Pro-'gay' judge's anti-Christian rant 'clearly unlawful'

[qy]

Attorneys representing a Christian minister are asking an
appeals court to rebuke the “defamatory statements” a federal
judge unleashed when he found that federal law prevented him
from continuing a damage lawsuit by homosexual activists in
Uganda.

As WND reported Tuesday, Judge Michael Ponsor issued an order
granting American pastor Scott Lively a summary judgment in a
lawsuit brought by a group called Sexual Minorities Uganda, also
known as SMUG.

SMUG had complained his declaration of the biblical perspective
of homosexuality and his visits to Uganda caused them damage.
They sued under the Alien Torts Statute, which the Supreme Court
has said cannot be used for such claims.

But the federal judge, known for his homosexual-rights advocacy,
unleashed a torrent of hateful rhetoric against Lively anyway.

Ponsor described Lively’s beliefs regarding homosexuality as
“vicious and frightening,” and he said the pastor’s statements
ranged from “the ludicrous to the abhorrent.”

Read Ponser’s rant here.

Forty years ago few people said they knew anyone who was
homosexual, now one see portrayals on nearly every TV show.
What’s happened? The explanation is here, in “A Queer Thing
Happened to America.”

He quoted Lively’s comments exposing the homosexuality in the
Nazi movement, and he charged Lively with trying “to make gay
people scapegoats for practically all of humanity’s ills.”

A WND call to the judge’s office requesting comment did not
generate a response.

The judge ranted for pages, concluding finally he would “allow”
the case to end because his court had no jurisdiction over
claims by SMUG.

He called Lively’s perspective “bizarre” and “chilling.”

Now lawyers with Liberty Counsel are responding to Ponsor’s
vicious attack on Christian beliefs.

Read Ponser’s rant here.

The team said Thursday it had filed a notice of appeal with the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit of Ponsor’s
inflammatory language.

“Judge Ponsor should have dismissed the case in 2013, when asked
to do so following the Supreme Court opinion,” the team said in
a statement. “Instead, he forced Lively to needlessly endure
four more years of intense litigation and discovery by the army
of lawyers working for the Center for Constitutional Rights, an
organization that has received funding from George Soros.”

The lawyers said Ponsor “had no choice but to follow clear U.S.
Supreme Court precedent when he ruled this week the court lacked
jurisdiction to hear the case.”

“That should have been the end of the matter. But, Judge Ponsor,
known for his support of the LGBT agenda, went on to appease the
LGBT activists by making unlawful ‘findings,’ including that
Pastor Lively violated international law of ‘crimes against
humanity.'”

Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel’s chief litigation counsel, said
Ponsor’s “vitriolic order is clearly unlawful.”

“Once Judge Ponsor concluded that he lacked jurisdiction over
SMUG’s preposterous lawsuit, the only thing left to do was
dismiss it,” Mihet said. “The Supreme Court, and many federal
appellate courts, have repeatedly rebuked judges who inject
unnecessary and prejudicial ‘findings’ in cases where they lack
jurisdiction. We will defend Pastor’s Lively’s name in the Court
of Appeals and work to remedy this injustice.”

Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, said it is “improper
for a judge who clearly lacks jurisdiction to hear a case to
make legal findings unrelated to the disposition of the case.”

“When a court lacks jurisdiction, its only job is to acknowledge
that fact and end the case,” he said. “Judge Ponsor allowed his
support for the LGBT agenda to enter an opinion and make
prejudicial findings laced with defamatory statements that are
both illegal and unbecoming. The statements are so far outside
the norm that we have filed an appeal to ask that these
prejudicial and unnecessary statements be stricken. Judges may
hold personal opinions like anyone else, but they should
restrain themselves from lacing court rulings with them,
especially when they admit they lack jurisdiction to hear the
case.”

Liberty Counsel noted Ponsor’s ruling was littered with
“unbecoming epithets” such as “crackpot bigot[],” “pathetic,”
“ludicrous,” “abhorrent” and numerous others.”

Ponsor “egregiously” even “purported to conclude, without even a
pretense of legal or factual analysis, that Lively’s Christian
beliefs and pro-family activism violated ‘international law’ and
that Lively’s peaceful speaking on homosexuality in Uganda
somehow ‘aided and abetted’ crimes supposedly committed by
people Lively has never even spoken to or met.”

WND’s original report on the judge’s rant noted his diatribe
followed his statement he would “allow” the case’s dismissal.

The Uganda homosexuals sued Lively, a columnist for WND, for
“sharing his biblical views on homosexuality during three visits
to Uganda in 2002 and 2009,” according to Liberty Counsel.

Forty years ago few people said they knew anyone who was
homosexual, now one see portrayals on nearly every TV show.
What’s happened? The explanation is here, in “A Queer Thing
Happened to America.”

WND report last year when SMUG’s activists demanded, in a court
motion, the right to silence Lively.

“SMUG unequivocally seeks a speech-chilling injunction against
anything Lively might say which SMUG finds offensive, to hold
over Lively like a club,” the legal team explained at the time.

The lawyers pointed that that SMUG could not “(A) identify any
specific actions of Defendant Scott Lively (‘Lively’) in the
U.S. that had a direct causal link to any alleged injury
suffered by SMUG in Uganda; and (B) identify any specific
injunctive relief that this court could even consider that would
not violate the First Amendment.”

SMUG had demanded, at that time, a prohibition on Lively
speaking, making his books available, meeting with groups and
discussing his beliefs with other lawyers in Uganda.

http://mobile.wnd.com/2017/06/pro-gay-judges-anti-christian-rant-
clearly-unlawful/