“That night, at first, the queen played a little with the dwarf:

“Is your name Scattin?”

“No, this is not my name,” he answered.

“Then, is it Lerarhlon?”

“No, it’s not this either.”

“Could it be Rumpelstiltskin?” she finally asked, smiling.

On hearing this, the little man became so angry, that he turned blue. And he stamped his feet so hard, that he made a hole into the floor. Rumpelstiltskin ran off ashamed and he was never seen again”

_ from “Fairy Tales” by the Brothers Grimm

Federal Judge Michael Ponsor’s decision on Wednesday denying pastor Scott Lively’s legal challenges to facing a U.S. court for allegations of crimes against humanity is attracting lots of speculation, especially from the LGBT media. Recent positive decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court on LGBT issues have only clouded the breaking news from Springfield, Mass. Just because Lively’s first obstructions on the long legal role to judgment and opinion have been removed, does not mean this is a slam dunk victory for gay rights.

Ponsor, a Rhodes scholar and widely respected federal jurist, stated:

“Widespread, systematic persecution of LGBTI people constitutes a crime against humanity that unquestionably violates international norms. … The history and current existence of discrimination against LGBTI people is precisely what qualifies them as a distinct targeted group eligible for protection under international law. The fact that a group continues to be vulnerable to widespread, systematic persecution in some parts of the world simply cannot shield one who commits a crime against humanity from liability.”

Eric Isaacson, who has contributed significant legal documentation to local and national amicus briefs in support of LGBT equality, notes: “Some observers may be surprised to find our law has developed to the point that we now have clear legal recognition that the persecution of any group, including the LGBTI community globally, can be interpreted as a violation of norms of international law.”

Recognizing the road is cleared of some of Lively’s legal debris, the decision it is not a guarantee that Lively will be stopped from his international anti-gay propaganda campaigns that reach not only into Africa, but also Eastern Europe and Russia. This is probably going to be a long legal battle and a central argument that is and will be used by the Christian Conservative movement in this country, not only by extremists like Lively, but the Roman Catholic Church and other faith based movements – Christians are being persecuted for practicing their faith and the courts and government support this persecution. We are seeing this in arguments about providing comprehensive women’s reproductive health in Obamacare to the use of millions of dollars in U.S. tax-exempt organizations and churches engaged in anti-gay ministries abroad. We are going to hear a lot from the Christian Conservative movement that the very things we are accusing them of orchestrating (the mass persecution of the LGBT community internationally) is what we are now doing to them. This is not a new argument and was used by the conservative movement in this country in the early 1950s to fight the early civil-rights movement. Under the protection of freedom of speech and freedom to practice one’s religious values, racial inequality was given a theological framework and a form of social permission to be tolerated and allowed. Today, these kinds of protections allows someone like pastor Fred Phelps of the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church to protest at military funerals and LGBT Pride Parades and it is only when risk of immediate injury or threat to life and liberty can be proved that a line is actually crossed and they break the law. The question of interest to the Christian conservative movement is where is that line today? Can Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Pam Spees and her team actually prove that Lively’s lies and propaganda, like some dark goblin from a Grimm’s fairy tale, actually caused harm to people thousands of miles away when Lively believes he is simply teaching the word of God? He will receive a lot of financial support from other religious organizations who may not agree with his beliefs or tactics, but they would have a lot to lose if freedom of speech and religious practice is interpreted through a more focused lens on the place and rights of LGBT people, not only locally, but internationally where the Christian Conservative movement is investing most of its moral capital.

Reflecting on what we are seeing, this will play out more like a global fairy tale than a documentary drama. Fairy tales often have hidden ancient wisdom oozing out from the moral chasm created between their wickedly evil goblins or handsomely attractive princes. Forget the complications of life when all you need is a magic kiss and a warty frog to transform a situation into something noble and desirable. To the LGBT community in Uganda, particularly living under the dark spell of arch-goblin Scott Lively for the past decade, this week’s decision to proceed with a full scale trial may come as the magic fairy dust they have all been waiting for. Since his documented arrival in 2002 the enchanted forest of Uganda (Africa’s pearl), all in the kingdom has not been well. The second wife of King Yowero, the evil Queen Janet has been seduced by the born-again Wizards from America and their pots of gold. Their personal wealth is now unimaginable and proof to the poor peasantry that the Gods have blest them. The Ugandan courtiers have realized that the art of spinning straw into gold in the magic kingdom is most lucrative when the evils of homosexuality and same-gender attraction are exposed. A good story needs exaggeration and pastor Lively is well versed in writing fiction under the guise of factual history. He was banished from the liberal Queendom of Oregon and found a Garden of Eden in Uganda where people actually listened to his tales. There is a tangible madness in this modern day Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. Pastors are so terrified that they have to show pornography in churches, parliamentarians pledge to protect children from clandestine perverts and Arch-goblin Lively promises more beautiful children to his enchanted kingdom already grossly overpopulated with a million new Ugandan babies each year. “The wickedness from the west wants to take away your children and turn them into the devils own”, he tells them. If these godly ones do not procreate, how can the magic kingdom go on? So this vast spell is cast and it is difficult to tell good from evil and evil from good.

Jeremy Preston Johnston’s advice is simply this: ”To rid ourselves of our shadows –who we are –we must step into total light or total darkness.”

