2014/02/03/The painful case of Pastor Scott Lively

title/short::The painful case of Pastor Scott Lively If I could think of a way to hold Lively and his ilk legally accountable that could be reliably distinguished from protected expression, I would. Alas, I can’t. But this is a hard case for me, because in the context of Uganda (as in other countries where Lively et al. are active) there is a nexus between political advocacy and systematic violence that does not exist in, say, Baltimore. Maybe Judge Ponsor will find a defensible line. I’ll try to keep an open mind.
 * when: when posted::2014/02/03
 * author: author::Jonathan Rauch
 * source: site::Washington Post
 * topics: topic::Scott Lively topic::anti-gay topic::hate speech
 * keywords
 * link: URL::http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/03/the-painful-case-of-pastor-scott-lively-homophobe-to-the-world/
 * title: title::The painful case of Pastor Scott Lively, homophobe to the world
 * summary: In fact, I argue, minorities are much better off in a system that protects hateful or discriminatory speech than in a system that protects them from it.

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Now, here’s what should be happening. Christians — especially evangelicals, and above all evangelicals who oppose gay marriage but insist they are not anti-gay (you know who you are!) — should be publicly repudiating what Lively is doing. They should make a very uncomplicated moral statement: “It is wrong and it is un-Christian to go abroad and help demagogues persecute homosexuals, whether intentionally or not.” They should treat Lively the way white blood cells treat a bacillus, walling him off before he discredits evangelicals more broadly — as surely he will.

But to my knowledge, not a single prominent U.S. Christian leader has spoken up. Not one. Think about that.

Commentary / discussion: Sai