Extremist evangelical pastor Scott Lively won one-third of votes from GOP primary voters in Massachusetts. In this piece of commentary for WGBH news, I walk through how Scott Lively was able to trigger a refugee crisis among LGBTQ people in Uganda that continues today.
Why it’s relevant:
Although Lively is temporarily gone from the stage, he’s been replaced by Geoff Diehl, who won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Diehl does not have the overtly anti-LGBTQ background that Lively does (few people do). But a Venn diagram of their political views — best described as Trumpism — is a circle. Unlike Lively, Diehl will be lavished with attention by the political press, including national reporters eager to portray Diehl as the conservative foil to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Most of it will be of the political horse race variety which will not challenge Diehl’s extreme views on immigration, gun laws, the environment — and transgender people. There is no reason to believe that Diehl won’t try to leverage the fear whipped up by Question 3’s proponents — and even stir some up himself — to bring attention to his longshot campaign.
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[Gov. Charlie] Baker’s refusal to take Lively on even as the state is gearing up for a civil rights referendum was cowardly. The decision may have reflected Baker’s own ambivalence about civil rights for transgender people. During his first run for governor, in 2010, Baker’s campaign distributed a flier to GOP delegates at the state convention expressing his opposition to the “Bathroom Bill.” In 2016, he was booed off the stage during his keynote address for an LGBTQ business networking event when he refused to answer questions about whether he would sign the transgender rights bill. The group now defending the trans rights law led the campaign for its passage in 2016. While its strategy was multi-faceted, in the end it came down to shaming Baker into signing the bill.
Baker has since gone on to endorse Diehl, which only makes sense if you are comfortable putting the health of the state GOP above the health of the Commonwealth.
Meanwhile, if the topic of American anti-LGBTQ influence in Africa interests you, here are additional resources of information that are incredibly informative.
Call Me Kuchu, a 2012 documentary about how LGBTQ Ugandans organized against the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The project was organized by focusing on leading Ugandan LGBTI activist David Kato, who was murdered during the filming of the documentary. (Available for purchase for online viewing via Amazon and iTunes.)
“The Funeral of David Kato: How Uganda’s Leading Gay Activist Was Laid to Rest,” a must be read to be believed piece by Slate on the total mayhem that erupted at Kato’s funeral when the village pastor assigned to deliver his eulogy realized not only that Kata had been gay but that all of the village outsiders who’d come to attend Kato’s funeral were also LGBTI.
God Loves Uganda, a 2013 documentary about how evangelicals with an extreme anti-LGBTQ agenda work their way through the country. (Available on Netflix.)
An interview with God Loves Uganda filmmaker Roger Ross Williams by Political Research Associates, a social justice think tank that exposes movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights.
Globalizing The Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia. A 2009 report by Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates that shows how the U.S. Right mobilizes African Protestant clergy to protest any movement towards LGBT equality in U.S. mainline churches while promoting an agenda that criminalizes homosexuality in Africa.
Colonizing African Values: How The U.S. Christian Right Is Transforming Sexual Politics In Africa. A 2012 follow up report by Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma on how American religious conservatives are building organizational strength to promote homophobia and attacks on reproductive rights in sub-Saharan Africa.
A brief about Scott Lively’s activities by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, which represented Uganda LGBTI activist John “Longjones” Wambere, who is featured in Call Me Kuchu, when he successfully sought asylum in the United States to flee anti-LGBTQ death threats in Uganda.