And another thing Grumpy. Your schizophrenic argument with yourself about Hitler.....you think he was a closet atheist masquerading as a Christian to further his cause? And then you poison the well of the counter argument by saying "quote from some time" will be invalid no matter how many quotations I find from him personally showing he believed his cause was guided by Providence?

Irrelevant. Let's say I grant you this position....what about every Nazi and complacent German citizen under him? Were they also closet atheists? Or did their unquestioning dogma known as Christianity allow them to be exploited and convinced that their war was just; the purge of Judaism was decreed by the God they were taught since children?

See now the problem with religion? (Note: this isn't a problem exclusive to traditional religions. Any dogmatic figure-worship will do the trick.)

NOT TO MENTION: why were Europeans in the middle 20th century so anti-Semitic? Could it have been the Christian church railing for centuries against the Jews that supposedly killed the human personification of their god?

No, they were just random distributions of assholes, right?

Quote :

"The asshole enabler in the United States right now is Christianity."

And so it has been for over a thousand years in Western Civilization. It boggles my mind that modern Christians have the nerve to call their religion tolerant, loving, and compassionate just because they've had to adapt in the last 100 years to a civilization that no longer abides their traditional modus operandi.

[Edited on April 21, 2014 at 12:36 AM. Reason : .]

4/21/2014 12:23:44 AM

Quote :

"How in the world did you come to this conclusion? The vast majority of humanity in recorded history have been theists. The two populations aren't even comparable in this manner."

True. But in terms of people I interact with, about half are atheist or agnostic, and half are theistic, and there seems to be a pretty even balance in terms of the number of self-righteous pricks who talk shit about the other side or want to make them change.

Quote :

"I guarantee you that I could never be convinced to murder innocent people or vote to subjugate women or homosexuals because someone says a god wants me to."

A phrasing which implies you could be convinced to do so, just for another reason. But never mind. You have simply been convinced of your superiority to the majority of the human race, who you blame for all the world's problems. That's much better.

Quote :

"the intention is to promote science and reason based thinking over dogmatic ideologies"

That's worked out really well so far. "Science and reason" can be used to produce dogmas every big as effectively as religion, as the horrors of the 20th century show. What was Communism (and its more terrible offshoots) if not an attempt to apply scientific and rational thought to human history and economics? Nazism was up to its beady little kraut eyes in social darwinism, another attempt to use a scientific basis for dogmatic ends.

You have put your faith in the idea that we can make ideology and dogma go away with science, but the whole terrible course of human history points to the conclusion that we will make ideologies out of anything you give us, whether that be as simple as watching the sun go across the sky ("The sun god! That's why we should slaughter the moon worshippers!") or as scientific as natural selection ("The benefit of the strong! That's why we should slaughter the cripples and retards!")

Quote :

" Your schizophrenic argument with yourself about Hitler.....you think he was a closet atheist masquerading as a Christian to further his cause? And then you poison the well of the counter argument by saying "quote from some time" will be invalid no matter how many quotations I find from him personally showing he believed his cause was guided by Providence?"

I just got done slogging through the long, dense, depressing Ian Kershaw autobiography of Hitler, one of the conclusions of which was that Hitler was not so big on the deities and in fact was chomping at the bit to deal with the "church problem." But when your country is full of Catholics and Lutherans, you spit out the occasional pro-Jesus line. Thanks a lot, Adolf, for giving both sides of the argument material to work with.

Quote :

"why were Europeans in the middle 20th century so anti-Semitic?"

Obviously the church was a big part of this, and I won't deny it. It shouldn't get 100% of the blame, though. Minority populations, particularly where they are perceived as affluent, are often the target of hatred and bigotry. Certainly none of the high-ranking Nazis expressed a religious component to the issue that they viewed as mostly racial and economic.

4/21/2014 6:14:29 AM

Jews for Jesus Releases 'That Jew Died for You' Video Ahead of Easter, Holocaust Remembrance Day
'Our Intent Was Not to Illicit Any Kind of Angry Response,' Says Ministry
http://www.christianpost.com/news/jews-for-jesus-releases-that-jew-died-for-you-video-ahead-of-easter-holocaust-remembrance-day-118184/

4/21/2014 7:51:12 AM

Gotta love the binary thinkers in this thread, masquerading as secular humanists or progressives and denouncing the religious, dogmatic binary thinkers of the conservative right, only to blindly construct their own new set of dogma.

