SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) – A Massachusetts evangelist will ask a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that accuses him of waging a long campaign to persecute gays in Uganda.
An East African gay advocacy group filed the lawsuit in 2012 against minister Scott Lively under a statute that allows non-citizens to file U.S. court actions for violations of international law.
Lively’s Springfield church is known as Redemption Gate Mission Society. He has called the lawsuit “absurd” and “completely frivolous.”
Lively said he has preached against homosexuality, but advised therapy, not punishment.
The New York-based group Center for Constitutional Rights filed the suit on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda.
A hearing will be held Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield on Lively’s request for summary judgment to keep the case from going to trial.
