Death Threats Against Christian Leaders Emerge From Gay Rights Activists
I wasn’t surprised when fellow culture warriors, like our very own Michael Brown, conservative blogger Matt Barber, Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse and others landed on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) hate list.
The world’s largest gay-activist organization last week issued a report called “The Export of Hate” that called out a network of American, conservative Christian leaders “who are working tirelessly to undercut LGBT people around the world at every turn.”
People I work with day in and day out are on that list—and not a single one of them is a hate monger. Rather, they are painted as villains for being brave enough to lift up their voices for truth in a spiritual and cultural war for God’s will as it relates to marriage, family—and souls. But some of the very souls these men and women of God are contending for are launching literal death threats against them.
The HRC has targeted Scott Lively—an American author, attorney, social activist, independent candidate for governor of Massachusetts in the 2014 election, and president of Abiding Truth Ministries—for murder. Lively is target No. 1 on the HRC’s hate list. Lively says he has received two death threats since the report was published. That death-laced message also listed Barber and Liberty Law School Dean Mat Staver, among others.
“Not every ‘gay’ activist is physically violent, thankfully. Most limit their ‘human rights advocacy’ to harassment, intimidation and slander,” Lively wrote on his blog. “But make no mistake, if they thought they could get away with killing every person on the HRC and SPLC hit lists, they would do it. They smolder with malicious hatred against anyone who stands in their way.”
HRC contends that there’s “nothing but shame and hatred” in Lively’s work and accuses him of putting “LGBT Russian citizens in harm’s way, who now face discrimination, jail or death. He also successfully advocated for a law in Uganda that sends LGBT people to prison for life.”
Lively rightly points out that even in the most heated arguments he has distinguished the humanity of individuals in the LGBT movement from the inhumanity of their political goals.
“I care for all people who struggle with homosexual sin and want them all to be delivered from their bondage,” Lively wrote on Barbwire. “I love them enough to tell them the truth, even though they hate me for it… None of my comments, taken in context, encourage hatred or violence against homosexuals.”
I know what it’s like to get death threats. It’s unsettling, even if you have no real reason to believe the threat is viable. Some gay activists have misunderstood truth for hate. Although I agree there are some who speak hateful words in the name of Jesus, the men and women of God on the front lines of the culture wars are not among them. They are sharing truth that will set people free—and the devil hates that.
“The truth be told, it is the HRC that is engaging in destructive activism by spreading misinformation and inciting fear, and it is the HRC that must be exposed,” says Brown, author of Can You Be Gay and Christian. “Thankfully, they got one thing right in the report, stating that our ‘voices are being heard’ and our ‘impact is being felt.’ By God’s grace, as we continue to speak the truth in love, the real bigots will be revealed.”
Jennifer LeClaire is news editor of Charisma. She is also director of Awakening House of Prayer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and author of several books, including The Making of a Prophet and The Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to Defeating Jezebel. You can email Jennifer at jennifer.leclaire@