The bewitching is so effective and sublime that it is impossible to know who we are without knowing the other. We are trapped in a kind of distorted reality where gays are accused by pastors of a responsibility for genocide while pastors are doing everything they can to ensure gays will be wiped off the face of the earth.

“We are gratified that the court recognized the persecution and the gravity of the danger faced by our clients as a result of Scott Lively’s actions,” Spees said. “Lively’s single-minded campaign has worked to criminalize their very existence, strip away their fundamental rights and threaten their physical safety.”

While progressive attorneys like our own Eric Isaacson from San Diego hail this week’s judicial decision as “A great opinion because it holds that persecution of LGBT people is a crime against humanity and frankly should be a landmark legal decision,” Spees and Isaacson may not be alone in welcoming the federal decision. Lively’s attorneys may also be secretly thrilled by the decision. It has always been their belief that American and European institutions would finally cave into rampant sexualized secularism and turn on the Christian faithful that had brought both continents their favored status in the divine plan. Until the Lively case, they could only cite two flawed examples of where Christian pastors were legally tried in Canadian and Swedish courts for preaching against the evils of homosexuality. Now, right here in God’s own destined nation of the United States of America, the arch-goblin Lively has overnight been instantly turned into a Prince of Redemption and a potential martyr for “the faith.” Even though he will not be punished or sent to prison for committing crimes against humanity, their fairy tale has a hidden moral truth about it. “See what happens when you give homosexuals equal rights and allow them to get married … they get revenge by turning on good pastors like Scott Lively, who was only exercising his American liberty of freedom of speech. By denying him the right to practice his deeply held religious beliefs, the American courts have finally caved into the homosexual agenda.” I could write the appeal letter for his legal defense fund and it would work –a charm!

Equally bewitched by the illusion of immanent legal victory, SMUG (an unfortunate name for any human rights organization) will spend even more countless hours flying about as airplane activists, busy busy busy and raising more gold from the sad straw of their very real persecution. All of their staff and many clients have had to spend more time and money on security and safety and they will have to prove their case that Lively was directly connected to this deliberate up scaling of anti-gay violence and proposed draconian legislation. In becoming the global celebrities fate has magically bestowed upon SMUG’s leadership, it is difficult for them to actually spend time with the people they love and want to represent – the Kuchus of Uganda who have become the redemptive face for the millions who suffer in silence and shame. They enter the world of the highly symbolic where reality and imagined can sometimes blur. Perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize may come their way just to symbolically prove they are standing in the light and courageously fighting the dark empire? The chasm will only deepen in this particular fairy tale between the evil goblin Lively or the good prince, Frank Mugisha of SMUG.

Meanwhile, the real deprivation and curse on the land is when those with the least even lose what little they have. Those whose intentions were good to serve the gods, their persecuted fellow Christians or fellow LGBT community, their nation, their esteemed legal collective wisdom can, without careful scrutiny, become the wilted lily of our inhumanity. While we raise more dollars to fight the evil Lively, thousands more will perish in the land. There is no longer a security fund or committee in Uganda and people in need of health services and a place to hide have nowhere to go. Money is tight but it is also needed to serve people on the ground and fight these highly symbolic battles. Millions of dollars worth of intentions to serve the poor, widows and orphans of Christian organizations in Africa will now pour into the treasury of Lively’s legal defense team. This is a kind of apocalyptic Armageddon and if Lively loses, so will the US Catholic Conference of Bishops who receive $750 million dollars a year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for exercising their faith and ministries wherever and whatever way they deem. We will probably be following this particular case for the next few years and what is central to the case (probably the first ever globalized interpretation of theology and law around issues of freedom of speech and if and when our freedom of speech causes harm to another, who may not even be a citizen of this country) .

At first glance this story is simply about who is good and who is evil? As Eric Isaacson implies, this case may be a landmark decision, not because of who is good or evil but rather, in a brave new 21st century globalized world, how our largely 18th century constitutional framework and our historic legal and moral structures will now catch up with these realities. For others, the debate is about another form of global moral destruction and the limitations of a human-rights only approach to our quest for happy endings. This week’s decision may be hailed by the US and western liberal majority as another inch on the infamous “arc of justice” but it will be seem by most leaders in the global south religious world as proof of Pastor Lively’s prophetic witness –“what he warned us about is actually coming true.”

Meanwhile, that mischievous Lively has denied that he conspired with government officials or religious leaders in Uganda to craft specifics of the legislation. He has said the lawsuit against him “boils down to nothing more than an attempt to define my Biblical views against homosexuality as a crime. Clearly, this lawsuit is intended not only to silence me as an effective voice of opposition to the ‘gay’ agenda, it is also to intimidate everyone else who would dare to follow my example,” he wrote on his fairy tale blog last year.

Rumplestiltskin only went away when the good Queen had done her difficult research of finding out the rascal’s real name – exposing his true identity. The spell was broken and posterity was protected for all in the magic kingdom by the wise Queen. She did it in a way that was both surprising and with a smile. To be continued.

RGOD2, written by the Rev. Canon Albert Ogle of St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego, looks at faith and religion from an LGBT point of view. Ogle is known around the world for his work in support of LGBT rights and HIV-prevention efforts. He is president of St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation. Donations to the foundation can be made by clicking HERE.