Thursday, December 20, 2007

Violent Anti-Gay Movements and Their Connection to MassResistance

I first learned about this issue from my husband who pointed out the cover story on the "Intelligence Report" from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was about a violent anti-gay movement in Latvia that has spilled over in the United States and it is emerging in evangelical churches serving Slavic immigrants.


A couple of things caught my eye. First Scott Lively (if that name sounds familiar it's because he is the person who wrote the "Pink Swastika" which Massresistance is always alluding to and coincidentally spoke at their annual fundraising banquet.) Secondly, there were these paragraphs which stood out:


Nevertheless, The Pink Swastika has become Lively's passport to fame among anti-gay church leaders and their followers in Eastern Europe, as well as Russian-speaking anti-gay activists in America. Lively frequently speaks about the book and his broader anti-gay agenda in churches, police academies and television news studios throughout the former Soviet Union.


Lively credits the popularity of Russian-language translations of The Pink Swastika to the support of Pastor Alexey Ledyaev, the head of the New Generation Church, an evangelical Christian megachurch based in Riga, the capital city of Latvia. New Generation has more than 200 satellite churches spread throughout Eastern Europe, Argentina, Israel and the United States.


"One of my supporters gave him [Ledyaev] a copy of The Pink Swastika. He was very impressed by it," Lively said in a December 2006 radio show on WTTT-AM, based in Boston. "The European press was bashing them [Ledyaev and his church] for being Nazis. He was finally thrilled that he had something to counter the media with." Ledyaev did not respond to E-mails seeking comment.



Now, take a guess as to who's show he was on in December of 2006...if you guessed MASSRESISTANCE, you are probably right since Scott Lively was on MassResistance's radio show in December! I would also like to point out that Scott Lively is now moving (maybe he's already there) to Springfield Massachusetts.

What's really distressing is the amount of violence that is occurring because of these people and Scott Lively and MassResistance refuse to acknowledge that it is happening because of them. Brian considers Scott Lively his "good friend", are we surprised? Ms. Massresistance has even posted a number of rants citing him.

I really recommend you read the Southern Poverty Law Center's article which exposes what is really going on out there and appears to be coming to this state soon (It appears that it is already here and Scott is just rejoining them in Sprinfield because a man, Vadim Privedenyuk, runs an anti-gay church in Springfield, Mass.)



Update: Apparently they were here during the last Con Con as evidenced here from a picture from MassResistance:


Update 2: Massresistance just posted another picture on their blog from Springfield Mass and guess what, there are Russian protesters in those pictures too. I wonder if that anti-gay church was involved in that nasty billboard that was put up not too long ago? Well, MassResistance has no new audience in Massachusetts so I guess they have to import them from elsewhere.

2 comments:

Fiddler said...

OH, I remember seeing those guys at the ConCon.

I believe the point I made at the time was that I found it ironic that the graphic depictions of stick-figure gay sex were being promoted by the anti-equality side; Teh Gays had nothing of the sort. So who are we supposed to be protecting children from again?

Mark D. Snyder said...

I remember them too... and I thouht they looked well... kinda gay hehe

We need to confront these types of radical evangelical Christians head on without equivication.

It takes several things.
1. people to offer them a way out into a loving accepting religion. They are addicted to their hate and their religion so they need a way out that keeps their self worth in tact.

2. All out campaigns against their mistruths that they preach and all out protests in which we do not hold back the truth and we confront them head on. These people are responsible for violence and youth suicide so it is not something to be taken lightly. A candlelight vigil in front of their church isn't going to solve the problem. We must fight them on all fronts.

Evangelicals raise their children to be "warriors" for their cause. We need to be warriors too.