Scott Lively at the Border of Free Speech

Scott Lively

Yesterday, under the Alien Tort Statute, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit against Abiding Truth Ministries President Scott Lively on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a non-profit umbrella organization for LGBT advocacy groups in Uganda. The suit alleges that Lively’s involvement in anti-gay efforts in Uganda, including his active participation in the formulation of anti-gay legislation and policies aimed at revoking fundamental rights from LGBT persons constitutes persecution (legal filing after the jump).


The Southern Policy Law Center has identified Abiding Truth Ministries as a hate group. You can read more about ATM on SPLC's website.

Christianists, far and wide, will undoubtedly claim that Lively was exercising his rights of free speech and free association in Uganda. However, when Lively advocated for the persecution of a minority with the expectation that said persecution would be carried out, he became part of a criminal conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity.  It is astonishing that this prick has created a mythology about the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany while he merrily used the same dehumanizing tactics to cause the persecution of LGBT citizens of Uganda.

Lively should be very afraid. In 2003, an international tribunal found three people, associated with RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines), guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced them to 35 years imprisonment. RTLM was the radio station run by the Hutu led government in Rwanda. It operated between July of 1993 and July of 1994.

Meanwhile, bankrupting Scott Lively sounds like a very good idea.

LGBTuganda Filing