Scott Lively’s name is almost synonymous with “unbridled, unhinged hate” at this point.  We all know that he’s got his paws on quite a few of the SPLC-designated anti-gay hate groups;  that he’s a professional liar to a pathological degree, going so far as to write a completely discredited revisionist book called The Pink Swastika, which seeks to cast gays as the creators of the Nazi movement; and that he traveled to Uganda early last year to, among other things, inform his rapt audience that killer homosexuals were “probably” involved with the Rwandan genocide next door.  That last lie is almost perversely funny here, in a society with access to education and knowledge, but in Uganda, it’s a deadly lie.  In short, we know that Scott Lively is a sick man.

Jim Burroway has written an exhaustive profile of Lively that all should read and then bookmark for future reference.  It describes things like I mentioned above, but it also goes into details I didn’t know, pieces of the mosaic that really give insight into how and why he ended up being the detestable character he is today.  For instance, his family background:

He is the oldest of six children, and his father developed a mental illness when Lively was young. Lively himself became an alcoholic at the age of twelve. For the next sixteen years, he said, he couldn’t hold a job. He slept under bridges and begged for money on the streets. A brother and a sister, he said, “went into homosexuality,” and another sister “wasn’t able to enter into marriage until she was in her forties because of the pain of the family life that we had.” Finally, said Lively, “[I] got down on my knees and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I was healed in an instant. I never had another desire to drink or use drugs ever again. When I got up off my knees, I was clean and healed.”

Lively became involved in antigay activism because of two people who were, he said, “very close to me”—a four-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old man, who, Lively said, molested the boy: “And I saw what happened to that little child. He was transformed [from] a sweet and innocent person into a tortured and tormented child, filled with anger and rage. And he never recovered from it.” The nineteen year old, Lively said, “is still living in a gay lifestyle in Los Angeles, California. He’s an active homosexual and he’s active in a church that endorses what’s called ‘gay theology.’”

So basically, Scott took all his past pain and rage and decided to use the LGBT community as a scapegoat, instead of actually trying to work through said pain and rage. Of course, the second paragraph, if it’s even true [again, Lively is a pathological liar], has absolutely nothing to do with LGBT people. If it’s a true story, it’s a tragedy, and the guy should have been punished to the fullest extent of the law, just as if it was a straight-identified man who molested a child. Child abuse is child abuse, period. This is what we’ve been trying to explain to the Vatican!

Another piece of the puzzle that caught my eye was an incident when Lively was still just a wee, new hater in Oregon, cutting his teeth with the “Oregon Citizens Alliance”:

Lively quickly gained a reputation for being a loose canon. In October 1991, the photographer Catherine Stauffer attended a church meeting where the OCA was previewing a videotape it had cobbled together in preparation for a campaign in support of a series of local antigay ballot measures across the state. Lively ejected Stauffer from the meeting forcefully, by throwing her against the wall and dragging her across the floor.[x] She sued Lively and OCA. The jury determined that Lively was guilty of using unreasonable force and awarded Stauffer $20,000.[xi]

Awful story, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. It’s just something in his eyes, I think.

It was apparently not long after that that Lively started losing battles at the ballot box, and perhaps sensing that the culture was beginning a long shift toward acceptance for LGBT peple, he created his greatest lie of all — that gays had created the Nazi party. Here was, perhaps, the first time he said it publicly, on television in Oregon:

Homosexuals created the Nazi Party, and everything that we think about when we think about Nazis actually comes from the minds and perverted ideas of homosexuals. When you think of the Nazi Party… you cannot help but understand that this organization was a machine constructed by militant, sadomasochistic, pedophilic homosexuals. … They built the Nazi machine. They were the people that ran it, and that put it together. Most people understand that there were some homosexuals involved in the Nazi Party—no, it wasn’t that. They were the foundation of the Nazi Party.

And thus his career was born, I suppose. There is so much more in the piece, and Jim is to be commended for taking the time to put it all together. It’s quite a disturbing mosaic, so read it all when you have time.

Peter caught me making a comment on here about Linda Harvey, and he wrote a big mad “Evan is so mean” post about it. But I’ll do you the courtesy of getting everybody up to speed on where the comment came from, and then I’ll explain it further. This press release is from a talk Linda gave wherein, among other things, she defended her friend and SPLC-certified hate group leader Scott Lively, he who went to Uganda to spread the pernicious lie that gays were responsible for the Rwandan genocide:

Harvey said the Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong when it recently classified several anti-gay groups, including Scott Lively’ Abiding Truth Ministries, as “hate groups.”

“I can’t stand the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are such a hypocritical organization. They don’t cover any of the violence that happens to any of the conservatives.I love what they do with the Klu Klux Klan and racial issues, . They need to go back stay out of this other stuff. They need to get out of classifying hate groups, family groups. I mean I am a normal ordinary person I just happen to have conservative values. I don’t hate anybody. I don’t go on anybody’ websites. I don’t picket funerals. I can’t stand Fred Phelps. I think he is funded by the gays,” Harvey said. “I think he is.”

