively
Date of Birth: 1957
Location: Springfield, Mass.
Most Recent Group: Abiding Truth Ministries
Ideology: Anti-LGBT
A veteran of the anti-gay movement, Lively has been actively propagandizing against LGBT people since the early 1990s, but he’s perhaps best-known for co-writing the thoroughly discredited, Holocaust revisionist book The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party (1995), which claims that the Nazi party was full of gay men who, because of their “savagery,” were able to carry out the Holocaust. In 2007, he co-founded the virulently anti-gay Watchmen on the Walls, an organization currently active more in Eastern Europe than the U.S. More recently, he got a new claim to fame when he presented his virulent views about homosexuality at a 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda that is widely believed to have played a role in the drafting of Uganda’s notorious “kill the gays” bill. Lively is president of Abiding Truth Ministries and director of Redemption Gate Mission Society, both currently based in Springfield, Mass.
Christian Evangelical Family Network Behind Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda
By Gianluca Mezzofiore
February 8, 2012
International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/kato-uganda-gay-lgbt-bill-295106
Excerpt:
American Christian evangelical organisations have actively lobbied for the re-introduction of the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, which was presented in the parliament Tuesday, according to local activists.
The Uganda-based Family Life Network (FLN), founded by Stephen Langa, is the main organisation behind the efforts to revive the bill, according to Kikonyogo Kivumbi, executive director of civil rights organisation Uhspa-Uganda.
“Many people in Uganda subscribe to the FLN ideology,” he said. “We tried to engage with them, but they turned down the dialogue. They are part of a foreign, illiterate agenda that has all the intentions to make the bill pass through.”
According to experts, there are close links between many American anti-gay preachers and their Ugandan counterparts. David Bahati, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s sponsor, is the secretary of the Ugandan branch of The Family, a secretive American evangelical organisation, according to Kivumbi. Langa himself is an affiliate of the Phoenix-based group Disciple Nations Alliance.
He formed in 2009 the Anti-Gat Task Force intended “to fight against the spread of homosexuality and lesbianism in the country”. The pressure groups followed a two-day conference of religious leaders, teachers and social workers in the capital Kampala.
Plans made during the conference, which were leaked to the media soon afterwards, included collecting “signatures from Ugandans door-to-door to request parliament to tighten the law on homosexuality” and lobbying the government to “note gay funders, and scrutinize the funding or stop the funding for gay movement in Uganda”.
The organisation also launched the “Pass the Bill Now Campaign”, which featured lobbying and acts towards MPs to push forward the law. “Call your MP and ask them to debate and pass the bill. Write to them and send them emails demanding that the anti-homosexuality bill must be passed,” reads a passage from the Family Life Network conclusive document.
Other anti-gay campaigners that contributed to the revival of the bill, according to Kivumbi, are preeminent Uganda pastors Martin Seempa, Solomon Male and Bob Kyazze, who were recently charged to falsely defame a rival pastor by accusing him of sodomy.
Ssempa champions the anti-homosexuality bill by showing gay pornography in his church and at conferences. He was a protégé of Rick Warren and, during the Bush administration, a recipient of at least $90,000 of American aid earmarked for abstinence promotion, according to the Daily Beast’s Michelle Goldberg
Definitions:
Homophobia, Heterosexism, and Sexual Prejudice
People with homosexual or bisexual orientations have long been stigmatized. With the rise of the gay political movement in the late 1960s, however, homosexuality’s condemnation as immoral, criminal, and sick came under increasing scrutiny. When the American Psychiatric Association dropped homosexuality as a psychiatric diagnosis in 1973, the question of why some heterosexuals harbor strongly negative attitudes toward homosexuals began to receive serious scientific consideration.
Homophobia
Society’s rethinking of sexual orientation was crystallized in the term homophobia, which heterosexual psychologist George Weinberg coined in the late 1960s. Weinberg used homophobia to label heterosexuals’ dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals as well as homosexuals’ self loathing. The word first appeared in print in 1969 and was subsequently discussed at length in Weinberg’s 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual.
