Scott Lively Is Suing the Massachusetts Republican Party, Charlie Baker

Photo via SHNS/Sam Doran

Scott Lively is (almost definitely) not going to be elected governor of Massachusetts, but that hasn’t stopped him from making Gov. Charlie Baker’s life difficult.

Lively, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, filed a $7 million lawsuit against Gov. Baker and the Massachusetts GOP, according to MassLive. The pastor, a notorious homophobe who has virtually no shot at toppling the very popular incumbent, accused the state party of breaking its own policy and propping up Baker’s campaign ahead of its September 4 primary. In the complaint, filed May 31 in Worcester Superior Court, Lively alleges the MassGOP acted deceptively and that Baker defamed him, according to MassLive.

“These endorsement and signature gathering activities by the State Committee on behalf of Baker had the effect of shutting out Lively from obtaining signatures from many venues, as the MassGOP was seen as already endorsing Baker,” the challenger wrote in the lawsuit, according to MassLive.

Despite the fact that Lively was taken to court by Ugandan activists for “crimes against humanity” related his anti-LGBT agenda in 2016, he still qualified to face Baker in the MassGOP’s primary at the end of the summer. Lively, who has positioned himself as the Trump candidate in the race, received nearly 28 percent of delegates’ votes at the state party’s convention in April, more than enough to secure a spot on the primary ballot.

While Baker earned the party’s official endorsement and 70 percent of the delegates’ votes at the convention, Lively’s strong performance indicates a degree of intra-party division, as some members of the state GOP are unhappy with Baker’s distance from the president.

In addition to speaking positively about an explosion at a Springfield strip club that hurt at least 18 people, Lively referred to Massachusetts, the place he apparently wants to lead, as “the most morally corrupt state in the union.”