Topic: WorldNetDaily
An unbylined Jan. 7 WorldNetDaily article is almost entirely dedicated to defending anti-gay activist Scott Lively against a lawsuit filed by a Ugandan gay-rights group accusing Lively of encouraging the persecution of gays in Uganda, specifically through a proposed law that would permit the death penalty for mere homosexuality.
At no point does WND directly quote more than three words at a time from the lawsuit, nor does it provide a link to the complaint against Lively, filed by Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG). But paragraph upon paragraph are lavished on statements made by Lively's lawyers at the right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel. The WND article is framed around the Lively defense's argument that an outcome that doesn't favor Lively means that "First Amendment free speech protections should play second fiddle to an international consensus that criticism of homosexuality is criminal." It's a ridiculously unbalanced article.
Such unbalance -- which WND brought to a previous article on the lawsuit -- means that Lively's anti-gay activism is soft-pedaled. Thus, Lively's February 2011 WND rant about how "lavender Marxists" are "murderers" who "have fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda" goes down the memory hole and does not serve as an example of Lively's rhetoric -- which one can reasonably assume was even more inflammatory while in Uganda, where he was out of the reach of U.S. media.
Indeed, the lawsuit includes quotes from Lively in Uganda in which he calls pornograhy a "tool of 'gay' social engineering," held a closed-door meeting with pastors there, after which he claimed he described how "America was brought low by homosexual activism," and equated homosexuality with sexual violence against children. WND fails to mention any of this.
WND also rehashes the defense's complaint "SMUG also does not tell the court that David Kato – the murdered Ugandan activist whom SMUG makes the centerpiece of this lawsuit – was killed not by an enraged homophobe incited by Mr. Lively’s protected speech, but by a homosexual prostitute upset over a failed business transaction." In fact, observers say Ugandan police may be trying to cover up a motive of homophobia in Kato's death, and that the man who was convicted in Kato's death may have been set up to murder Kato for being gay and thought if he established a homosexual sex demand, he would be treated leniently.
Never one to let a good marketing opportunity go to waste, the WND article includes a link to purchase Lively's discredited anti-gay screed "The Pink Swastika" at WND's online store.
