Wednesday, January 28, 2009

'Gays' in the Military: A Revival of The Pink Swastika?

The Christian News Wire generally isn't too worried about legitimate credentials when posting the work of authors and self-proclaimed authorities - especially when the author is obsessively anti-gay. However, this alleged 'new site" has out done itself in scraping the bottom of the barrel for material by featuring a column by Scott Lively which claims that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell would result in a "mass exodus of normal men from a homosexualized military" and "severe morale problems for normal men forced to live as the objects of sexual interest of other men with whom they share close quarters." Worse yet, Lively, author of the thoroughly discredited book "The Pink Swastika" goes on to allege the much bigger, longer-term problem is the threat of a homosexual takeover of the military branches. Here are highlights from Lively's delusional piece:
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"Certainly there would be a mass exodus of normal men from a homosexualized military," said Lively, "probably leading to the reinstatement of compulsory service. . . . And yes there would be severe morale problems for normal men forced to live as the objects of sexual interest of other men with whom they share close quarters. However, the much bigger, longer-term problem is the threat of a homosexual takeover of the military branches.
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Hitler's initial power base when he launched the Nazi Party was a private homosexual military force organized and trained by a notorious pederast named Gerhard Rossbach. Rossbach's homosexual partner Ernst Roehm, who was also Hitler's partner in forming and building the Nazi Party, converted the "gay" Rossbachbund into the dreaded SA Brownshirts."
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Brownshirt leaders in Germany recruited boys from the local high schools for sex. Roehm himself once briefly fled Germany for South America over a scandal involving a young male prostitute. This bodes ill for the young men who will be our future draftees."Every effort should be taken to prevent this policy change," he said.
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Sadly, Lively makes Elaine Donnelly look almost half rational. Of the various Christianist nutcases with whom I have had debates and/or e-mail exchanges, Scott Lively, at one time head of the American Family Association of California and also director of the Abiding Truth Ministries and the Pro-Family Law Center, has to rate as one of the most unhinged in my opinion. Here's some more information on Lively, which shows that Christian News Wire is beyond pathetic itself for featuring him in the first place:
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Mr. Lively, who seems to deem himself an expert on everything, received his Juris Doctor degree from Trinity Law School in Santa Ana, California, a non-ABA accredited law school with less than 100 full time students and a total of 6 full time faculty, affiliated with Trinity International University, a small fundamentalist educational institution that requires its students to concur in a fundamentalist Statement of Faith. On the Abiding Truth Ministries web site, Mr. Lively has previously admitted that he is a former an alcoholic and drug addict from the age of 12 until his “miraculous deliverance during prayer” at age 28.
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In addition to holding a degree from a non-accredited law school (most states will not allow one to sit for the state bar exam unless one has graduated from an ABA accredited law school), Mr. Lively has authored two publications that suggest he has an irrational obsession with certain social issues, particularly homosexuality. In The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, Mr. Lively maintains that homosexuals were responsible for the rise of Nazism and the guiding force behind Nazi atrocities, including the Holocaust. In The Poisoned Stream: "Gay" Influence in Human History, Volume One, Germany 1890 - 1945, Mr. Lively purports to delve into the history of homosexuality in Germany and claims to reveal its “poisonous influence” not just in Second World War, but also World War I as well through the “intrigues of the Homosexual International.”
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Serious, legitimate historians have dismissed Mr. Lively’s theories in these books: Erik N. Jensen of the University of Wisconsin regards the authors' linkage of homosexuality and Nazism as the recurrence of a "pernicious myth", originating in 1930s attacks on Nazism by Socialists and Communists and "long since dispelled" by "serious scholarship. Jensen sees the book as coming about in "the aftermath of an Oregon measure to repeal gay rights". Dorthe Seifert of Humboldt Universitat Berlin cites it as a response to increasing awareness of Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Christine L. Mueller, Professor of History and Humanities, and a specialist in German history, at Reed College in Portland Oregon, argues that the historical record does not support Abrams' assertions. A rebuttal by Christine L. Mueller to the Pink Swastika can be found here.

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