Scott Lively says he's against Uganda 'kill the gays' provision; still applauds bill backers' 'courage'

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06/04/2013

by Jeremy Hooper

Lively

Scott Lively is, of course, the American most associated with fomenting anti-gay hostility in Uganda, the African nation where a truly scary bill keeps rearing its ugly head. And while Mr. Lively continues to claim that he wishes those pesky pushes for murder were not attached to the proposed law, the "pro-family" ati still uses words like "courage" and "encouraging" to describe the push and people behind it:

In March of this year I had the privilege of addressing members of the Ugandan parliament in their national assembly hall when the anti-homosexuality law was just being considered. I urged them to pattern their bill on some American laws regarding alcoholism and drug abuse. I cited my own pre-Christian experience being arrested for drunk driving. I was given and chose the option of therapy which turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I also cited the policy in some U.S. jurisdictions regarding marijuana. Criminalization of the drug prevents its users from promoting it, and discourages non-users from starting, even while the law itself is very lightly enforced, if at all. Additionally, I urged them to actively promote the marriage model in their schools as a form of inoculation to the anti-family messages flooding their country through Western media.

All of my suggestions were ignored (despite which fact I am being blamed for the proposed law as written by certain major media outlets and the “gay” blogosphere.) Nevertheless, I commend the courage of the Ugandan people. During the past decade or so, Uganda has been one of the few countries of the world that has firmly resisted the enormous power and relentless pressure of the international “gay” lobby, while other developing nations such as South Africa and Brazil have been systematically homosexualized. This is one of the reasons that Uganda’s AIDS rate went from the highest to the lowest in Africa during this same time period.

Let me be absolutely clear. I do not support the 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.
The Death Penalty in Uganda [Scott Lively]

I "love" how he acts like the whole death-to-gays thing is just some sort of pork or boondoggle that happens to be attached to the bill. Scott acts like it's some minor amendment or something that, if removed, would absolve its crafters of the associated harms. To hear him tell it, it's perfectly fair for him to applaud the "encouraging" push and "courage" of the law's supporters, so long as he attaches some sort of side note about the death penalty being a step too far.

The truth, obviously, is that the death penalty is still there because its backers want it there. These are the very same backers that Scott Lively is applauding, and these are the same backers that Scott Lively has taught, led, conferenced, and strategized with in Uganda. While I'm 100% wiling to acknowledge his words about personally wanting to stop short of the death penalty and instead just treating us like drug addicts (what a mensch), Mr. Lively must understand why his name is still pointedly and purposefully attached to the bill in its full form: it's because he helped foment this whole thing. He very well might dislike the fact that the law's backers built a bigger fire than he would have liked, but he cannot deny his role in laying the kindling or firing the sparks.

*You know what else Mr. Lively finds encouraging? The non-passage of marriage in Illinois. This afternoon he joined Bryan Fischer to talk about that before moving on to all kinds of crazy talk linking gays and Boy Scouts to Nazi Germany: