Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:05 pm
“Gender, race, ethnicity – these are all morally neutral. But homosexuality is – involves voluntary sexual conduct with serious public health, social, sociological implications. It’s not irrational to discriminate on that basis.” – Scott Lively, NPR Interview, 2014
Extremist pastor and bigoted shill Scott Lively is being compared to Jesus by Matt Barber, writing over at World Net Daily. Because Lively wants to kill gays, and Jesus…well, Jesus didn’t.
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Matt Barber is upset that his buddy Lively is facing charges of committing international crimes against humanity by inciting the persecution of the LGBT community in Uganda. The charges were filed in 2012 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG).
Barber says people want to destroy Lively, who has called gay-friendly Christians “heretics,” said marriage equality caused Noah’s flood, and claimed gay people are responsible for the holocaust in his hate- and lie-filled diatribe, The Pink Swastika.
Gosh. Hard to imagine what anybody could have against Scott Lively!
But Barber, who writes of the crucifixion of Scott Lively, assures us,
As did Christ, Scott Lively speaks absolute truth, in absolute love, with absolutely no fear of personal destruction or even death. He loves everyone, whether friend or foe, Christian or pagan, straight or ‘gay.’
I don’t know. I think if Lively was like Jesus he would just let us crucify him already. After all, Jesus didn’t fight back.
Speaking as a Pagan, I’m not feeling the love. And he loves gays so much that he incited their persecution in Uganda.
What a guy. In fact, here is just how much of a guy Lively is:
But he’s innocent, because all he did, Barber says, was exercise “his God-given First Amendment rights, as well as his free-speech rights afforded by the laws of Uganda, and spoke biblical truth about homosexual sin after having been invited there by a number of Ugandan pro-family groups,” and now “homosexual activists” have “”Hitlerized” him, and “set-out to make an example of him.”
Well, he is advocating murder, so don’t you think he Hitlerized himself? Remember, this is the guy who “Hitlerized” gay people – literally – but he’s complaining about being Hitlerized? Really?
Barber relates that,
Lively loves those who seek to defend him just as he loves those who seek to destroy him – and, make no mistake about it, precisely because Pastor Scott Lively has chosen to both obey and emulate Jesus Christ, there are people, very powerful people, who seek to destroy him. These people, unless and until they come to know, accept and surrender to the Lord Jesus, are, and will remain, enemies of God.
And so Scott Lively prays for them.
But Jesus said don’t cast the first stone (John 8:7). Lively loves throwing stones. I think the stone throwing thing sorta erases the alleged love he feels, don’t you?
Jesus also said to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Rather than do so, Lively lashes out at those who criticize him. Not only has this guy not been crucified, don’t pretend a metaphorical crucifixion is the same thing as having spikes driven through feet and wrists and nailed to a piece of wood in agony for three days is at all comparable. Actual crucifixion doesn’t just hurt your feelings. It kills you.
If anyone should be compared to Jesus, it’s all those innocent gays Lively advocated killing in Uganda, some of whom were beaten, tortured, and even lynched. They didn’t just get their feelings hurt. They got dead.
But Barber thinks they’re the same things, that having people angry at you for advocating their death and being literally crucified are indistinguishable.
Lively, of course, brought this on himself, by promoting violence against gays in Uganda. As I pointed out last year, in 2009, at an anti-gay conference in Uganda, Lively said that gays and lesbians have genocidal tendencies. That speech triggered a witch-hunt in Uganda, which doubtless tickled Lively down to his toes. It was also one of Lively’s contacts in Uganda who proposed the infamous “Kill the gays” bill there.
Words themselves can be a form of violence. So is the physical violence that results from those words. As evidence, here are some quotes from Lively’s 2009 conference in Kampala, Uganda.
Barber argues that, “we’re talking about protected speech here. Lively is being tried for “crimes against humanity” for merely uttering, publicly, millennia-old biblical orthodoxy relative to sexual morality.”
But that orthodoxy dictates killing people, and as I wrote in August of last year,
“This is real simple: If you want to kill people for violating your biblical views, that is a crime, not a violation of your First Amendment rights of free speech.”
Matt Barber writes that the case against Lively will eventually be tossed out of court, but he tells us,
Yet, either way, for these anti-Christian extremists, the damage is done. The process is the punishment.
This was never about winning or losing.It was always about intimidation.
Right, because the guy who says First Amendment Rights don’t apply to his critics is the victim here.
This is a big deal because, if you’re familiar with the Bible at all, you’ll know that it advocates killing all kinds of people for all kinds of crazy reasons:
- Incest (Leviticus 20:17);
- According to Lively’s crowd, homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22);
- Being a victim of rape in a city, because you know, if you’re being raped you’ll scream and you’ll always be rescued if you scream, so you cannot possibly actually be raped in a city (Deuteronomy 22:23-27);
- Adultery (Leviticus 20:10-12);
- Worshipping idols (Exodus 22:20, Leviticus 20:1-5, Deuteronomy 12:2-7);
- Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:14-16, 23);
- Apostasy (Deuteronomy 13:12-15 (You can kill an entire city of people if most of them do this);
- Proselytizing on behalf of another religion (Deuteronomy 13:1-11, Deuteronomy 18:20);
- Striking (Exodus 21:15) or cursing (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9) your parents; and no doubt Lively’s favorite,
- Ignoring the verdict of a priest (Deuteronomy 17:8-13).
You can readily see, I hope, why it is important that people not be allowed to do what Lively helped do in Uganda. He is not only peddling hate, but through his hate, he is peddling judicial murder on the basis of HIS religious beliefs.
If you violate Lively’s religious beliefs, he feels it is not only within his rights to demean and insult you, but to advocate your death. And he feels these are his first Amendment rights and that, assuming you have any First Amendment rights yourself, his trump yours.
His “put gays behind the Constitution” legislation in Oklahoma proves this.
Here’s a sample:
In no circumstance shall sexual orientation regulations superseded the First Amendment rights of individuals, churches and religious organizations to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. For the purpose of this statute religious organizations are those whose policies or culture are substantially influenced by religious values, including but not limited to Christian bookstores, adoption agencies, hospitals, businesses, social organizations and student clubs on college campuses.
This is, by the way, how innocent women were killed as witches. By people like Lively who riled up their neighbors about their supposed sin.
If Lively can get away with advocating the murder of people because they violate his religious beliefs, we’re all in trouble. How long do you think it will be, if you can be murdered for being gay, before Religious Right extremists start going down the rest of that biblical list and find YOU there as well?
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
