Republican Who Claims Holocaust Was Orchestrated by Gay Nazis Wins Enough Support For Massachusetts Governor Primary

The author of a book claiming that the Holocaust was orchestrated by gay men who ran the Nazi Party will appear on a Massachusetts gubernatorial primary ballot later this year after garnering enough support at the Republican Party’s state convention last week. Scott Lively will now face off with incumbent governor Charlie Baker in September’s primary.

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Lively wrote a 1995 book, titled The Pink Swastika, in which he asserted that the Nazi Party that took power in Germany in the 1930s was controlled by “militaristic” homosexuals who inspired the murder of around six million European Jews. The Holocaust also saw the persecution of a number of other groups, including homosexuals. Lively’s claims have been roundly debunked by historians.

The controversy surrounding Lively does not end there. He is the founder of an anti-LGBT group, Abiding Truth Ministries, which is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Lively is also staunchly anti-abortion. On his campaign website, he stated that “abortion is the intentional killing of a living human being and should be criminalized.”

He added that he “would work to ensure that it carried a serious penalty for anyone who deliberately and with premeditation kills an unborn child.”

Despite this, he received support from 626 of the more than 2,000 delegates at the Massachusetts Republican Party Convention, almost double the 15 percent required to get on the ballot.

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“When you've got the nation's most popular governor at the top of the ballot, certainly it's strange that Scott Lively would be able to get from the Republican convention-goers that kind of support and that kind of a vote," Massachusetts political consultant Anthony Cignoli told Mass Live. "Did these convention-goers, these delegates, go there specifically for him, was this an effort that was orchestrated and to the credit of his campaign? Or is this indicative of what the base of the Republican Party regulars are?”

Despite his surprise initial success, few expect Lively’s campaign to go much further. Baker, who has regularly been voted the country’s most popular governor, still garnered 70 percent of delegates’ support at the convention.