God is dead didn't ya hear? religion=bad, atheism=good. The 20th century was proof of all th- oh, wait....You mean it might be more complicated than that?

Oh, and anyone who tries to cast Hitler as any sort of orthodox or traditional Christian clearly hasn't read anything substantive about him other than an internet blog or two.

4/21/2014 10:14:03 AM

the only person making any kind of argument about Hitler is arguing with himself

4/21/2014 10:34:51 AM

http://tfninsider.org/2014/04/17/david-barton-shamelessly-misleads-hundreds-of-pastors-at-big-texas-renewal-project-event/
David Barton Shamelessly Misleads Hundreds of Pastors at Big Texas Renewal Project Event

Quote :

"When hundreds of pastors and their spouses descended on Austin on April 3-4 for a Texas Renewal Project event, it was clear that the effort to drag houses of worship into partisan politics was kicking into high gear for the 2014 elections. But we were stunned by the sheer audacity of speakers who told the gathered pastors one mistruth after another — all designed to rile up pastors and encourage them to turn their congregations into political machines."

conservative churches are political machines

4/21/2014 10:49:31 AM

Quote :

"'Our Intent Was Not to Illicit Any Kind of Angry Response,'"

lol english fail

4/21/2014 11:08:53 AM

Quote :

"That's worked out really well so far. "Science and reason" can be used to produce dogmas every big as effectively as religion, as the horrors of the 20th century show. What was Communism (and its more terrible offshoots) if not an attempt to apply scientific and rational thought to human history and economics? Nazism was up to its beady little kraut eyes in social darwinism, another attempt to use a scientific basis for dogmatic ends."

Nazism is dead, eugenics is not respected by anyone as a real science. And it only took 1 war and a few years to snuff out it's already short life. Likewise with communism.

Because science doesn't implicitly reject the idea of people questioning things, and people being wrong, bad ideas die more quickly, and the entire body advances and adapts more quickly.

Islam still hasn't rebounded from Renaissance era conservative reforms that hardened it into the close minded belief system it's promoted as today in the Middle East. Christianity has been taking steps backwards in the United States in the recent decades.

Quote :

"You have put your faith in the idea that we can make ideology and dogma go away with science, but the whole terrible course of human history points to the conclusion that we will make ideologies out of anything you give us, whether that be as simple as watching the sun go across the sky ("The sun god! That's why we should slaughter the moon worshippers!") or as scientific as natural selection ("The benefit of the strong! That's why we should slaughter the cripples and retards!")"

I never said we can make ideology or dogma go away with science, I said the exact opposite in the 3rd paragraph of my last post... What I'm saying is that the dogmas that would spring forth from increasing respect for science would be VASTLY more easily controlled and fixed than religion, because the acceptance of asking questions is built into science.


[Edited on April 21, 2014 at 11:36 AM. Reason : ]

4/21/2014 11:28:14 AM

Quote :

"Nazism is dead, eugenics is not respected by anyone as a real science. And it only took 1 war and a few years to snuff out it's already short life. Likewise with communism. "

It took a long, horrifically bloody time for either of them to die out. Stalin and Mao made any leader before them look like a pansy in terms of "deaths inflicted." And even if we accept your statement, so what? They were defeated by other ideologues, whose ideologies generally fell into the "theistic" category

Quote :

"science doesn't implicitly reject the idea of people questioning things"

Neither does religion, which has a long history of advancing science. Yes, obviously it has a history of restricting it, too. Any ideology will restrict studies opposed to it. I bet we could review the economics department at Moscow State to back that up.

Quote :

"I never said we can make ideology or dogma go away with science"

No. But I think you are overly optimistic in your assertion that the death of religion will make a big dent in the persistence of dogma. Asking questions is a GOOD THING, but it doesn't come without drawbacks. Having everybody (including, frequently, idiots or assholes) questioning things all the time leads to all manner of splintering. Mainstream Catholicism before the reformation sucked pretty hard if you were a Jew or heretic of some kind. It sucked really hard for EVERYBODY during the Thirty Years War. By that reference I don't mean to suggest that we should hang back and just cling to the orthodoxy. I mean we shouldn't embrace "more questions" as the solution to the problem of ideologues wanting to oppress each other. Questions get you to the right answer; they aren't the answer by themselves.

