Scott Douglas Lively is an American author, attorney and activist, noted for his opposition to LGBT rights and his involvement in the ex-gay movement. Lively is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, a conservative Christian organization located in Temecula, California.[1] Abiding Truth Ministries is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[2] Lively has called for the criminalization of "the public advocacy of homosexuality" as far back as 2007.[3][4] He is also directly linked to pending anti-gay legislation in Uganda, which would, if passed, make homosexual conduct punishable by a lengthy prison sentence or death.[5]
Along with Kevin E. Abrams, he co-authored the book The Pink Swastika, which states in the preface that "homosexuals [are] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities."[6] Several academic historians have questioned the book's claims and selective use of research.[7][8][9][10][11]
Lively is the former state director for the California branch of the American Family Association and formed Watchmen on the Walls based in Riga, Latvia.[12]
According to a January 2011 profile, Lively "has not changed his view that gays are 'agents of America’s moral decline' but has refocused his approach to fit his flock in Springfield, Massachusetts" and "is toning down his antigay rhetoric and shifting his focus to helping the downtrodden."[13]
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The website's mission statement is to "promote and defend the Biblical view of marriage and family through... education, training, and funding." The "Resources" section sells books by Lively.[14]
In 1991, Lively assaulted Catherine Stauffer, throwing her against a wall and dragging her across the floor of a Portland church, at an Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) event she had been trying to film.[15] Stauffer received a judgment of over $31,000 against Lively and the OCA in 1992.[16][17]
The Southern Poverty Law Center regards Abiding Truth Ministries as a hate group.[18] Lively has responded with his blog HatewatchWatch.
In March 2009, Lively, with Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge, American evangelical Christians, arrived in Kampala to give a series of talks. "The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was 'the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda' — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family".[5]
"[T]housands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians," reportedly attended the conference.[5] Lively and his colleagues "discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how 'the gay movement is an evil institution' whose goal is 'to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.'"[5] Lively wrote days later that "someone had likened their campaign to 'a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.'"[5]
The talks inspired the development of a private member's Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan parliament.[19] The bill, submitted in November 2009, called for the death penalty in some cases, and received international opprobrium.[19][20][21]
Lively expressed disappointment that "the legislation was so harsh."[5] "Lively says he recommended an approach rooted in rehabilitation, not punishment and says an anti-gay bill being considered by the Ugandan Parliament goes too far"[22]:
[M]y advice to the parliament was to go the other direction from what they did to actually go on a proactive positive message promoting the family, promoting marriage, etcetera, through the schools, and that if they were going to continue to criminalize homosexuality that they should focus on rehabilitation and not punishment. And I was very disappointed when the law came out as it is written now with such incredibly harsh punishments.[22]
However, Lively has said that he will endorse the bill if the death penalty is removed.[23]
In March 2010, Lively wrote:
In my view, homosexuality (indeed all sex outside of marriage) should be actively discouraged by society -- but only as aggressively as necessary to prevent the mainstreaming of alternative sexual lifestyles, and with concern for the preservation of the liberties of those who desire to keep their personal lifestyles private. Marriage-based culture served humanity very favorably during the centuries when homosexuality was disapproved but tolerated as a sub-culture in America, England and elsewhere. It has obviously not fared well in the decades since the so-called sexual revolution kicked open Pandora’s Box and unleashed both rampant heterosexual promiscuity and "Gay Pride" on the world.
In March of this year I had the privilege of addressing members of the Ugandan parliament in their national assembly hall when the anti-homosexuality law was just being considered. I urged them to pattern their bill on some American laws regarding alcoholism and drug abuse. I cited my own pre-Christian experience being arrested for drunk driving. I was given and chose the option of therapy which turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I also cited the policy in some U.S. jurisdictions regarding marijuana. Criminalization of the drug prevents its users from promoting it, and discourages non-users from starting, even while the law itself is very lightly enforced, if at all.[24]