On Monday January 7th
2013 in Federal Court Springfield, opening oral arguments will be heard for the
motion to dismiss the case of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) v. Scott
Lively. This is not the defendant’s
first attempt at dismissal.
Lively is of course claiming his First Amendment right of Freedom of
Speech and Religion. This historic case against Lively is for crimes against
humanity, for persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender
identity. It is a first case of its kind
anywhere in the world and it is happening here in Massachusetts now that Scott Lively and his
Abiding Truth Ministries – Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group –
reside here in the Commonwealth.
For many years Scott Lively has travelled not just our country but the
entire world spewing his own special form of hate and persecution imparting his
own unique ‘knowledge’ of the ‘Gay Agenda’.
He claims he “knows more than almost anyone else in the world” about
homosexuality.
In 2009, he brought his theory and his purposeful anti-LGBTI agenda to
a Uganda workshop and a month or so later the Ugandan Parliament suddenly saw
the introduction of what is now known as the ‘Kill the Gays Bill’, the
Anti-Homosexuality Bill, with harsh penalties that currently includes the death
penalty.
Scott Lively bragged that he had created a "nuclear bomb against
the gay agenda in Uganda." Oh, and don’t believe the rumors from the BBC
or the AP or even Lively’s latest missive about the death penalty being removed
as the bill cannot actually be modified until it is officially debated in the
Ugandan Parliament.
Why should we care about what is happening in Uganda thanks
to American Evangelicals? Because if
you’ve listened to the crowing of Lively, Perkins, Fischer, and others of that
ilk following the bill’s reappearance on the Ugandan Parliament’s agenda in
November you’ll have heard that it is exactly what they envision for the US
too!
Not as likely to happen here as it seems in Uganda where it enjoys a 96%
favorability rating thanks to the decades of lies spread throughout the African
continent about how the American and European gays are coming for their
children to recruit them into homosexuality, and how pray-away-the-gay really
works, no really, and a whole host of other ridiculous unfounded claims easy to
dispel if you have access to facts.
Here in the US, Scott Lively recently traveled to Springfield Missouri
to lend his hand to derail that city’s proposed sexual orientation
nondiscrimination ordinance, which he called a “Gay Fascism Bill” for which he
now brags that he should be called in whenever a ‘Trojan Horse for the Gay
Agenda’ like that crops up because surely he is the only one who can extinguish
them as he claims to have done there.
So our LGBT brothers and sisters in Missouri will continue to be fired, evicted,
and denied their civil rights thanks to our Commonwealth’s resident.
Keeping in mind the more they succeed, the more emboldened they become
everywhere. Here in the Commonwealth, we remember how public accommodations
were removed from the Trans Civil Rights Bill.
Are you good with all that? Are
you okay with death and life imprisonment penalties for gays and their
allies? If not, please consider
attending the court hearing to show support that this demonization of the gay
and trans communities must stop everywhere.
What: Oral
argument on Defendant's Motion to Dismiss in SMUG v. Lively
Where: Hampden
Courtroom, Federal Courthouse, 300
State St., Springfield, MA
When: Monday,
January 7, 2013 at 11:00 a.m.
Cathy Kristofferson
GetEQUAL/MA and Stop
The Hate and Homophobia Coalition Springfield
ARISE IS PROUD TO BE ONE OF THE
FOUNDING MEMBERS OF THE “STOP HATE AND HOMOPHOBIA COALITION.”
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