“I May Run for MA Governor“, declares Scott Lively in his most recent blog post.
“I’m probably 90 percent sure that I’m going to do it, but I’m holding back that 10 percent,” Lively told The Republican. He’s considering a run because he is “greatly dismayed at the breakdown of family and morality” in Massachusetts.
Although The Republican went on to report that “He conceded that his announcement would spark new outrage among gay and civil rights activists,” I as a civil rights advocate in the Bay State would heartily welcome Mr. Lively’s candidacy.
Nothing would shine an embarrassing spotlight on the Massachusetts Republican Party’s ongoing endorsement of anti-LGBT discrimination better than one of the state’s most dedicated homophobic activists running for governor under their banner.
The Massachusetts Republican Party still condones discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Notice what’s missing in their platform, which states that “We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran status, or national origin to be immoral, and we reject hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, and religious intolerance.”
Mr. Lively lists, “in order of destructiveness”, “the abortion industry, the homosexual movement, the public education system” as being “most responsible for the moral and economic degeneration of Springfield and the state”. Despite this ranking, gays have long been Scott Lively’s preoccupation, as is clear from the content of his website and this extensive profile by Jim Burroway.
Like Stephen Pidgeon, the anti-gay “Judeo-Christian” attorney who recently ran for attorney general in Washington state, Mr. Lively makes some peculiar claims about his qualifications:
Scott Lively the Attorney
Mr. Lively names Good News Employee Association v. Hicks as his “most significant case”, which he took “all the way to the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Sounds impressive. What Mr. Lively fails to mention is that he lost this case several times over. The U.S. Federal District Court summarily dismissed the case (C-03-3542), a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed (05-15467) and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to re-examine (06-1619).
It was one of his first cases, he says. One suspects that, because it is the only case he cited in his blog post, it was also one of his last.
Mr. Lively got his legal training at the evangelical Christian Trinity Law School.
Scott Lively the Humanitarian
According to his blog post, “Pastor Lively holds a Certificaté in International Human Rights from the Institute of International Human Rights in Strasburg (sic), France, and is the author of the Riga Declaration on Religious Freedom, Family Values and Human Rights (2006)”.
What a strange combination.
The The International Institute of Human Rights was founded in 1969 by René Cassin, “the first Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights”. The Institute’s stated goal is “to defend and develop fundamental human rights, an indispensable condition for the maintenance of peace.”
Yet Mr. Lively’s Riga Declaration is dedicated to curtailing the human rights of gay people. It concludes:
…Whereas none of the of the foundational human rights documents from the dawn of time until recent years have granted human rights based on homosexuality, but in several cases have expressly condemned such conduct,
Therefore, relying upon more than 4000 years of legal precedent and the moral and religious principles we share with the vast majority of the citizens of the world,
We Declare that the human rights of religious and moral people to protect family values is far superior to any claimed human right of those who practice homosexuality and other sexual deviance, and
We Call for the European Union and the international community to immediately abandon any campaign to create a human right for homosexual conduct, and to restore religious freedom and family values to their proper superior status.
To all appearances, Mr. Lively is trying to use his completion of an IIHR course to give a patina of legitimacy to his call for the curtailment of the human rights of gay people.
As parliamentarians in Uganda promise to pass the draconian Anti-Homosexuality bill (that Scott Lively helped instigate) as a “Christmas gift” to their country, I pray that Mr. Lively will grant my Christmas wish by running for governor of Massachusetts. It’s high time that the Massachusetts Republican Party be forced to decisively embrace or reject the political homophobia and transphobia that they still quietly cling to.
Cross-posted at Pam’s House Blend.
I do not look forward to months of shrill TV ads telling me what a loathsome, plague on society I am. Nor do I wish that on the thousands of LGBT youth who are on the verge of coming out, and may be bullied or worse become self destructive as a result of the garbage we will be subjected to for this one idiot’s ego.
The mainstream press won’t give this guy any real coverage. And, since he has zero chance of winning, few will donate to his campaign so there won’t be any shrill TV ads.
Lively opened a storefront coffeehouse only a few doors from my organization, Arise for Social Justice, two years ago. Mostly we don’t want to give this guy publicity, but twice we’ve had major demonstrations when it seemed necessary. Our goal is not to drive him out of Springfield, but to isolate him and his beliefs (similar to the more progressive idea of encapsulating nuclear waste onsite rather than transporting radioactivity all over the country).
I am not unhappy that Lively has chosen to make a fool of himself in a state with less tolerance for fools than many others. Even in my working class city, he has made little headway. Let him be even further diminished by his ego. We’re ready for him.