On Trial for Crime Against Humanity, Homophobe Scott Lively Begs for Cash

Antigay Massachusetts pastor Scott Lively is having a hard time -- he's currently on trial, facing a lawsuit accusing him of a crime against humanity. Lively is also broke, according to a frantic message he posted on his website last week.

Lively is spending time in a Springfield, Mass. courtroom where a judge is deciding whether to bring a precedent-setting lawsuit to trial. A Ugandan LGBT group called Sexual Minorities Uganda sued Lively over his trips to the nation in the last decade, where, they claim, he convinced local legislators to embrace antigay laws that cost them their freedom, comfort, and privacy.

The Ugandan gay rights group says Lively not only delivered hateful speeches against LGBT people, calling them "brutal," "savage," and harboring a predilection toward pedophilia, he worked with lawmakers to actively take away their rights and put them in harm's way.

In 2009 a bill was introduced in Uganda's Parliament that called for certain consensual gay sex acts to be punishable by death. It never became law; a version calling for life imprisonment did, but it was struck down by the nation's highest court. Still, homosexuality remains illegal in Uganda. Many Ugandan LGBT people live in constant fear of violence, and local gay leaders have been killed. SMUG says Lively is partly to blame for the dangerous environment and should be convicted of a crime against humanity.

SMUG was able to bring the case to court under a statute allowing foreigners to sue Americans in U.S. federal court. Lively is trying to get the case tossed out and denies he's responsible for the horrible conditions that LGBT Ugandans live under.

This is how he recently put it to the The Boston Globe: "There are homosexuals who molest children. That's just a fact. But I never said that all homosexuals do that."

On his blog, Lively blames "shameless liars" in the LGBT movement for creating a campaign to destroy him. He claims a leftist cabal made him a scapegoat, before painting himself as a persecuted victim. Then he makes a plea for money.

"My friends, SMUG v Lively is truly a David v Goliath battle. I'm runing a one-man office on a shoestring budget of less than $120,000 per year, provided almost entirely by donations of $50 and $100 from average people. Our donor base is small, mostly elderly, and very difficult to expand due to the success of the anti-Lively propaganda. While Liberty Counsel has been funding our legal defense, this lawsuit has nevertheless caused us major financial hardship and seriously threatens our future.

"Frankly, I question whether [Abiding Truth Ministries] will survive the decade without greater support from the individuals scattered across the society who recognize the danger of the LGBT agenda and are willing to stand with us financially against it. That can only happen if the people who already support us encourage their like-minded friends and allies to donate to us."

In another post, Lively pleads for cash again, but also advocates repealing all of the U.S.'s antidiscrimination statutes protecting LGBT people as well as banning future ones. Then, he advocates that the U.S. follow Russia's lead and ban "homosexual propaganda" aimed at children, something he partially takes credit for.

"The beauty of the Russian law is it cuts right to the heart of the real problem of LGBT advocacy: the recruitment of children. What I mean by recruitment of children is not primarily the sexual exploitation of young people by adult homosexuals, though that represents a dark current within the larger "gay" culture, especially among the men. What I mean is the normalization of homosexual conduct and culture to children and youths, leading them to engage in homosexual experimentation among themselves and subsequently self-identify as "gay." An entire generation of American, British and Canadian children has been enslaved to this corrupt culture and ideology through the very propaganda that Russia has now banned."