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12/11/2009
Lively on bill that threatens to make gays less so
This from anti-gay extremist Scott Lively, a man who has made many pilgrimages to Uganda over the past few years, with the sole purpose of speaking out against gay folk:
Let me be absolutely clear. I do not support [Uganda's] proposed anti-homosexuality law as written. It does not emphasize rehabilitation over punishment and the punishment that it calls for is unacceptably harsh. However, if the offending sections were sufficiently modified, the proposed law would represent an encouraging step in the right direction. As one of the first laws of this century to recognize that the destructiveness of the “gay” agenda warrants opposition by government, it would deserve support from Christian believers and other advocates of marriage-based culture around the world.
So let's think about this for a second. This "kill/imprison" gays bill undeniably did contain the call for the death penalty, and still does contain imprisonment calls. That is what was in the drafters' hearts and minds, and would have surely gone down had it not been for the pushback. So any human being, regardless of faith views (or perhaps because of those views), should rapidly and roundly condemn the measure as beyond the pale of decency. There is no reworking of something like this. There is no hashing out the differences. The only acceptable response is to come out in full force against this bill (one that it's not far-fetched to describe as suggestive of genocide), and to reject it wholeheartedly.
But here we have Lively being all like, "Oh yea, yea -- the punishment is excessive. But hey, it still wants gays to 'change,' so yea, that's good." NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!!!! There is no discussion here. No matter how much of an "ex-gay" supporter one may be, it is unbelievably out-of-line for them to act like this measure could be "made good" with further committee hearings.
Can you even imagine something similar here at home? Like if a U.S. Senator suggested death and imprisonment for a minority group? There would be no room for discussion -- that person would hopefully be run out of D.C., and anyone who even thought of supporting him or her would be forcibly pushed out of mainstream "culture war" politics. It seems that people like Lively are taking cover from the fact that this is happening in a country that's off many Americans radars, that this is a story that has yet to break in the Tiger Woods-like way that it should, and that it involves a community whose worldwide condemnations still receive an eye-opening amount of "ho Hums."
Bottom line: This is, was, and always will be a measure that is HEINOUS at its core. Any "pro-family" person who says anything less than exactly that is doing so at their own peril.
**Lively's full statement (and of course he too attacks the bloggers who've supposedly been unfair with him): The Death Penalty in Uganda [Scott Lively]
**UPDATE: Guess who has just been added to the "Manhattan Declaration" signatory list
Your thoughts
From the guy's article: "In my view, homosexuality (indeed all sex outside of marriage) should be actively discouraged by society" -- Easily resolved by instituting marriage equality, so that monogamous gays have no need for "sex outside marriage".
Posted by: Dan T. | Dec 11, 2009 1:40:01 PM
To use an example that Lively himself might proffer, since they prey on the false notion that same-sex attraction is mutable, would be to use something that is absolutely mutable, like a "death to Jehovah's Witnesses" bill. And, that puts a particularly salient point on their madness, that being that their xenophobic hatred runs deep, far and wide.
The "Kid Fucking" Catholic Priests have carried out crusade after crusade against Muslims, and since the only christian religion until the eighteenth century was the Catholic (and the Uber-Catholicy) church, by extension, the entirety of the christian religion was focused on hatred of Muslims. Pretty much the same way that the radicals christianistas are today.
With the hundreds of flavors of christianity that have sprung up in the past hundred and fifty years, they have a lot of additional vents for that xenophobic hatred: protestant v. catholic, protestant v. even-more-loony protestant, all crhistians v. everyone who isn't christian.... the list goes on and on.
My point being, that these slippery-slopers see a "death to gays" bill as their opportunity to criminalize anything that they disapprove of. Which ultimately pits every man, woman and child against everyone else. Laws are meant to protect us from each other, not to beat us into submission to someone else's "moral" whims.
Posted by: Dick Mills | Dec 11, 2009 3:16:04 PM
Dick Mills cited: "...the only christian religion until the eighteenth century was the Catholic..."
The Reformation, seminal spawning ground of many flavors of Christianity, was the sixteenth century. Martin Luther's 95 Theses posted in 1517.
Other than that, no disagreement with Mssrs. Hooper and Mills.
Posted by: Lou Donohoe | Dec 11, 2009 9:35:23 PM
Lou, true. But arguably, the Lutherans are more "Catholic" than the Catholics are. While it is true that in the seventeenth century the early incarnations of the Baptists and the Puritans broke away from the Catholics, but the explosive segmentation didn't begin until the Methodist schism of the eighteenth century. And all of the other exponential ballooning of the nuttiness blossomed out of that about 150 years ago. And it seems that all of the nuttiness just continues to become more bizarre every day.
Posted by: Dick Mills | Dec 11, 2009 10:37:22 PM
Bahati, the author of the kill-the-gays bill says that the death penalty and life in prison provisions have not (and purportedly will not) be removed from the bill.
The bill, said Bahati, 35, an MP from the ruling party, aims to "protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sex promiscuity on the people of Uganda".
He denied reports that international pressure might result in parts of the bill being toned down. "We are not going to yield to any international pressure – we cannot allow people to play with the future of our children and put aid into the game. We are not in the trade of values. We need mutual respect."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/13/death-penalty-uganda-homosexuals
Posted by: Dick Mills | Dec 13, 2009 5:00:47 PM
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