In 2009, I reported that NARTH (National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) had removed all but one reference to Scott Lively’s works from their website. That reference was a note in their newsletter which described Lively’s short speech at the 2005 NARTH convention where he donated money to the organization on behalf of his Pro-Family Charitable Trust. As an aside, Lively has donated at least $2000 to NARTH since 2003.

In fact, Lively’s involvement with NARTH goes back further than his donations. In 1995, Lively spoke at the NARTH conference and presented his signature theme – homosexuals started and animated the Nazi party. In that paper still available on the NARTH website, Lively wrote, “In many respects, the SA was a creation of Germany’s homosexual movement, just as the Nazi Party was in many ways a creation of the SA.”

The problem is not that Lively documents the existence of homosexuals among the Nazis; that much was true. For instance, Ernst Roehm and others in his orbit were gay or bisexual. However, Lively errs by saying the “homosexual movement” created the Nazi party, as if the inevitable outcome of a movement for civil rights for gays is national socialism. See this link for more on the Pink Swastika.

In fairness, the paper does not show up in a search conducted on NARTH’s website (actually very little available on the website comes up from using that search engine). However, it does come up in various Google searches.

Although NARTH is not making this article easy to find, it is still available and demonstrates to me something about the DNA of the organization. Despite claiming to be a scientific organization, the leadership has invited anti-gay activists to present their views since the early days of the organization. Scott Lively favors legal restrictions on homosexual behavior and free speech surrounding advocacy for gay rights. At the most recent conference, NARTH featured Sharon Slater, a leading proponent of criminalization.

According to a World Net Daily report, a couple of bricks were thrown through the window of the Christian Liberty Academy which hosted the Americans for Truth About Homosexuality banquet earlier this evening. The vandalism was conducted in the early morning hours today with an email sent to a Chicago area news source.

No organization has taken responsibility for the incident which may mean that the attack was conducted by someone acting independently.

The email focused on Scott Lively, who was the recipient of an award at the AFTAH banquet.

This is an ugly episode and I hope those responsible for the vandalism are caught and prosecuted.

Reaction from WND readers to the attack reveals ugliness of another kind. One reader John Acord said gays should be confined to mental institutions (see comment below):

And then there is this comment from John Mccord:

Actually, Scott Lively and Mr. Acord are more on the same wavelength since Lively says he advised the Ugandan government to set up national gay rehab programs. He told WND this as well:

My advice to the MPs regarding the law they were contemplating but had not yet drafted was to focus on rehabilitation and not punishment. I urged them to become the first government in the world to develop a state-sponsored recovery system for homosexuality on the model we have in the United States for alcoholism.

I wonder why that suggestion would upset gays?

In any case, there is plenty of ugly to go around.

UPDATE: The comments I posted above have been removed from the thread at WND. However, if you look down the list, you can find more like them.

Chicago Tribune has a blurb out this morning in their “Breaking News” section. Since the story had already been reported several places, I assume they have a section for news about broken things.

This weekend Moody Church pastor Erwin Lutzer is slated to speak at a banquet hosted by the American for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). Also on the agenda is the presentation of AFTAH’s “Truth Teller” Award to Scott Lively. You can read more about Mr. Lively here. I have written much about him, his book The Pink Swastika, and his work in Uganda.

Because of the presence of Lively, a Chicago area gay activist group, the Gay Liberation Network, wrote Rev. Lutzer to inform him of Lively’s views and background in Uganda. One of the accusations from the GLN is that Lively supports violence against gays in Uganda. Lively and LaBarbera say it is not true. Which is it?

To address this, the definition of violence is relevant. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines violence as an “exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse” or “injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation.” Another definition is given describing intense force or turbulence, such as a violent storm. As it relates to interpersonal violence, the violent action may involve physical injury or “profanation” which can include verbal debasement (The Pink Swastika qualifies) or contemptuous treatment.

