Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee to Star in Film Featuring Activist Credited with Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Law

Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee to Star in Film Featuring Activist Credited with Uganda’s Draconian Anti-LGBT Law

HRC calls on both to renounce affiliation with documentary highlighting infamous activist Scott Lively, who will stand trial in federal court for alleged crimes against humanity

WASHINGTON – Today, the Human Rights Campaign, (HRC), the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, called on Senator Rand Paul and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to renounce their participation in an upcoming film featuring notorious anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively.

According to Right Wing Watch as well as media reports, Paul, Huckabee and four Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives will appear in Light Win: How To Overcome The Criminalization Of Christianity, a documentary that will be released at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention on February 24 in Nashville, TN. A trailer for the film, which includes comments such as "[i]f homosexual activists get everything they want, it'll be nothing less than the criminalization of Christianity,” is available here.

In 2014, HRC released a detailed report on Scott Lively’s deeply troubling anti-LGBT advocacy around the world.  Lively traveled repeatedly to Uganda claiming that LGBT people are responsible for the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the spread of HIV/AIDS.  Some Ugandan officials credit Lively with the idea of introducing new legislation to further criminalize homosexuality in the country, and prominent Ugandan LGBT activists have said the "bill is essentially his creation." That bill, which was signed into law in 2014, is known as the Anti-Homosexuality Act, and its enactment prompted a wave of international condemnation and ultimately sanctions by the United States government. The law was eventually struck down by Uganda’s Constitutional Court, although it has been reported that lawmakers in the country could try to introduce successor legislation.  Lively is also currently facing a civil suit in the U.S. brought on by Ugandan human rights advocates for alleged crimes against humanity.

“Hate is not an American value, and we urge Senator Paul and Governor Huckabee to renounce their affiliation with this film as well and categorically reject Scott Lively's horrendous exportation of anti-LGBT bigotry abroad," said JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs.  “It would be unconscionable for any American, let alone one who seeks the presidency, to affiliate with such venomous and dangerous extremism.”

In 2014, Lively ran an unsuccessful independent bid to become the governor of Massachusetts, and is currently mulling a possible run for Congress as a Republican.  He has traveled repeatedly to Russia as well as countries in Eastern Europe, and has taken credit for the passage of Russia’s anti-LGBT propaganda law, which he says he proposed back in 2007.  Lively, the author of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, has described being LGBT as a “personality disorder”, and his struggle against equality as “a war” in which only one side can prevail.

"Scott Lively’s long record of exporting vicious anti-LGBT bigotry is horrifying,” said Ty Cobb, Director HRC of Global.  “Lively’s words and actions harm LGBT people from the United States to Uganda and beyond.  He is one of the most notorious extremists engaged in this work, and we urge all Americans to reject his brand of fundamentally dangerous advocacy."

Last September, HRC highlighted Lively along with other Americans engaged in this work in its report The Export of Hate. Anti-LGBT activists Brian Camenker and Mat Staver, who were included in the report, are also reported to be in the documentary.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. HRC envisions a world where LGBT people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

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