4/21/2014 5:24:43 PM

this thread needs the southpark otters

4/21/2014 5:42:56 PM

^^ obviously when i say "more questions" i mean questions within the context of the scientific method. This weeds out the common idiots. Religion has no such mechanism. And religion only harbored science in the ancient times, because the religious institutes were the government, they had all the power and money, it was the only place scientists could pursue their work. This was not religion promoting the idea of questions. This was just government bureaucracy not having a good grasp of what its money was being spent on.

But you're accurate to point out that if religious institutions chose to embrace science, they very well could, the blind followers wouldn't bat an eye, and great things could happen. But religion in America, and the middle east, in our era is trying to galvanize its supporters to being anti-science, which hurts us all.

During the renaissance and the Golden Age, there was a spirit of inquisitiveness about nature in religious institutions, but this was soon stamped out, and never regrew.

I've been saying for years that even without Christianity, most people would make up some new other religious belief. It's already happening with New Age type subcultures. The anti-vax people use psuedoscience to support their positions.

Nazism wasn't an atheistic ideology either. The fact that they had to try an appeal to Christians on some level shows how powerful religious belief systems can be, and the need for pro-science viewpoints to be made a part of religion.

[Edited on April 21, 2014 at 5:52 PM. Reason : ]

4/21/2014 5:51:54 PM

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/pakistani-talibanchristianconservativesshariabancampaign.html
WHAT THE TALIBAN AND CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES HAVE IN COMMON

4/21/2014 6:04:45 PM

Science crushes dogma.

Dogma is what the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century have in common. That and dark hair.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot's personal religion (or lack thereof) is completely irrelevant. Adherence to dogma is what allowed their regime to thrive and we have but one thing to thank for promoting the idea that believing in causes without evidence is virtuous to humanity.

[Edited on April 22, 2014 at 1:27 AM. Reason : .]

4/22/2014 1:27:20 AM

All the headlines about this center about the "big bang" but that terminology refers to many, many ideas in the world of physics, some of them competing. It's a little awkward to phrase a question like that to me...

But the question about the age of the earth is more shocking. This is something extremely well supported and verifiable.

It's boggling that a majority of people accept bacterial resistance to antibiotics, but reject a 4.5 billion year old earth.

4/22/2014 1:34:31 AM

We're doomed by an ideology that wants us to fail. All the Abrahamic holy texts fetishize the end of the world and trivialize our current world.

4/22/2014 1:36:23 AM

Nearly every single humanitarian initiative in the West, including those launched SINCE the Enlightenment, have been spearheaded by Christian organizations. Haitian earthquakes, Tsunamis in Indonesia, Hurricane Katrina, Sandy, and so on. Story after story confirm that the first efforts were mobilized by churches.

So...no...in fact, the Abrahamic holy texts don't trivialize our current world.

4/22/2014 2:54:17 AM

China was the first to put aid in Haiti, they brought heavy machinery and water. The first American mobilization in Haiti was by secular organizations. Christians brought old people, tragedy tourists, and bibles.

[Edited on April 22, 2014 at 7:22 AM. Reason : it wasnt Christians in your other examples too]

4/22/2014 7:21:16 AM

^^^^
what's that graph from?

4/22/2014 8:29:58 AM

^^ the organizations that focus on giving bibles to poor people are especially sad/hilarious.

^http://www.local12.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/poll-americans-not-confident-big-bang-evolution-real-10835.shtml

4/22/2014 12:26:02 PM

don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic religious and christian based aid organizations, but there are also plenty of really terrible christian "aid" organization.

also, there are plenty of fantastic secular aid organizations. you don't need Christianity or religion to have aid organizations.

[Edited on April 22, 2014 at 1:09 PM. Reason : there are good and bad organizations of all kinds, they don't need religion to exist]

4/22/2014 12:49:29 PM

I like how you say there are fantastic christian aid organizations and terrible ones.

Then say there are fantastic secular aid organizations...

What's missing here? Certainly not bias!