When it comes to the situation in Uganda, Scott Lively has rejected the death penalty associated with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. He favors a situation where those convicted of homosexual behavior would have an option for treatment. In other words, face a penalty of some kind or “choose” to go into a government sanctioned process to change sexual orientation. Here is what he wrote about the matter in an essay:

Let me be absolutely clear. I do not support the proposed anti-homosexuality law as written. It does not emphasize rehabilitation over punishment and the punishment that it calls for is unacceptably harsh. However, if the offending sections were sufficiently modified, the proposed law would represent an encouraging step in the right direction. As one of the first laws of this century to recognize that the destructiveness of the “gay” agenda warrants opposition by government, it would deserve support from Christian believers and other advocates of marriage-based culture around the world. 

Note that Lively advises support for the bill if the death penalty was “modified.” As a reminder, the bill without the death penalty would still provide life in jail for someone who “touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.”

Is advocating life in jail for disapproved private conduct violence toward those who engage in that conduct?

Scott Lively was interviewed by Marissa Van Zeller of Vanguard Television and asked his view of the bill without the death penalty. In that interview, he supported a bill without the death penalty as “the lesser of two evils.”

Watch:

Lively said:

Like I said, I would not have written the bill this way. But what it comes down to is a question of lesser of two evils, you know like many of the political choices that we have. What is the lesser of two evils here? To allow the American and European gay activists to continue to do to that country what they’ve done here? Or to have a law that may be overly harsh in some regards for people who are indulging in voluntary sexual conduct? I think the lesser of two evils is for the bill to go through.

Scott Lively says he does not favor violence toward gay people, but he does say that the Ugandans are to be commended and that the bill, sans the death penalty, would be acceptable. If the bill was passed and enforced in Uganda, GLBT people would be subject to arrest for physical actions that someone in authority thought was sexual in nature. They could lose everything they have and spend their remaining days in a Ugandan prison. Others could be arrested simply for advocating on behalf of GLBT people. Is this violence?

What if Scott Lively had his way and GLBT people in Uganda (or here, since he likes the idea so much) were forced into some kind of “treatment.” Even NARTH who is hosting an advocate of criminalization at their upcoming conference, has said forced treatment doesn’t work. Exodus clearly denounced it. If NARTH and Exodus say treatment applied under durress is ineffective, then what model are you recommending Mr. Lively?

I surely don’t want the government to take my freedom, access to my family and possessions because because of a moral disagreement. If I was the recipient of such treatment, it would seem like violence to me.

Scott Lively said once that his work in Uganda was like “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda.” In January, he went nuclear-style to Moldova to oppose an anti-discrimination law. Radio Free Europe has the story:

When the Moldovan government submitted a draft antidiscrimination law to parliament last month, conservative Orthodox Christian forces in the country treated it as a call to battle.

And that call was heeded by U.S. pastor and lawyer Scott Lively, who traveled to Chisinau to warn the country against adopting any measure that would bar discrimination against homosexuals.

The bill 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. It was proposed as part of Moldova’s effort to gain an association agreement with the European Union.

The controversial Lively believes homosexuality is a lifestyle choice with dire social consequences and has made a career in recent years campaigning against gay rights around the world. His website claims he has spoken in more than 30 countries.

“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,” Lively tells RFE/RL, “and that, if you allow an antidiscrimination 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.”

Mainstream science rejects the notion that sexual orientation is a matter of personal choice.

I was interviewed for this piece. The interviewer was interested in Lively’s past work, especially in Uganda.

Boris Dittrich, acting director of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) program, just returned to the United States from a trip to Moldova, where he discussed Lively’s visit with rights advocates in Chisinau.

“He 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.

In Uganda, Lively met with lawmaker David Bahati, who drafted the antigay bill, and gave speeches in which he tied gays to the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda.

“He stirred up a lot of fear in Uganda,” says Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College, a Christian college in Pennsylvania, who has followed Lively’s activity. “He told them 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.”

In Moldova, however, Lively did not publicly advocate criminalizing homosexuality, but limited himself to campaigning against the antidiscrimination bill. He said he met with one member of parliament while he was in Chisinau.

Exporting U.S. Culture Wars

Lively is not the first controversial U.S. antihomosexual 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, Throckmorton notes, and so 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.”

I also provided this little gem which I think gives Mr. Lively’s views a proper context:

I have come to discover, through various leads, a dark and powerful homosexual presence in other historical periods: the Spanish Inquisition, the French “Reign of Terror,” the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery.

