SURPRISE AS SCOTT LIVELY WELCOMES END OF UGANDA ANTI-GAY LAW

Scott Lively, the American pastor credited with inspiring Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, has had a surprising response to the annulment of the law.

In an article for Barbwire.com, Liveley writes: “I am not unhappy that the Ugandan law as written has been nullified.”

“I have always said it was too harsh and did not emphasize prevention and therapy for homosexual disorder,” he adds.

Lively’s stance is self-serving. It is convenient now that he distances himself from the legislation. He is after all the subject of a lawsuit in the US on behalf of Ugandan gay rights group SMUG, charging him with crimes against humanity for his role in stirring up anti-gay vitriol in the African country.

Lively, however, argues that the law’s annulment is evidence that he did not have the power and influence to instigate its enactment in the first place.

“Now that the Ugandan government has shown itself capable of self-governance, I’m waiting for calls of apology from media outlets around the world who for years have insinuated (or outright insisted) that the Ugandans were merely my puppets in a nefarious scheme to persecute homosexuals there,” Lively says.

He further claims that the West’s “Neo-Colonial attitude toward the Africans in the matter of African countries legislating their own moral values is grossly paternalistic at best — and inescapably implicitly racist.”

Despite claiming to be a victim of “Marxists and homosexual militants from the West” in the matter, there is real evidence that Lively propagated dangerous and false beliefs about gays and lesbians in Uganda and elsewhere.

In March 2009, Lively, along with two other American evangelical leaders, headlined a three-day conference in Uganda intended to expose the “gay movement” as an “evil institution” and a danger to children.

By his own admission, in March 2010 he addressed members of the Ugandan Parliament on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, advising them to see homosexuality as equivalent to “alcoholism and drug abuse.”

The documentary God Loves Uganda includes undercover video which shows Lively holding a workshop in Uganda in which he peddled outrageous lies about LGBT people.

Liveley has told Ugandans that gay people have taken over the UN and America, that they are planning to “recruit” children in Uganda and are out to destroy society. He has painted the issue of LGBT equality as being “a war between Christians and homosexuals.”

Lively is the author of crackpot books including The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party (in which he accused gay people of being behind the Nazi movement) and Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child.

Since 2002, he has travelled to Uganda, Latvia, Moldova, Russia and other countries to consult with lawmakers and political leaders on anti-gay efforts and legislation.

He is being sued under the Alien Tort Statute law, which allows foreign citizens to sue Americans for crimes against humanity. This is the first-ever such action regarding the rights of LGBTI people.