Uganda “Kill The Gays“ bill architect Scott Lively, currently being sued in U.S. federal court, accused of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gays, is pushing a fallacious claim (image, top,) that President Obama “may be gay” and was “previously married to a man.” This story, as The New Civil Rights Movement was one of the first to break, centers on birther and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, who released a video Monday suggesting President Obama is hiding that he’s gay or bisexual, and further suggests Obama may have been married to his college roommate, a Pakistani.
Corsi’s “proof”? Obama supposedly wore a wedding ring while in college, and in a few photographs — which Corsi doesn’t show in the video – “Obama seems to be siting about on the guy’s lap.”
Which, of course, is proof Obama is gay or bisexual, or, lived in a small dorm room, or, wore a wedding ring to fend off women because he was, well, who the hell knows — or cares.
Back to Scott Lively. For those readers who aren’t that familiar with him, here’s the top of Lively’s bio on Wikipedia:
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. Lively has called for the criminalization of “the public advocacy of homosexuality” as far back as 2007. 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.
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.” Several historians have questioned the book’s claims and selective use of research.
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.
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.”
That past paragraph, all due respect to Wikipedia, um, not so much truth.
Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch, who first reported on this Lively claim, writes “it was no surprise to see that Scott Lively, the Religious Right hero for his work as an anti-gay activist in Uganda in trying to criminalize homosexuality, is pushing the [Obama may be gay] claim himself.”
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