In a somewhat astonishing display of victim-blaming, Scott Lively, the infamous conservative Christian anti-gay activist, says that the real group to blame for anti-gay violence in Russia isn't homophobes–it's gay people themselves.
This might come as a bit of a shock to anyone whose seen the disgusting and disturbing images of anti-gay hate that have come out of the country recently, but last weekend, on a radio show called "Mission America," Lively told host Linda Harvey that the only violence taking place in Russia is "gay-on-gay crime":
“Russia does have nationalists, these are Nazis, the same as I wrote in the book ‘The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality and the Nazi Party,' that's the same thing. The guys that are beating up gays in Russia—and it's not any more prevalent than it ever has been really and it isn't all that prevalent at all—but the ones that are doing it are butch homosexuals who are beating up effeminate homosexuals, the same thing that happened in Germany; this is gay-on-gay crime, at least that is what it appears to be.”
In "The Pink Swastika," the book Lively refers to, the anti-gay activist argued that Hitler and other top Nazi officials were gay, and that it was these men's homosexuality that led to the rise of extremism in Germany that would later spark World War II.
According to Right Wing Watch, Lively bragged on Harvey's program about the energy he's put into supporting anti-gay efforts in Russia:
Lively also said that he met with Russian Orthodox Church's leadership to “pitch the idea of the Russians adopting the rainbow as a Russian symbol, a Christian symbol, reclaiming the rainbow and to do the Russian Olympics under the banner of the rainbow that says ‘the rainbow belongs to God.'”
“It looks like they are going to do that,” Lively continued. “Get all the pro-family organizations to come along to declare 2014 ‘The Year of God's Rainbow' and all of us adopt it—I'm wearing a pin right now that says ‘Reclaim The Rainbow: Ezekiel 1:28'—I think all of us should just start taking the rainbow, putting it on our webpages, wearing it and just take it away from them, it doesn't belong to them.”
“Fabulous, fabulous, neither does the word gay,” Harvey added.
Lively told the radio host that the U.S. is becoming "a gay Soviet union," and that Russia will take its place as a strong Christian country thanks to its recent push to demonize LGBT people and suppress LGBT rights.
Lively is currently on trial for crimes against humanity in Uganda, where he pushed virulently anti-gay legislation. Last month, he announced a run for the governorship of Massachusetts.
Listen to clips, below:
