Springfield’s Stop the Hate and Homophobia Coalition will hold a march this afternoon to protest the persecution of gays in Uganda and draw attention to the presence in Springfield of the notorious anti-gay minister Scott Lively.
The protesters will meet outside the federal courthouse on State Street at 1:30 p.m. for a speak-out and then march to the nearby Holy Grounds coffee shop, headquarters of Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries. Marchers will wear black and carry flowers as signs of mourning for Ugandan victims of homophobic violence. Organizers say similar events are planned in Kansas City, Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
In 2009, the Ugandan parliament took up an anti-homosexuality bill that carried criminal sanctions for gay people, including, in some cases, the death penalty. While the bill didn’t pass, the climate has remained a dangerous one for gay people; in January of 2011, David Kato, a leader in the movement for gay rights, was bludgeoned to death in what authorities called a robbery but activists contend was a targeted murdered. Last month, the Ugandan government’s minister for “ethics and integrity” accompanied police to break up a gay-rights conference, sending the organizer into hiding to avoid arrest. And the parliament has once again taken up the anti-gay bill, although backers say it no longer includes the death-penalty provision.
In 2009, Lively had traveled with other evangelical ministers to Uganda to speak about the anti-homosexuality bill, although he later wrote that he had nothing to do with the specifics of the bill, which he called a “serious overcorrection.”
The Stop the Hate and Homophobia Coalition was founded after Lively set up shop in Springfield in 2010. Last fall, the group organized another march to Holy Grounds, where they chanted “Preach love, not hate” and called on Lively to apologize for inciting homophobic violence and to denounce discrimination.
Lively and a group of supporters met the activists on the sidewalk, where the minister read a passage from Romans condemning “unnatural” sexual relations and warning “though they know God’s decree, those who practice such things deserve to die.”