This quote comes from his lesser known book, The Poisoned Stream which argues that homosexuality is a “poisoned stream” through history. For Lively, money is not the root of all sorts of evil, homosexuality is.

Rachel Maddow adds commentary to the controversy over David Kato’s murder.

Those close to Kato have told me that Kato did not pay prostitutes and that the scenario developing around him is implausible. If they are correct and Enock Nsuguba killed Kato for other reasons, I suppose a gay panic type defense might be a strategic move in order to avoid the hangman.

Maddow here may overemphasize the direct American influence on this bill. However, she certainly is correct that the rhetoric offered by Scott Lively and Caleb Brundidge (I leave out Don Schmierer because his talk included very little about reorientation and was nothing like Lively’s venom) was supportive to the plan of certain Ugandans to create the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Lively’s nuclear bomb cannot be wished away with confusing and hateful op-eds. The only productive stance by people who misled the Ugandan people is to repent and ask them to follow the example of Jesus when he prevented the mob from killing a women believed to be a sinner.

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center published several articles devoted to identifying groups who perpetuate stereotypes and falsehoods about gays. In one of the articles, the SPLC articulated a list of ten myths about gays which they claimed the groups identified as hate groups willfully promote. Elsewhere, the SPLC updated the list of what they term anti-gay hate groups, adding several groups, some of which are well known social conservative organizations.

The reaction was slow but has started to emerge from the groups identified by the SPLC.  One such reaction comes from Matt Barber, Liberty University adminstrator and board member at AFTAH, who wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times, titled “SPLC: The wolf who cried ‘hate.‘

The SPLC criteria for inclusion as a hate group were at one time somewhat vague.  Now, with the ten-myth criteria, it becomes easier to identify the types of public statements which the SPLC views as promoting bias toward gays. One myth I have written about is the Scott Lively inspired claim that gays animated the Nazi party. In fact, the SPLC referred to a couple of posts on this blog by my friend and colleague, JonDavid Wyneken, history professor at GCC (part 1 & part 2). Referring to claims made in Lively’s book, The Pink Swastika, SPLC’s Evelyn Schlatter and Robert Steinback wrote:

The Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an earlier (1994) Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their thesis.

More recently Bryan Fischer, speaking for another newly added hate group the American Family Association, said

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

These are false claims which have been addressed multiple times by experts and primary sources. These are the kinds of claims which led the SPLC to place the AFA on their list.

And so it is stunning to see one of Matt Barber’s arguments in defense of the groups recently named to the hate group list. In fact, the argument is the big finish to the Washington Times column I referred to above. He says:

So, center-right America: If you happen to believe in the sanctity of natural marriage and that, as a culture, we’re best served by honoring the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic of our forefathers, you’re now an official “hater.”

Of course, the tired goal of this silly meme is to associate in the public mind’s eye mainstream conservative social values with racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism. The ironic result, however, is that, as typically occurs with such ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks, the attacker ends up marginalizing himself and galvanizing his intended target (I’m rubber, you’re glue and all that).

Hence, beyond a self-aggrandizing liberal echo chamber, the SPLC – and by extension the greater “progressive” movement – has become largely, as it stews in its own radicalism, just another punch line.

It’s often said that the first to call the other a Nazi has lost the argument.

Congratulations, conservative America: They’re calling you a Nazi. Carry on.

Exactly. By Barber’s reasoning, then, the AFA and Scott Lively have lost the argument since the Nazi card has been played repeatedly by members of the SPLC’s hate list.

There is another strange twist in Barber’s op-ed. He says this:

The ironic result, however, is that, as typically occurs with such ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks, the attacker ends up marginalizing himself and galvanizing his intended target (I’m rubber, you’re glue and all that).

The groups which now populate the SPLC list specialize in ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks. Claims that gays die 20+ years early, that they are child abusers, that they are inherently diseased, and responsible for the Holocaust are the kinds of ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks which lead thoughful people, liberal and conservative, to question the credibility of those making the claims.

Christian groups should care about nuance and bearing honest witness. They should avoid misleading stereotypes and strive for accuracy in fact claims. When they don’t, they hurt the church and the good work that others are doing. Being designated a hate group is a serious matter and one which should cause reflection about the charges and not reckless defensiveness.

