Anti-LGBT minister Scott Lively thinks judge said mean things about him

by Rob Howard
Associate Editor

Virulently anti-LGBTQ pastor Scott Lively actually won when U.S. District Court Judge Michael Ponsor dismissed a suit against him filed by Ugandan LGBT activists. The case was filed in 2012 by the U.S. based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), “the suit alleged that Lively’s involvement in anti-LGBT efforts in Uganda, which included his active participation in the development of anti-LGBT policies aimed at revoking rights of LGBT people constituted persecution."

The lawsuit was the first known case “seeking accountability for persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” according to CCR.

Judge Ponsor said in his opinion dismissing the case, “The much narrower and more technical question posed by Defendant’s motion is whether the limited actions taken by Defendant on American soil in pursuit of his odious campaign are sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims. They are not sufficient, summary judgment is appropriate for this, and only this, reason.”

But Lively, and his attorneys, including Mat Staver from the notoriously anti-LGBT law firm Liberty Counsel, have appealed the ruling.

That’s right. He won, but he is appealing the ruling. Why? Because, according to MassLive.com, “In this case, Lively and his lawyers filed an appeal Thursday in U.S. District Court in Springfield charging that U.S. District Court Judge Michael Ponsor, although reaching the correct conclusion, directed language at Lively that was mean.”

The appeal asks that the judge uphold the dismissal, but eliminate “certain extraneous but prejudicial language immaterial to the disposition of the case and which the district court has no jurisdiction to entertain or enter."

You can be sure that Judge Ponsor is no fan of Lively. Here are some quotes from the ruling:

“Defendant’s positions on LGBTI people range from the ludicrous to the abhorrent. He has asserted that ‘Nazism was in large part an outgrowth of the German homosexual movement.’

“He has tried to make gay people scapegoats for practically all of humanity’s ills, finding ‘through various leads, a dark and powerful homosexual presence in…the Spanish Inquisition, the French Reign of Terror, the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery.’

“This crackpot bigotry could be brushed aside as pathetic, except for the terrible harm it can cause…. Defendant has worked with elements in Uganda who share some of his views to try to repress freedom of expression by LGBTI people in Uganda, deprive them of the protection of the law, and render their very existence illegal.

SPLC discussed Liberty Counsel’s reaction to the judge’s language, saying, “Liberty Counsel also declared that, ‘the evidence showed that Lively, in a country where homosexuality has been illegal for decades, urged treatment of LGBT people with respect and dignity,’ in direct contradiction to Ponsor’s ruling.

“Mathew ‘Mat’ Staver, Liberty Counsel president, addressed that aspect of the ruling, by claiming that, ‘the court’s open display of activism in deriding Lively’s beliefs reminds of the threats American Christians continue to face from a judiciary that is increasingly hostile to any expression of biblical truth to a decaying culture.’”

SPLC continued, “In 2009, Lively spoke at a virulently anti-LGBT conference in Kampala, Uganda, where he presented his conspiratorial anti-LGBT views and met with lawmakers who then developed the notorious ‘kill the gays bill,’ which called for the death penalty for LGBT people in certain instances.”

Frank Mugisha, Executive director of SMUG, said in a CCR press release, “This case is a win for SMUG. The court’s ruling recognized the dangers resulting from the hatred that Scott Lively and other extremist Christians from the U.S. have exported to my country. By having a court recognize that persecution of LGBTI amounts to a crime against humanity, we have already been able to hold Lively to account and reduce his dangerous influence in Uganda.”

Copyright 2017 The Gayly - June 9, 2017 @ 3:35 p.m.