4/22/2014 12:58:05 PM

what's missing is you reading the point

Quote :

"you don't need Christianity or religion to have aid organizations."

4/22/2014 12:59:21 PM

Right.

Such a unique and world-changing perspective that really needed to be impressed upon us all.

My life is changed.

(all you had to say was 'there are terrible secular aid organizations too' and then you wouldnt be such a transparent noob)

4/22/2014 1:04:36 PM

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/vladimir-putin-christian-crusader/
Vladimir Putin, Christian Crusader?

Quote :

"In his Kremlin defense of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin, even before he began listing the battles where Russian blood had been shed on Crimean soil, spoke of an older deeper bond. Crimea, said Putin, “is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.” Russia is a Christian country, Putin was saying. This speech recalls last December’s address where the former KGB chief spoke of Russia as standing against a decadent West: Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation. Heard any Western leader, say, Barack Obama, talk like that lately?"

Quote :

"But the war to be waged with the West is not with rockets. It is a cultural, social, moral war where Russia’s role, in Putin’s words, is to “prevent movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.” Would that be the “chaotic darkness” and “primitive state” of mankind, before the Light came into the world? This writer was startled to read in the Jan-Feb. newsletter from the social conservative World Council of Families in Rockford, Ill., that, of the “ten best trends” in the world in 2013, number one was “Russia Emerges as Pro-Family Leader.” In 2013, the Kremlin imposed a ban on homosexual propaganda, a ban on abortion advertising, a ban on abortions after 12 weeks and a ban on sacrilegious insults to religious believers. “While the other super-powers march to a pagan world-view,” writes WCF’s Allan Carlson, “Russia is defending Judeo-Christian values. During the Soviet era, Western communists flocked to Moscow. This year, World Congress of Families VII will be held in Moscow, Sept. 10-12.” Will Vladimir Putin give the keynote? In the new ideological Cold War, whose side is God on now?"

4/22/2014 1:05:53 PM

Quote :

"the Abrahamic holy texts don't trivialize our current world."

heh

4/22/2014 1:08:02 PM

I don't give a shit about the pissing contest over aid organizations, and otherwise this thread seems to have turned into people who claim they can see the future, so I'll just respond to this:

Quote :

" All the Abrahamic holy texts fetishize the end of the world and trivialize our current world."

The world's gonna end, and more importantly, we're all gonna die. Most of us (referring to people in general, not those of us who have the leisure time and ability to dick around on the internet) are going to have fairly shitty lives in the meantime. Is it so horrible that suffering people -- indeed, everybody who will eventually die -- be offered the comforting thought that this is not all there is, and that there is, in fact, a better world waiting? Not unless it hinders peoples abilities to materially improve their lives here and now.

Religions have done that, religions continue to do that, and I'm opposed to that. I'm also opposed to the atheistic alternatives we have seen in the past century, which tend towards the position of offering the comfort of "It's for the good of the people!" before using a person up after a lifetime of misery.

4/22/2014 3:10:38 PM

You're missing their point.

For all of those folks that do have the leisure time to dick around on the internet, they are concerned that Christians are trying to control a woman's right to kill a baby, or tell people who they can and can't marry and codify those things into law.

4/22/2014 3:23:02 PM

Quote :

"kill a baby"

4/22/2014 3:29:41 PM

these people also think that the constitution was written by God and have publicly stated that new laws need to follow God's laws. These are not statements and beliefs held by people on the fringe, these are statements and beliefs by senior congressmen and serious presidential candidates. that is terrifying.

4/22/2014 3:33:10 PM

Being a congressperson or "serious" presidential candidate doesn't exclude the possibility of being on the fringe. Ross Perot was a serious candidate (and not much of a Jesus freak, as I recall) but he was still nuttier than a bag of squirrel shit.

4/22/2014 3:35:31 PM

Does Gary still preach in the courtyard? We need his opinion.

4/22/2014 3:38:54 PM

Grumpy, I'm not familiar with any alternatives to the false hope offered by religion that are "atheistic" aside from "live your life as though it's your only one."

What alternatives that you're referring to which atheism was sufficient and necessary?

[Edited on April 22, 2014 at 3:44 PM. Reason : .]

