Guess Who's Running For Governor!

This past Sunday, Scott Lively announced that he will be running for governor of Massachusetts. Given who Lively is, this may not actually be news worthy, but it is hilarious. Lively’s claim to fame is inspiring Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, a bill that would make it legal for that country to literally execute people for being gay. Lively’s involvement in Uganda has resulted in him facing a court challenge for crimes against humanity. He is an ardent conservative who is very vocally anti-gay, anti-abortion, and pro-gun, yet he is running to lead one of the country’s most liberal states. For some reason Lively thinks that the people of Massachusetts need him.

According to a press release from Lively, "The people of this state need a candidate who can clearly and unapologetically articulate Biblical values without fear or compromise. They need a candidate who will tell the simple truth that abortion is murder, and homosexuality is condemned by God (but that Jesus forgives and heals those who repent)." 

Let us compare this with what recently happened here in my home state: Virginia. Here, we had a very conservative Republican - Ken Cuccinelli - running on many of the same policy positions as Lively. As extreme as Cuccinelli was in those policies, he was not as extreme as Lively, nor is Virginia the liberal bastion that Massachusetts is. Cuccinelli still managed to lose. I have no idea how Lively thinks himself to be a viable candidate in Massachusetts of all places.

We’re living in a time when most people are more concerned about economic issues and health care while simultaneously, the tide on social issues - particularly those related to sexual orientation - is shifting demonstrably away from the conservative positions that Lively espouses so strongly. We have seen in the last few years that what were once winning issues for conservatives are now liabilities that have cost them numerous electoral contests. That is a lesson that Lively has yet to learn, though he is shaping up to be the latest political casualty of the right’s inability to learn lessons from past elections. He will just have to learn the hard way that he and those like him are no longer in touch with mainstream America.

Also, he thinks the Nazis were gay. Gubernatorial material indeed…