For more posts debunking the thesis advanced by the American Family Association and The Pink Swastika, click here…

There is absolutely no need for commentary. Really, you’ll see.

Ok, maybe a little commentary. To read all my posts on Scott Lively’s tough gay nazi assignment, click here.

Hat tip to XGW

In various ways, over the last two weeks, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has advanced three theories about Hitler, the Nazi Party and homosexuals. They are:

1. Hitler was an active homosexual.

2. Hitler could not find straight soldiers who were savage enough to carry out his evil plans, so he recruited homosexuals to do it.

3. Homosexuals in the Nazi military led to the Holocaust.

Fischer produces several quotes from historians and students of the Nazi movement to support him. It seems to me that he pulls these quotes right out of their context and uses them to paint an incomplete picture of history.

Hitler’s sexuality has been examined from several different angles. He is an enigma for sure, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to Fischer who called Hitler “an active homosexual.” In the historical record it is clear that Hitler displayed some interest in certain women but this was glossed over by Fischer. Even if Hitler did have a homosexual period –this is by no means proven — there was a clear shift in attitude toward homosexuals after the murder of Ernst Rohm. It is accurate to say that Rohm and several of the SA Brownshirts were homosexual. Hitler tolerated them until they were no longer useful and had them executed in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knive purge. The man who led the execution of Rohm and who later had responsibility for instilling the uncompromising cruelty of the concentration camps at Dachau and later as general inspector of all camps was Theodore Eicke. Eicke, not mentioned in Scott Lively’s book, was married with two children; very straight and very savage.

What follows are just a sampling of quotes which are relevant to Fischer’s theories.

Hitler avoided contact with women, meeting with cold indifference during visits to the opera alleged attempts by young women, probably seeing him as something of an oddity, to flirt or tease him. He was repelled by homosexuality. He refrained from masturbation. Prostitution horrified but fascinated him. He associated it with venereal disease, which petrified him. (p. 23)

–Ian Kershaw in Hitler: A Biography (2008). WW Norton & Co. 

“Diels says of Hitler, “He [Hitler] lectured me on the role of homosexuality in history and politics. It had destroyed ancient Greece he said. Once rife, it extended its contagious effects like an ineluctable law of nature to the best and most manly of characters, elimination from the reproductive process those very men on whose offspring a nation depended. The immediate result of the vice, however, was that unnatural passion swiftly became dominant in public affairs if it were allowed to spread unchecked”. (p.118) (Rudolf Diels was the first chief of the Gestapo)

–Frank Rector. (1981). The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals.  Stein & Day Publishing. 

Hitler was prudish in his abhorrence of the “sins” of the modern big city like prostitution, homosexuality, and even immodest dress. He wrote of these matters as the “political, ethical and moral contamination of the people” and the “poisoning of the health of the body politic.” (p. 336)

–Robert Gellately (2007). Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Random House.  

In November, 1941 Hitler even signed a decree making homosexual offenses among SS members and policemen a capital offense. Two months earlier, Hitler had explained to Goebbels the Darwinian underpinnings of his opposition to homosexuality. After remarking that homosexuality should not be tolerated, especially in the Nazi party and the Army, Hitler continued:

The homosexual is always disposed to drive the selection of men toward the criminal or at least the sickly than the useful in the selection of men. If one would give him free rein, the state would eventually be an organization of homosexuality, but not an organization of manly selection. A real man would defend himself against this endeavor, because he sees it as an assassination of his own evolutionary possibilities. (p. 131)

–Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress  (2009). Richard Weikart. Palgrave MacMillan.

There are many more such quotes and accounts which demonstrate the clear distain for homosexuality from Hitler and the Nazis. Last week, I noted that Lothar Machtan, who Bryan Fischer quotes at length, discounted points 2 and 3 above. For more on homosexuality and the Nazis, consult this link and this one.

Over the last week or so, Bryan Fischer made a series of claims regarding homosexuality and the Holocaust. He summarized his arguments in an article on the RenewAmerica website:

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

In making his case, he relies heavily on two books: The Hidden Hitler by Lothar Machtan and The Pink Swastika by Scott Lively. Last summer, I did a series of posts critiquing The Pink Swastika. This morning I had a brief email exchange with Lothar Machtan regarding Fischer’s central thesis.  His current schedule did not allow an extensive interview at this time, but he did react to Fischer’s claim.

