Brody's Notes... Anti-Gay U. S. Pastor Lobbies Against Anti-Discrimination Bill In Moldova

Scott Lively
Photo By The Boston Globe

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) MAR 14 | The vehemently anti-gay pastor Scott Lively, who is widely credited with being the guiding inspiration behind the infamous "Kill The Gays" legislation in Uganda, which is still under consideration by that country's parliament after his spring 2009 trip there to lobby against gay rights, has just returned from another similar trip this time to the Eastern European nation of Moldova. Lively was invited to Moldova in January by two conservative Christian groups -- Pro Familia and Moldova Crestina.

The government of Moldova is currently undergoing efforts to pass a series of legislative measures that will aid the country as it seeks official recognition from the European Union in an association agreement with that body. Those efforts have included a proposed bill that outlaws discrimination against anyone on the basis of religion, nationality, ethnic origin, language, religion, color, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, political opinion, or social status.
As the draft anti-discrimination measure was submitted to parliament last month, conservative Orthodox Christian forces in the country rallied calling in Lively who has an established global reputation as an anti-gay equality rights crusader.  Lively traveled to the Moldovan capital of Chisinau to warn legislators against adopting any type of measure that would legally prevent discrimination against Gay persons.

This legislation has already passed through two parliamentary committees, but is now stalled. Influential lawmakers from the opposition Communist Party have declared in the wake of Lively's visit that they will not consider this measure as long as it includes protections based on sexual orientation.

In an interview with the Washington D. C. based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty recently, he said: 

"I've been dealing with these laws all over the world and I recognize -- as I said there in the lectures I gave and the media interviews that I gave -- an antidiscrimination law based on sexual orientation is the seed that contains the entire tree of the homosexual political agenda with all of its poisonous fruit. And that if you allow an anti-discrimination policy to go into effect, it essentially puts the power of the law and the government into the hands of gay activists and makes people who disapprove of homosexuality criminals."

Lively claims that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and has made a career out of campaigning against gay rights globally.
Pro Familia Vice President Vitalie Marian told Radio Free Europe:
"The anti-discrimination bill is only a seed. Once it is planted in a country, it turns into a whole tree that bears poisoned fruit." He added that Lively "explicitly told us that this bill is just the beginning, and later homosexuals will be given rights, starting with the right to hold public demonstrations."

The Pro Familia official also acknowledged that the organisation has created an online "black list" of Moldovan public figures who support gay rights. The list includes several parliament members and the head of state television. People who appear on the list can have their names removed by submitting a written statement opposing the anti-discrimination measure.

European LGBTQ Equality rights activists are angered by Lively's influence in the Moldovan political process that they see as an infringement of the political process.

Boris Dittrich, from the Human Rights Watch's LGBT division, just returned to New York from a trip to the Moldovan capital, where he discussed Lively's visit with his counterparts there.

"He [Lively] came there with a story like what he told in Uganda, that if this antidiscrimination law would be accepted, the society would be homosexualized and the homosexuals would take over and it would be very dangerous," Dittrich says.

Dittrich also pointed out that during his 2009 trip to Uganda, Lively met with a Member of the Ugandan Parliament David Bahati, the principal author of the anti-gay bill that would criminalise gay sex and in its original version, called for the death penalty for some gay persons. Bahati has also given speeches in which he blamed gay persons for the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda.

Dittrich says the proposed legislation in Moldova is similar to discrimination protections adopted in other parts of the region, such as Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia. He notes that the countries in that part of the world "didn't have antidiscrimination legislation, so it's very good that they include sexual orientation and hopefully also gender identity. So, it's not a wild law, no. This is to protect people against discrimination."

Dr. Warren Throckmorton, Associate Professor of Psychology at Grove City College, an independent  Christian college in Pennsylvania, who has followed Lively's career said:

"Pastor Lively stirred up a lot of fear in Uganda. He told audiences that homosexuals had an unusual interest in children and so that to protect your children, you should construct stronger laws against homosexuality and enforce them."

According to Radio Free Europe:

Lively is not the first controversial U.S. anti-homosexual campaigner to find his way to Moldova. Psychologist Paul Cameron -- a sex researcher who argues that homosexuality is associated with child sex abuse and other social evils and whose work has been repudiated by major professional associations in the United States -- visited the country in October 2008 and again in May 2009.

Cameron campaigns actively for the criminalization of homosexuality on public-health grounds, he promotes laws against homosexuality much in the way some countries criminalize or sanction smoking in public places. He just believes that homosexuality is harmful to health and harmful to the culture.

Julie Dorf is a senior adviser with the Council for Global Equality, a U.S.-based NGO that works to oppose human rights abuses directed at individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. She criticizes Lively and Cameron for exporting a message that has been rejected in the United States.

"And in the last few years we've seen them increasingly going around the world exporting their hatred and spewing these complete lies and misconceptions about LGBT people, preying on the vulnerability and, in some cases, the ignorance of people around the world by getting them very excited with the idea of getting rid of homosexuality," Dorf says.

For his part, Lively claims efforts to adopt anti-discrimination legislation around the world is an effort by gay activists to advance a homosexual agenda. Lively argues that those LGBTQ equality rights activists are distorting the accepted historical conception of human rights and points to the United Kingdom as an example of the danger he thinks lies ahead for Moldova.

"By adopting this [antidiscrimination measures] and normalizing homosexuality, it [the United Kingdom] has turned real human rights on its head and the people who are attempting to defend and live out religious freedom and family values as they've always been understood are now the ones being discriminated against," Lively says.

"And people who define themselves by voluntary sodomy -- a voluntary lifestyle based on sodomy -- now have the power to suppress and oppress people who are simply attempting to exercise their religious freedom and long-established traditions as regards family and human sexuality."

Human Rights Watch's Dittrich told Radio Free Europe that the proposed legislation in Moldova is similar to discrimination protections adopted in other parts of the region, such as Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia. He notes:

"Countries in that part of the world "didn't have antidiscrimination legislation, so it's very good that they include sexual orientation and hopefully also gender identity. So, it's not a wild law, no. This is to protect people against discrimination."

Dittrich says the measure faces a long political process.