A writer on the site, Les Kinsolving, has in the past referred to the lgbt community as the "sodomy lobby." In October of this year, he called a judge’s order to stop enforcement of the military’s ban on gay and lesbian troops in the military as a "disease ridden judicial decision."
In August of this year, the publication dropped conservative writer Ann Coulter as a keynote speaker from a conference it held because she earlier spoke at a conference held by a gay Republican group.
And in February of this year, another writer on World Net Daily, Molotov Mitchell, spoke out in favor of Uganda's "Kill The Gays" bill, even evoking Martin Luther King Jr's name in defense of it.
But apparently that's not the extent of World Net Daily's homophobia.
At its online superstore (yes World Net Daily has a "superstore"), interested individuals can buy a discounted copy of The Pink Swastika. According to the description on the page:
The Pink Swastika is a thoroughly researched, eminently readable, demolition of the "gay" myth, symbolized by the pink triangle, that the Nazis were anti-homosexual.
In other words, The Pink Swastika supposedly gives proof that the gay community was behind the Nazi Party in Germany during World War II.
Not exactly.
The Pink Swastika is actually a discredited book written by Scott Lively and Ken Abrams. Lively has a long history of maligning the gay community. He is probably most famous as one of the prime instigators of Uganda's "kill the gays" bill. According to Box Turtle Bulletin:
In March 2009, Lively was one of three American anti-gay activists to deliver what he called his “Nuclear Bomb against the gay agenda” at a conference in Kampala, Uganda which ultimately led to the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament. That bill calls for the death penalty against LGBT people under certain circumstances, and virtually criminalizes knowing or providing services to gay people. Lively has called that bill “a step in the right direction” and “the lesser of two evils,” although he claims to oppose the death penalty and has falsely claimed on multiple occasions that the death penalty has been removed from the bill.
And let's not forget the fact that his organization, Abiding Truth Ministries, has been declared an official anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
However in the case of The Pink Swastika, Lively clearly outdoes himself. It was written in 1995 (although World Net Daily seems to be selling an "updated version") and since that time, it has been routinely criticized. According to SPLC:
The Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an earlier (1994) Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their thesis.
Now in all fairness, Amazon.com also sells The Pink Swastika from its site. However, the difference is that Amazon.com allows its patrons to post reviews of books. And in the case of The Pink Swastika, several patrons have condemned it for its errors and homophobia.
World Net Daily doesn't give its patrons the same courtesy.
What's more significant is the fact that World Net Daily claims to be a site devoted to truth, even hosting a "Taking Back America" conference featuring many famous speakers, including Congressional leaders.
One has to wonder just who is the site trying to "take back America" from.
Hat tip to Kyle Mantyla of People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch.
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