A gubernatorial candidate for Massachusetts has accused the president of pushing “a destructive homosexual agenda,” and even questioned President Obama’s sexuality.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, pastor Scott Lively said Obama was part of the gay agenda due to his attempts “to break down the protections for the natural family and legitimize sexual perversion.”
“I think Mr. Obama may well be a homosexual himself,” he said. “He is certainly a radical homosexualist – meaning a person, whether they are homosexual or not, meaning a person who is 100% invested in the homosexual agenda.”
He also said the president was guilty of destroying family ideals and religious values.
“He is lending the weight of his office to a movement that’s goal is to overturn the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic and replace it with the gay ethic of sexual anarchy,” Lively told Inigo Gilmore.
Lively, who is from Springfield, Mass., has launched a public profile on his anti-gay beliefs and most recently, his influence over the anti-gay laws in Uganda, which have been hailed as some of the most draconian laws against the LGBT community in the world.
The evangelical pastor, who is running as an independent candidate in the race for Massachusetts governor, is running against some longtime state officials including State Treasurer Steve Grossman, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and 2010 gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker.
In a state that is regarded as one of the country’s most liberal, Lively may be received poorly with his comments about gays, both domestic and abroad.
For over 10 years, Lively has traveled to Uganda, where he met with religious and political leaders to draft an anti-gay bill. He even addressed the Ugandan parliament in March 2009 warning leaders of the dangers of homosexuality, using his gay brother and sister as examples of his personal suffering.
In February, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed a law that imposes tough penalties for homosexual acts. But Lively told The Huffington Post that he was “very disappointed” with the country’s sanctions that penalize homosexuality with life in prison. He denied having any influence on the new law, telling Channel 4 News that he only urged conversion therapy and prevention programs.
The Human Rights Campaign has labeled him as “one of the most notorious exporters of hate,” and he is the center of a lawsuit launched by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of LGBT rights and advocacy groups, who are accusing him of human rights violations.
Lively also recently backed Russia’s anti-gay laws and called out Russian President Vladimir Putin as “an example of moral leadership that has shamed the governments of Western Europe and North America.”
Clare Kim