Notorious anti-LGBT bigot and hate group leader Scott Lively is very upset that a Christian publisher yanked a revisionist “history” book about Thomas Jefferson written by fellow extremist David Barton. In an interview with World Magazine, Casey Francis Harrell, Director of Corporate Communications for Thomas Nelson Publishing, said the company had “lost confidence in the book’s details. According to Harrell, the publisher
“was contacted by a number of people expressing concerns about [The Jefferson Lies].” The company began to evaluate the criticisms, Harrell said, and “in the course of our review learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported. Because of these deficiencies we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution.”
Barton’s book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, was controversial from the start, with even some of the author’s conservative peers distancing themselves from the work. He was savaged by National Public Radio for factual distortions in a recent report that also (accurately) called him out for falsely claiming to be a historian. Given all of this, the publisher’s decision to yank the book seems pretty self-explanatory, right?
Wrong. Enter Scott Lively. In his alternate version of reality, Barton’s book was not yanked by a publisher who suddenly found common sense, but by a Big Gay Conspiracy:
“I have my own little conspiracy theory and it centers on David Barton’s emergence as a vocal opponent of the ‘gay rights’ movement and [Warren] Throckmorton‘s self-appointed role as the saboteur of such people. If you ‘Google’ ‘David Barton’ and ‘Homosexuality’ you will find that Mr. Barton has become a subject of intense vilification in the ‘gay’ blogosphere.”
And then Lively jumps into the gutter:
“You will also find triumphal gloating over Barton’s drubbing by the entire cadre of homosexual bloggers who specialize in attacking Christians, including the ‘Joseph Goebbels’ of this group, Wayne Besen of the ironically-titled Truth Wins Out blog.” (emphasis mine)
While Scott Lively (left), author of The Pink Swastika, is no stranger to wantonly slinging defamatory Nazi references at gay people, his singling out of TWO’s Besen — a Jewish man — for such an attack is disgraceful, vile, and utterly reprehensible. Comparing a man who’s dedicated his life to the struggle for LGBT equality to a person culpable in one of the most horrifying genocides in human history is beneath contempt. Day after day, anti-gay extremists like Scott Lively prove that there is literally no low to which they won’t stoop.
Wear that “hate group leader” designation with pride, Scott. You’ve earned it.
(h/t: Joe, whom Lively also singled out as an “anti-Christ”)
