Hate Preach

[n2doc]

An American brags that he's the father of the Ugandan anti-gay movement. Can he be prosecuted in the U.S.?
By Dahlia Lithwick


Can an American court hold a U.S. citizen liable for the effects his speech has in a foreign country? We may soon find out. Last Wednesday a federal judge allowed a novel legal claim to proceed in his Massachusetts courtroom, setting up a groundbreaking suit pitting the free-speech rights of an anti-gay pastor and activist against the basic human rights of gay Ugandans.

If you haven’t heard of Scott Lively yet, you will. The pastor is hardly unique in his views about the evils of homosexuality, from repurposing the old canard that to be gay is to be a pedophile, to his original and truly deranged claim that it was homosexuals who caused the Holocaust. Lively’s got a predictably loyal following of haters and snarlers. It’s just that unlike his brethren who stop at preaching religious hatred on cable television and AM radio, Lively has taken his virulent hate speech on the road, consulting in many other countries, specifically Uganda and Russia, to persuade foreign governments to pass brutally repressive anti-gay legislation.

Indeed Lively played a key role at an anti-gay conference in 2009 that eventually led to the drafting of Uganda’s so-called Kill the Gays bill, a bill that’s been kicking around its Parliament ever since, that would impose the death penalty for the “offense of homosexuality” under certain circumstances. And Lively has also been involved in efforts to criminalize gay advocacy in various foreign countries—resulting in not just rising abuse and reprisals, but in a gutting of the very legal protections with which gay advocates might defend themselves.

Lively has openly bragged of his own role as the "father" of the anti-gay movement in Uganda, calling his campaign “a nuclear bomb against the ‘gay’ agenda in Uganda.” The question is whether all this constitutes mere speech or something more.

more

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/08/scott_lively_can_he_be_punished_in_the_u_s_for_speech_against_gay_ugandans.html

[HillWilliam]

1. There's probably no prosecution for that

except that Karma will be served. Her mill may be slow but it grinds exceedingly fine.

[William769]

2. There is something called precedent.

He most certainly can be charged and prosecuted for crimes against humanity under U.S. law.

I for one would love to be the person to smack that smug look right off his fucking face.

[MNBrewer]

3. If we were even a fraction as violent and vicious as he claims

he would already be in his grave. The fact that he's still alive is testament to his being a big fat liar.

[William769]

4. Very true.

[mitchtv]

5. sounds to me like:

Conspiracy to commit Genocide

[Vanje]

6. I actually met that asshole

Back then he was a local Oregon problem. Scott Lively was an advocate against "Special Rights" working for Oregon Citizens Alliance, an anti-gay group run by a loathsome fellow called Lon Mabon.

Fortunately Mabon was never heard from again. Wish that would have been the case with Lively.