The American Heritage Dictionary (1992 edition) defines homophobia as “aversion to gay or homosexual people or their lifestyle or culture” and “behavior or an act based on this aversion.” Other definitions identify homophobia as an irrational fear of homosexuality.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html
Robinh45 bleated “which isnt something taught from a book written and rewritten many many times over by HUMANS fanatic clerics and nefarious po lie trickers to suit their own needs.. ”
If that “book” you are referring to is the Bible, you’ll have to try again about the claim that it has been rewritten. The Bible was translated and transcribed into several different languages all over the world. When the scribes were copying the texts, they actually counted each letter and if it was off by one, it was thrown out. The copies were under close scrutiny and it would have been impossible for someone to go in and change things.
When the Dead Sea Scrolls was found, Bible scoffers were sure they could find evidence of changing the scripture but when the scrolls were examined, it copied what we know as the Bible today TO THE LETTER. It was not changed over time as so many ignorant people claim.
The leftwing wingnuts are tolerant until someone has a different viewpoint than their own. Then their tolerance goes out the window.
The word “homophobe” is a useless, meaningless cliche, used to stereotype people with differing views. A phobia implies some sort of fear, but of the general consensus regarding homosexuality, the emotion is not of fear, but of disgust. That “homophobe” word needs to be retired, as it as old and powerless as “teabaggers”. The left really needs to come up with some new material.
i wonder how many people realize that its mary madgalene sitting across from jesus at the last supper dressed in opposite colors from him looking forlorn while peter is throwing daggers of hate at her with his eyes…
my guess is none because they’re all to brainwashed to realize and understand the truth..
the truith is WE ARE ALL MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. God being the knowledge of right and wrong… which isnt something taught from a book written and rewritten many many times over by HUMANS fanatic clerics and nefarious po lie trickers to suit their own needs.. if you were being told the truth they wouldnt have needed to remove so many Apocrypha books starting with the book of enoch and the coming of melchizedek but then again it would take humanity time to understand even just 2 books not to mention the many others.. it would also take humanity much time to put the truth back together and unwrite the so called books of the old and new testaments…
robin45 – if you believe that Mary Magdalene is in the fresco by Michelangelo, then I have a bridge in New Jersey I would like to sell you.
’tis a slippery slope
Everything you need to know about Africa’s anti-gay crackdown Uganda and Nigeria have launched campaigns to ban homosexuality and throw gays in jail. Why now?
By The Week Staff
http://theweek.com/article/index/258826/everything-you-need-to-know-about-africas-anti-gay-crackdown
Excerpt:
What is the goal of the new laws?
To criminalize homosexuality and “cleanse” these two countries’ societies of gay people. In January, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan signed a new anti-gay law that mandates 14-year prison terms for anyone in a same-sex union and 10 years for anyone who “promotes” homosexuality, including HIV/AIDS workers. In February, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed an even more draconian anti-gay law that provides for 14 years in jail for first-time offenders; those who commit “aggravated homosexuality” — repeated gay sex or gay sex involving a minor or someone with HIV — can get life in prison. The Ugandan law also pressures people to inform on their gay neighbors, because it is now a crime for anyone who is aware of homosexual activity to fail to report it. In signing the law, Museveni said he was defending the country from “arrogant and careless Western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality.”
What prompted the new laws?
Under legal systems set up by European colonizers in the 19th and 20th centuries, 38 of Africa’s 55 nations have had anti-sodomy laws on the books. But those laws were rarely enforced until recently, and in many African cultures, casual homosexuality has been fairly commonplace. In the last two decades, the continent has undergone a resurgence of evangelical Christianity, propelled largely by American missionaries. Uganda has been a particular focus for Scott Lively, an American evangelical pastor who preaches that gay Nazis were behind the Holocaust and that gay men try to recruit children. In a 2009 presentation to Ugandan lawmakers in Kampala, Lively warned that Westerners wanted to undermine the Ugandan family and recruit children by spreading “the disease” of homosexuality. “They’re looking for other people to be able to prey upon,” Lively said. Ugandan rights advocates say the anti-gay movement owes everything to Lively’s lobbying. “The bill is essentially his creation,” said Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda.
Elaine – I am not sure if gay Nazis are behind the Holocaust vis a vis the Final Solution, but they were behind the rise of the Nazi Party and early anti-Judaism in Germany. Hitler won over the German General Staff by getting rid of them during “The Night of the Long Knives.”
Great link Elaine. That is one brave minister.