Christian culture warrior vying for governor

Scott Lively

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, though a Republican, ran for office in 2014 on a left-leaning agenda and has governed that way ever since.

Just this week, he stopped the state's National Guard from assisting federal authorities handling the illegal-alien crisis on the border with Mexico because he objects to the enforcement of U.S. immigration law.

In fact, as families enter the country illegally, and criminal cases are launched against the parents, the children are separated from their parents due to a law in effect under the previous two administrations.

But Baker objects now, according to a spokeswoman for the governor, because "the federal government's current actions result in the inhumane treatment of children."

He won election by a narrow margin over his Democrat opponent.

But as the 2018 gubernatorial election approaches, Baker is being challenged by conservative activist, pastor and attorney Scott Lively, known for his defense of unborn babies and traditional marriage ... and for being sued by LGBT activists in Uganda, a highly publicized international case that ultimately was ruled in Lively's favor by a federal judge.

Lively's key policy priorities are reflected in the various topics listed on his campaign website, including "Save the Babies," "Protect Gun Rights, "Downsize! (government)," "Return Prayer to Schools," "Promote Ethics and Morality," "Establish Parent Controlled School," "Preserve True Marriage," "Bring Back Manufacturing" and "Liberate Inner City Families from Government Dependency."

He won nearly 28 percent of the delegate vote against what he describes as "a stacked deck" at the state GOP convention and believes he has a "very good chance" in the September primary.

Lively explains his strategy plainly; he's "tapping into the massive conservative hostility to the incumbent (the most liberal Republican governor in America) with the key pro-Trump, 2nd Amendment and pro-life voters."

Just days ago, he sued Baker and the Massachusetts GOP, alleging that a pattern of corruption illegally favored Baker in the primary.

"The defendant state committee …. violated its own By-Laws which prohibit the committee or its employees from giving an endorsement or financial help to any candidate running in a primary, by endorsing Charles Baker for governor and by assisting him to get ballot signatures and do fund-raising," the suit alleges.

The committee then "passed a resolution changing the By-Laws to prohibit the party from giving Lively any assistance, based on his political and religious beliefs, while authorizing expenditures, endorsement, and assistance for Charles Baker, changing the campaign rules during the primary season," he explains.

Shortly thereafter, lively offered to drop the complaint, which he says is "very likely to culminate in a ruling in my favor, including sizable punitive damages," in exchange for a series of debates with the sitting governor.

"I recognize that we have significant differences in our positions. That is nowhere clearer than when you told the press, 'there is no place in this life, in any life, for a lot of what Scott Lively says and believes,'" Lively wrote.

On his website, Lively frankly states he's running to "bring biblical values back" to the state.

"But the Mass GOP is controlled at the top by misguided souls who hate the light of biblical truth. In every election they beguile the grassroots foot-soldiers with the same old 'lesser-of-two-evils' deception, who then dutifully offer their life's-blood to try to elect another RINO out of fear that 'the Democrat will be worse,'" he explains.

Lively's wide-ranging background includes assembling a building trades collective in Oregon, promoting the protection of the natural family and earning a law degree while supporting a family and running a non-profit ministry.

His fourth career was that of a full-time missionary pastor.

Lively explains that his pro-life stance is based on both biblical teaching and science, which reveals that every baby is a unique human being from conception. He contends the "deliberate choice of abortion is just another name for murder," and that American law rests on a pro-life premise.

Lively has been in the headlines over the last several years as a result of a lawsuit filed against him by homosexual activists. It culminated with a federal judge's dismissal of the case against him, but not before the judge turned venomous against Lively because of his Christian faith.

Judge Michael Ponsor granted Lively a summary judgment in the lawsuit by Sexual Minorities Uganda, also known as SMUG.

The group sued Lively, whose commentaries have frequently been published on WND, for "sharing his biblical views on homosexuality during three visits to Uganda in 2002 and 2009," according to Liberty Counsel, which defended him.

Ponsor concluded the federal law didn't give him jurisdiction to rule on claims of damages in Uganda from SMUG members, so he dismissed the case with a summary judgment.

However, he wrote more than 20 more pages of diatribe against Lively's beliefs.

Ponsor described Lively's mainstream Christian statements and opinions regarding homosexuality as "vicious and frightening," and said the pastor's perspectives ranged from "the ludicrous to the abhorrent."

He cited Lively's references to the well-documented presence of homosexuals in the Nazi Party, charging Lively with trying "to make gay people scapegoats for practically all of humanity's ills."

WND called the judge's office for a comment on his unusual diatribe, but no one in his office would respond.

The homosexual activists filed their lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute. But Ponsor found that while Lively exchanged email and other information about conferences at which he would speak in Uganda, his actions did not rise to the level of giving courts jurisdiction.

Read Ponser's rant here.

It was during the course of the case, which had been kept open by Ponsor for years, that the U.S. Supreme Court found the Alien Tort Statue "was never intended to allow a foreign citizen to sue a U.S. citizen in America alleging violation of some supposed international law."

On the current race, Lively's website explains, "I am offering my candidacy as the way for conservatives to prove to the Mass GOP that they have the means and the will to force the GOP to run and back true conservatives – or lose every future election."