Anti-gay Republican Scott Lively squirms as interviewer asks about the time he assaulted a woman

Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts Scott Lively was put under the microscope in a public radio interview – when a reporter brought up an assault case against him.

Pink Swastika author Scott Lively last week made it into the GOP primary against incumbent Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker, after more than a quarter of delegates gave him their backing.

Lively has links to anti-LGBT movements across the world, particularly in deprived countries. Human rights watchdogs allege his work is key to a wave of campaigns for anti-gay laws around the world.

But in an interview with public radio station WBUR, Lively came under the microscope over a 1991 assault on a woman.

A jury found Lively liable for damages in excess of $31,000 over the incident at an Oregon Citizens Alliance event, where he had assaulted photographer Catherine Stauffer – throwing her against a wall and dragging her across the floor of the church.

When WBUR interviewer Meghna Chakrabarti brought up the incident, Lively derided the “predatory” journalism and hit out at the “gotcha interview.”

Lively claimed: “I became an attorney because of what I experienced during that outrageous abuse of the judicial system in Multnomah County, Oregon.

“The case at issue was an extraordinarily political case in which the judge actually happened to be a corporate attorney for an organization that was funding the opposition in a ballot measure campaign in which I was the spokesman.”

Of the assault claims, he added: “That was all made up. She was a journalist for Just Out magazine. And a member of the political opposition during a ballot measure campaign on LGBT issues in Oregon.”

But Lively admitted paying more than $16,000 in damages after the incident “because [otherwise] I wasn’t going to be able to get a law license after going to law school.”

• Dec 01

16 TV stars you grew up watching who later came out as LGBTQ+