She said she and Lively have both worked on the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, and that she “loves” Lively.

Ms. Harvey then showed up in the comments section of that press release, and she was shocked, shocked (shocked!), that anyone could have a problem with her dear friend Mr. Lively (there is video at the above link of Lively speaking, by the way):

And how is Scott Lively a “Holocaust revisionist”? Don’t get that one. Are you trying to imply anti-semitism that does not exist? Listen to my daily radio show and hear my support for the state of Israel, much more than you’ll get from most of the left these days, including the Obama administration.

How is Scott Lively a “Holocaust revisionist,” asketh The Linda.

Let us explain this: Scott Lively wrote a book called The Pink Swastika, which argued that the Third Reich was, at its core, a homosexual movement. Indeed, the SPLC (Peter’s personal boogeyman now, apparently) handily disposed of the book’s malevolently asinine thesis in 2005:

In 1995, a book calledThe 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’ ‚Äî the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted ‚Äî 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.

(…)

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.

Read that whole piece, please. I’ll wait. And then you tell me whether or not Scott Lively is a Holocaust revisionist, Ms. Linda.

Now. Holocaust revisionism is anti-Semitism. Here’s the comment I made:

Oh, and Linda, “Holocaust revisionism” does not only apply to direct anti-semitism. Of course, it could be argued that Scott Lively is anti-semitic since he co-opts the Holocaust in order to lie about gay people, to satisfy whatever mental illness he suffers from. In fact, yes, now that I think of it, his work IS anti-semitism, because it belittles the reality of the Holocaust in order to score points. And by supporting him, you are supporting that strain of anti-semitism.

(Then again, all fundamentalist Christians are anti-semitic at their core, considering the fact that they actually believe their apocalyptical horseshit.)

And you just parrot right along with it, because you’re too virulent to see that if your Jesus was here, he’d probably lay you out like the Pharisee you are.

Let’s get this out of the way: There is one word in that comment I would change. I would remove the word “all.” Because, quite frankly, it was late, and I popped off. Because the truth of the matter is that many fundamentalist Christians do not realize that some the beliefs they are taught, and some of the beliefs which they espouse about the state of Israel are profoundly anti-Semitic. So it’s a mistake to say that they “all” are, because I’m quite sure that many who hold the beliefs I’m about to explain have never taken the time to reflect on the inherent anti-Semitism contained therein.

But that’s one word in a larger train of thought, which I will now flesh out, for the record: A particular and prominent belief system in Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity is known as “Christian Zionism,” which is inspired by “pre-millenial dispensationalist” eschatology. (Think: Left Behind; Rapture Ready, etc.) In its simplest form, this means that these Christians believe that for Christ to return, the Jewish people must set up a state in Israel. (Done.) At which point:

Uri Avnery, is the leader of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group. He was discussing the theology of many Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christians in a 2002-JUN essay, and wrote: “According to its theological beliefs, the Jews must congregate in Palestine and establish a Jewish state on all its territory so as to make the Second Coming of Jesus Christ possible…the evangelists don’t like to dwell openly on what comes next: before the coming [of the Messiah], the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don’t will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon. This is basically an anti-Semitic teaching…” 1 This teaching implies that Jews who remain true to God’s covenants in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) will be all exterminated in a massive genocide that may be more numerous than the Nazi Holocaust.

This theology is most popular (and growing) in extremely conservative, fundamentalist churches, from Pentecostal to Southern Baptist to non-denominational, etc.

It is an anti-Semitic belief system. Period! It takes all of the humanity away from the Jewish people and instead makes them pawns in the biggest “screw you” ever doled out by a (supposed) deity in human history! It ends the story that Fundamentalists believe started in the Garden of Eden by exterminating the race God called his “chosen.”

It is helpful to understand this, because often you will see fundamentalist Christians (John Hagee, etc.) expound on their deep, deep “support” for Israel. Indeed, in Peter’s “big mad Evan Hurst is so mean” post, he says this:

Surely Hurst is not unaware of the fact that the “fundamentalist” Christians he so obviously despises are historically a bastion of support for the State of Israel.

No, Pete. Evan Hurst is all too aware, and is just as cynical as many Jewish Americans about the supposed “support” Christian fundamentalists have for Israel. Because this belief system is not inspiring them to “support Israel” out of love for the Jewish people. It’s, rather, about propping up Israel so that Jesus will come back and take his final revenge on everybody they don’t like. Jews, gays, Muslims, you-name-it. Read Revelation 20. This is the moment of triumph in the premillenial dispensationalist Christian Fundamentalist worldview, which, again, is extremely popular in those circles. This is the moment where Jesus comes back and just cold kicks everybody’s ass. They project all of their perceived victimization onto this imaginary moment in the future where their white warrior will come back and avenge everything they claim to have suffered at the hands of, you know, whoever is upsetting them that day.

Could I have fleshed out that comment more at the time? Sure. Maybe I should’ve. Well, now I did!

But, Peter LaBarbera, for perhaps the first and last time, you’re right about one solitary thing: I shouldn’t have said “all.”

