The defendant in the case, Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Scott Lively, has responded to the Jan. 25 Gazette editorial about him with a letter in the March 14 issue.
Lively’s letter quotation from Herbert Marcuse, and further quotations in another of Lively’s articles, “Gay’ agenda? What ‘gay’ agenda?”, allow the inference that Lively is afraid society could be dominated by male homosexuals.
In his article, I think that Lively quotes from other sources selectively, in a way so as to stir alarm. I believe one gay source, an essay entitled “The Overhauling of Straight America,” is actually couched in an arch tone that escapes Lively completely.
Moreover, the article on Marcuse that Lively cites concludes that, while once important, “Marcuse’s influence declined as the gay and lesbian rights movement embraced identity politics (“Marcuse, Herbert (1898-1979),” by Jeffrey Escoffier.) In sum, a careful look at sources Lively gives may show they do not support his conclusions.
The March 14 letter derides as “lying and cheating” a claim of the lawsuit against Lively that “the murder of SMUG leader David Kato… (exemplifies) persecution of homosexuals in Uganda.”
Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) must prove the elements of its complaint against Lively. That is what they must do then; but now, the March 14 letter omits information that does not serve its author’s own agenda. Kato was subject to death threats after a tabloid published his and others’ photos under the heading, “Hang them.”
After Kato’s death, a Ugandan ambassador writing to the European Parliament indicated that conviction of a suspect then in custody for Kato’s murder was a foregone conclusion, while accurately predicting the sentence that would be awarded for the crime. It is, therefore, uncertain how David Kato died.
The March 14 letter opposes the elevation of “so-called gay rights above the actual rights enumerated in our Constitution.”
It is such actual rights that the lawsuit against Lively upholds, namely, in its words, “rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and arbitrary arrest and detention.”
Mary H. Hall
South Hadley