4/22/2014 3:43:48 PM

Quote :

"Being a congressperson or "serious" presidential candidate doesn't exclude the possibility of being on the fringe. Ross Perot was a serious candidate (and not much of a Jesus freak, as I recall) but he was still nuttier than a bag of squirrel shit. "

oh non-religious Jesus Christ, these are people central to the party who believe that laws should not conflict with god's laws

4/22/2014 3:46:59 PM

Quote :

"Grumpy, I'm not familiar with any alternatives to the false hope offered by religion that are "atheistic" aside from "live your life as though it's your only one." What alternatives that you're referring to which atheism was sufficient and necessary? "

I would argue that for the people Grumpy is talking about, false hope is better than no hope at all.

4/22/2014 3:54:18 PM

i guess that explains why the GOP keeps selling trickle down economics to the middle class

4/22/2014 3:56:34 PM

Quote :

"What alternatives that you're referring to which atheism was sufficient and necessary?"

Necessary? Any of those alternatives offered in the Soviet bloc, Mao's China, or Albania (the first "officially" atheist country in the world, and I'm sure you guys are proud). Sufficient by itself? That's sneaky. Being religious is not sufficient for any of the douchebaggery listed in this thread, as evidenced by the large numbers of people who believe in God without wanting to round up the gays, invade everybody's uterus, and so on.

It's a nice double standard you've got going. Religious guy does shitty thing, and you attribute it to religion as though that were sufficient. Atheist does shitty thing, and I have to prove to you that the only reason he did it was atheism.

4/22/2014 4:05:54 PM

this thread is not about all religion, its about religion when its forced on others. no one gives a shit if you guys want to follow fairy tales on your own time, you just aren't allowed to force that on others.

4/22/2014 4:08:31 PM

Quote :

"Being a congressperson or "serious" presidential candidate doesn't exclude the possibility of being on the fringe."

And then there's Mike Huckabee:

Quote :

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_Amend_Constitution_to_meet_Gods_0115.html

Being Governor of Arkansas DOES exclude the possibility of being on the fringe.

4/23/2014 1:57:06 AM

Quote :

"It's a nice double standard you've got going. Religious guy does shitty thing, and you attribute it to religion as though that were sufficient. Atheist does shitty thing, and I have to prove to you that the only reason he did it was atheism. "

We've spent post after post detailing how religious dogma has caused/contributed to/enabled various atrocities and regimes completely independent of whether the dear leader himself was truly religious.

I ask you to do the same for atheism and I get whining. And here's the reason: atheism is not itself a religion. There are no unquestionable authorities to invoke, no dogmas, no holy texts, no "Lucretius is with us" belt buckles to strap on to every soldier.

Atheism enabled the regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot, etc as much as them having dark hair. You're welcome to demonstrate otherwise.

In the "atheistic" regimes you cite, the problem was that they simply replaced one kind of dogmatic authority with another. Religion with state religion. The problem is dogma. It's not my fault religion is a subset of dogma.

4/23/2014 9:31:03 AM

since Christians are not persecuted in this country, the only way to hold onto the persecution card is to just lie about it

Quote :

"While speaking on the call with extremist pastor and TPU founder Rick Scarborough, who introduced Ted Cruz at the 2012 Values Voter Summit, the elder Cruz claimed that pastors who preach Romans 1 — which some pastors interpret as a condemnation of homosexuality — can be fined $500 a day, a claim with no basis in reality. “All we have to do is turn on the news and every day we see more and more encroachment upon pastors from this administration,” Cruz said. “All they have to do is be aware of what’s happening around us and to be aware, for example, that in the city of San Antonio, if a pastor speaks on Romans 1, he could be even fined $500 a day until he retracts what he said.” Scarborough went on to warn that the “lesbian mayor of Houston” will impose a similar “sanctions [on pastors] if they preach the Bible.” - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rafael-cruz-falsely-claims-san-antonio-banned-pastors-beaching-bible#sthash.i5wuoVvD.dpuf"

4/23/2014 11:19:28 AM

this is one of the more interesting threads around here lately

4/24/2014 10:43:44 AM

Quote :

"In the "atheistic" regimes you cite, the problem was that they simply replaced one kind of dogmatic authority with another. Religion with state religion."