In the Hidden Hitler, Dr. Machtan argues largely from circumstances, inference and second hand accounts that Hitler was a homosexual. He is in the minority in his view but he presents an account that is important to consider.

Everything about Hitler is historically interesting and relevant. If Hitler was same-sex attracted, it would be of interest to students of history in the same way that historians have examined the imperial heterosexuality of Mao Zedong. Machtan told me that Hitler’s (alleged) homosexuality influenced his political career up to about 1934-35. However, he said in clear terms that Hitler’s cruelty was not due to his sexuality, saying, “Hitler’s atrocities primarily do NOT derive from his homosexuality.” Regarding the Holocaust, Machtan added, “Of course you CANNOT blame Hitler’s homosexuality for the Holocaust.” (Machtan supplied the emphasis)

I am about half way through The Hidden Hitler and am reserving my opinion until I complete it and perhaps until after I am able to interview Machtan. However, as I suspected, Machtan does not advance the simplistic causal links advanced by Mr. Fischer in the service of the culture war.

See my prior post relating to Bryan Fischer’s claims.

On Monday, I wrote about the corrosive effect of the culture war on the real business of Christianity. In that post, I wrote

On the other hand, my great concern is that culture warring lulls people into feeling that that the cause justifies the considerable offense that comes with vilifying those the church yearns to reach.

As if to volunteer to be Exhibit A, Bryan Fischer helps define “vilifying” for us. On his American Family Radio program this week, Fischer, who erroneously believes the New Testament teaches criminalization of homosexuality) made the tired and discredited link between homosexuality and the WWII Nazis. He did not do this as an attempt at a lesson in history but as a part of his opposition to gays serving openly in the military. He did not simply comment on his moral opposition to homosexuality, teaching his view of the matter from the Bible. He vilified an entire group of people based on distortions of fact and the behavior of a few. Listen for yourself, transcript to follow:

So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn’t the Germans, didn’t the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.

When Fischer says that Hitler could not find straights to be savage enough, he goes beyond even Scott Lively’s imagination. This is one clear example of what I meant by vilifying.

He followed up his radio performance with a column defending his views by quoting books by Lothar Machtan and of course, Scott Lively. Machtan speculates that Hitler was homosexual, although other historians have explored this possibility and most of them are skeptical. I explored the matter in this post and you can get a more objective look at the matter via the documentary Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis. I have a clip here dealing with Machtan’s book on the question of Hitler’s sexuality:

Note that the historians other than Machtan point out that there is no proof, no eye witness account. When Fischer confidently says that Hitler was an active homosexual, he misleads his numerically substantial audience. And he does so make a far more sinister point which he makes explicit in a column out today. In that article, he extensively quotes Lively’s book The Pink Swastika and echoes Lively when he writes:

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

Regarding the specific claims of the Pink Swastika, I did a series of posts with the help of historian J.D. Wyneken. We found that The Pink Swastika took some historical facts, threw in a lot of wild speculation and simply overlooked disconfirming facts to create a false picture – one which Bryan Fischer summarized over this last week to support his culture war position.

Here are related posts in that series:

May 28 – Scott Lively wants off SPLC hate group list

May 31 – Eliminating homosexuality: Modern Uganda and Nazi Germany

June 3 – Before The Pink Swastika

June 4 – Kevin Abrams: The other side of The Pink Swastika

June 8 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 1

June 9 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 2

June 11 – American Nazi movement and homosexuality: How pink is their swastika?

June 15 – Nazi movement rallies against gays in Springfield, MO (See this one regarding Fischer’s association of American Nazis with homosexuality)

June 17 – Does homosexuality lead to fascism?

June 23 – The Pink Swastika and Friedrich Nietzsche

June 29 – The Pink Swastika and The Hidden Holocaust?

July 6 – The Pink Swastika and Hate 2 Hope (See this one regarding Fischer’s association of American Nazis with homosexuality)

Factoid: Fischer is a confirmed speaker at the Values Voter Summit.