Christian Pastor Being Abused by Liberal Judge!

Reverend Scott Lively is a minister and an attorney and a recognized expert, author and critic of the homosexual movement. He was invited by the Ugandan legislature to help them create laws to protect their society from the propaganda of the homosexual movement. Rev. Lively traveled to Uganda and worked with the legislature who eventually passed laws against homosexuality.

After the laws were implemented a homosexual organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), hauled Rev. Lively to US Federal Court accusing him of “crimes against humanity” for inciting persecution against Uganda’s homosexual residents.

SMUG argued our Alien Tort Statute allows them to bring charges in US courts when there is alleged violation of international law. Rev. Lively’s counsel argued this is a matter of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and asked for the case to be dismissed.

The Supreme Court basically rendered void the Alien Tort Act in April 2013 during the Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Co. case. Kiobel was the first time the Alien Tort Act was used by a human rights organization to sue a corporation. The Supreme Court held that the statute does not apply to cases involving allegations of abuse outside the United States. Clearly this ruling relates to the allegations against Rev. Lively.

Still, Federal Judge, Michael Ponsor, rejected Rev. Lively’s motion to dismiss the case and will allow the lawsuit to go forward.

If this type of lawsuit is allowed under international law, American pastors will be soon be intimidated into silence and the church will no longer have room to speak about such important moral issues.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Judge Ponsor is a known activist judge. In June, two months before his ruling, Ponsor told the local Springfield Republican newspaper: “At some point I realized that judges are the unappointed legislators of mankind, and what we do is just as creative.” This should have had him defrocked.

The Founding Fathers knew that checks and balances had to be placed on political power. An essential check on the abuse of power is an unbiased judiciary. Impartial judges are supposed to protect our rights and rule according to the original intention of the constitution. Obama appointee to the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, infamously said it is in the courts where policy is made. But it’s not. The Congress, not the courts, is where policy is supposed to be fashioned.

Activist judges are among the biggest threats to our constitutional liberties, including our freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers never intended the Courts to be used to advance an ideological agenda. But activist judges have used the courts time and time again to force their secular values. The courts drove prayer and Bible reading out of the schools. The courts gave us abortion and homosexual marriage.

TAKE ACTION

You can do something to protect Rev. Lively!

Contact the Judiciary Committee today and urge that Congress reprimand Posnor for his activist decision, and to protect the judiciary from such radical activism again.

• SENATE Judiciary Committee Chairman → Patrick Leahy (D – Vermont)
  • Online: https://www.leahy.senate.gov/contact/
  • Call: (202) 224-4242
• HOUSE Judiciary Committee Chairman → Bob Goodlatte (R – Virginia)
  • Online: http://goodlatte.house.gov/contacts/new
  • Call: (202) 225-5431