The rest of it stands.

At least Truth Wins Out has a comments section where people can air their views on things, as opposed to AFTAH, where freedom of thought, expression, and even occasionally poorly worded popping off is deemed far too threatening.

(Oh, and Peter does announce, finally, that he suddenly remembered to award the Gay Grinch award to Wayne! He forgot to do it for three months, because, well, you see, what had happened was…)

RELATED: Peter earlier issued a quote-unquote challenge to me, to Wayne, and to Jeremy Hooper, Joe Jervis and Rea Carey to answer a question that this site and Good-As-You have already answered at length: Should other groups like the Catholic Church and the Family Research Council also be classified in the same SPLC-certified hate-boat upon which Peter now sets sail? There is a simple answer: that the SPLC has very specific guidelines for what crosses over into “hate” territory, which they use to decide who is indeed a force for genuine hatred in this country. That’s the simple answer. For a more fleshed out answer, may I recommend that you visit Good-As-You because Jeremy took the ball and ran with that question.

UPDATE: Joe.My.God has also now responded to Peter’s Hate Challenge Wolverine Wankfest or whatever it is.

Box Turtle Bulletin has just thrown down the gauntlet with their debut of three videos which expose Scott Lively’s talks in Uganda. Lively, of course, is one of the primary American Evangelicals responsible for encouraging the “Kill the Gays” genocide bill in that country. As you will see in these videos, he is a very sick man. He has been spreading a malevolent lie for over a decade, straight out of his fever dreams, that gays were an integral agressor in the Holocaust, but the video I’m posting finds Lively telling a new lie, one so sinister, considering his audience, that even I am stunned: that gays were responsible for the Rwandan genocide. If you’re not that familiar with African geography, please click here to realize that Uganda and Rwanda share a border. That Scott Lively would play on the fears and tortured memories of people who lived through and next to the famous Rwandan genocide in his life-wasting jihad against gay people should turn the stomach of any rational human being.

It comes as no surprise that Lively apparently referred to this series of talks as a “nuclear bomb” against the “gay agenda.” Anyone who would strike first with a “nuclear bomb” is a demented individual, indeed.

That’s all I’ve got to say. Carl Jung would have a lot more to say, but I digress.

Watch this video here, and then click over to BTB for the rest, and for more detailed commentary from Jim.

Rwanda

South Africa as yet, has remained completely silent on the issue of pink human rights in Africa, specifically Uganda - presumably on the “head-in-the-sand” principle employed by the ostrich – if you ignore it long enough, it will probably go away. Perhaps they are right, but then who am I to criticize? I live in a country which seems increasingly desperate to imitate that other bastion of third-world lunacy, Zimbabwe. (Read More)

This post can also be read at:

The Huffington Post

The Falls Church News Press

WayneBesen.com

Sometimes, words can kill.

A vocabulary carefully crafted into lethal lies almost always foreshadows fatalities.

In the case of Nazi Germany, the evidence of Hitler’s wicked intentions — from Mein Kampf to the Brown Shirts – was vividly clear. People may have ignored the alarm bells, but no one can say that there were not warnings of the brutality to come.

In 1994, Hutu radio broadcasts that called Tutsis cockroaches helped lead to genocide in Rwanda. Prior to the infamous broadcasts, a newspaper published the Hutu Ten Commandments, which smeared the rival ethnic tribe and included the eerily prescient eighth commandment: “Hutus must stop having mercy on the Tutsis.”

Earlier this month, in Gojra, Pakistan, more than 20,000 rioters torched 100 houses that belonged to Christian families and murdered seven people after a false rumor spread that the town’s Christians had defiled the Koran. Local mullahs enthusiastically furthered this big lie and used it to spark violence.

“We were afraid because the clerics had been railing against us in the mosques,” Riaz Masih, a Christian and retired math teacher whose house was gutted told the New York Times. “They said, ‘Let’s teach them a lesson.’”

The circumstances of these tragedies are vastly disparate in terms of geography, time period and circumstances. However, they illustrate three points:

1) Inflammatory and defamatory words, especially if spoken by religious or political authority figures, can and do lead to violence.

2) There is no shortage of mentally unbalanced people who will sometimes carry out shocking acts, and we should be very careful not to incite them with rhetoric that stokes their paranoia. Like stacks of firewood, these angry individuals go unnoticed until the gasoline is poured and the match is lit.

3) Americans are human beings, just like everyone else. So, the notion that what we say does not matter “because it could never happen here” is jingoistic foolishness.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Dr. Michael Brown, an anti-gay ideologue in Charlotte who brought hundreds of red shirted fundamentalists to that town’s gay pride event. Brown’s mission is to “raise up a holy army of uncompromising spirit-filled radicals who will shake an entire generation with the gospel of Jesus by life or death.”

If you haven’t noticed, the extreme right is getting dangerously delirious. A black president, a Latina on the Supreme Court and gay people gearing up to marry in Iowa has exacerbated this crowd’s feelings of marginalization. (Read More)