This is fantastic. Atheism isn't a religion, unless you don't like the atheists in question, in which case you call it a religion.

I suppose we're still making progress here. Now we've shifted from "religion is bad" to "dogma is bad," and if we keep going in this direction we'll arrive at "bad people are bad," which is what I've been saying this whole time.

You're right that religion is a subset of dogma, as is every other idea, philosophy, and guiding principle by which people live their lives. You're dogmatic, and part of your dogma is your loathing of religion. Cue the moment when you say that your thing isn't dogma, it's reason and so forth. that'll be a fresh line.

4/24/2014 12:33:40 PM

4/24/2014 12:35:51 PM

GOP publication: Blood Moon is God’s warning to Obama
http://americablog.com/2014/04/leading-gop-publication-blood-moon-gods-warning-obama.html

tl;dr- the blood moon is warning to Obama that God will judge anyone who splits up Israel

4/24/2014 1:06:30 PM

Quote :

"This is fantastic. Atheism isn't a religion, unless you don't like the atheists in question, in which case you call it a religion. "

I repeat:

Atheism enabled the regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot, etc as much as them having dark hair. You're welcome to demonstrate otherwise.

Is having dark hair also a religion?

4/24/2014 1:16:11 PM

Quote :

"Now we've shifted from "religion is bad" to "dogma is bad,""

In the current climate, the 2 statements are the same. Dogma is bad, and the prevailing damaging dogma in the United State is Christianity (and islam in other parts of the world).

Only 30% of Americans acknowledge the earth as being billions of years old, there is more proof for the age of the earth than there is for anthropogenic climate change, yet more people disbelieve the former-- solely because of religion.

Think about how mentally powerful something has to be to convince 70% of one of the most educated industrialized populations on the planet to completely ignore what practically every field of science can demonstrate.

Religion can easily embrace science and keep its strange hold on peoples' hope, religion doesn't have to choose to tell people to wallow in their ignorance, but that is what it does in the US, and it has no shame in doing so.

4/24/2014 1:27:55 PM

^very well put

4/24/2014 3:05:02 PM

So there are dogmatic assholes everywhere, there is no reason why anyone is more of a dogmatic asshole than others, and we should do nothing about it. That's what I'm getting from Grumpy.

4/24/2014 4:41:16 PM

I think you'll find this link relevant:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/24/pat-robertson-stop-the-church-state-separation-nonsense-before-atheists-take-over-everything/

Quote :

"Televangelist Pat Robertson on Thursday warned that militant Islamists, militant atheists and other secularists had taken the separation of church and state “nonsense” too far in an effort to “destroy the fabric” of society."

Depending on your definition, Pat Robertson may or may not be on the fringe, but he's certainly a jackass, and he's (unfortunately) a significant figure in America. (By "significant", I mean a lot of people pay attention to him).

Another quote:

Quote :

"British Prime Minister David Cameron came under fire after writing in an op-ed last week that his people should be “more confident about our status as a Christian country.”"

Not American, of course, but that only means this bullshit is spreading.

4/24/2014 7:02:37 PM

while on the topic of other nations, US conservative christians have been spreading hate all over the globe. conservative christians funded and pushed for all of the deplorable anti-gay laws in Uganda and are also involved in Nigeria, Belize, Russia, etc...

Quote :

"The vitriol that has fueled U.S. culture wars for so long is now being exported, and some of our most ardent culture warriors are finding a far more receptive audience abroad. In nations such as Uganda, Russia, Nigeria and Belize, an insidious homophobia engineered in America is taking root. I have seen this hate being spread with my own eyes. In March 2009, while in Kampala, Uganda, researching reports of U.S. right-wing evangelical involvement in attacks on LGBTQ equality and reproductive justice, I was invited to a three-day conference on homosexuality hosted by the Family Life Network, which is based in New York. The keynote speaker was Scott Lively from Springfield, Mass., who introduced himself as a leading expert on the "international homosexual agenda." I filmed Lively over the course of two days as he instructed religious and political leaders about how gays were coming to Uganda from the West to "recruit children into homosexuality.""

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kaoma-uganda-gays-american-ministers-20140323,0,2345261.story#axzz2wi3SkdD8

4/24/2014 8:42:12 PM