Leader of Anti-Gay Hate Group to Run for Governor

Scott Lively, leader of Abiding Truth Ministries and the co-author of a revisionist work that blames gay men for the Nazi Party who, ultimately, had a hand in the Holocaust, has decided to run for governor of the state of Massachusetts as an Independent. The election is slated for November 4, 2014.

Lively made an announcement about his decision yesterday on his blog, Scott Lively Ministries, stating that “a true conservative independent could win the governorship,” since, by his reasoning, the Massachusetts Republican party is “controlled by moderate to liberal ‘progressives’ and the Democrats are virtual communists.” Both parties, Lively asserts, “embrace and champion the culture of death.”

Lively has a long history of denigrating and demonizing LGBT people and working actively to pass laws against homosexuality, which he has referred to over the years as “evil” and “dangerous.” He was communications director with the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) during the early 1990s, a group that developed a strategy to criminalize the advocacy of homosexuality through a variety of ballot measures designed to deny rights to LGBT people.

During the Oregon campaigns, Lively proved himself an activist who could get his message out and translate it into votes. Tarso Ramos, who worked to defeat the OCA-driven Ballot Measure 9 in 1992 and who is currently director of the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates, told Boston Magazine earlier this year, “Put before an audience receptive to fear, Lively can have a devastating effect. He was successful in getting a high percentage of the vote, and it was too close for comfort. He’s not a statesman. He’s not a diplomat. He’s not the master of a subtle turn of phrase. He’s a bomb thrower.”

Lively also takes his incendiary messages about LGBT people abroad, garnering international attention and condemnation for his role in influencing an anti-gay bill in Uganda, whose harsh punishments for homosexuality included death in some instances. The bill has yet to pass due to an international outcry, and Lively was sued last year by Sexual Minorities Uganda and the Center for Constitutional Rights for crimes against humanity. The lawsuit advanced in August to federal court.

Most recently, Lively has been taking partial credit for the anti-gay bill that passed in Russia, a country he visited on a 50-city tour in 2006-2007. The bill outlaws “homosexual propaganda” to minors. In the wake of that bill and increasing anti-gay sentiment in Russia, violence against LGBT people appears to have increased, and includes instances of neo-Nazis luring young gay men via social media to torture and, in one alleged instance, death.

Lively was so pleased with the Russian law that he posted an open letter on his blog to Russian president Vladimir Putin, praising him for his stance against homosexuality, and claiming that “the homosexualist movement” has managed, in 50 years, to gain “more political influence in the legislatures and courtrooms of the western world than the Christian church.” And, never one to avoid furthering his claims about gay people and Nazism, he made sure to let Putin know that, “German fascism was formed and facilitated by masculine-oriented male homosexuals in response to an effeminate model of homosexuality…”

In the next few days, Lively said in his announcement, he’ll file his paperwork with the state and open a bank account so he can begin raising money for his campaign. “[I]t would take a miracle from God for Scott Lively to become Governor of Massachusetts,” he said, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s not planning on campaigning like a politician, but he will be traveling the state to get out his message, which, if history is any indication, will probably include dire warnings about the dangers of the “homosexual agenda.”