In early April 2014, when the whole world was in turmoil, angry about Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which became the first territorial grab in Europe since the Second world war, Patrick Buchanan (Patrick Joseph Buchanan) asked a question. Speaking on the pages of Townhall, he asked: “whose side are you today God?”
When Moscow seized the Ukrainian Peninsula, held a referendum at gunpoint, when they began to disappear Crimean Tatars, Buchanan explained his question. The former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and the intellectual standard-bearer of paleoconservatism what they call the authoritarian line of thought that unites white nationalists and Donald trump, wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Moscow is the godly city. Despite Putin’s kleptocracy and on the threat that Moscow poses to European stability, Buchanan shamelessly praises Putin’s policies, saying: “the culture war for the future of mankind, Putin firmly hoisting the Russian flag on the side of traditional Christianity”.
Three years have passed, and today, it’s easy not to notice this article Buchanan when discussing American-Russian relations, marked in bold print mutual sanctions and the realization that Moscow in the elections tried to tip the scales in favor of trump. But in the article, Buchanan says about the radical shift in the religious relations between Moscow and Washington, as well as about the role that Moscow is playing among right-wing Christians around the world. Until 2014, Russia is considered the importer of Christian fundamentalists, most of whom came from the United States. But when the Kremlin in 2014, has revoked the diplomatic norms, Moscow has begun to carve out for itself a new role at the helm of the world pravohristianskih ship.
Since the Kremlin’s grip only intensified, and he stands firm at the helm of a resurgent right-wing forces. Russian banks are financed by foreign parties such as the French national front, Moscow hosts numerous international conferences on a variety of topics, from network to neo-Nazis and the attempts of local separatists to split the United States. Meanwhile, the American fundamentalists, obsessed with his desire to deprive minorities of rights and protections are increasingly turning to Russia for support, seeing in it a sample of what they want to do at home, from the attacks on the LGBT community and to ban abortion across the country.
“After Russia in 2013 adopted legislation against LGBT people, we see a similar draft laws are proposed we have, for example, in Tennessee, told me the LGBT researcher of the analytical center, Political Research Associates Cole Park (Cole Parke). — It’s hard to say who inspires who, but between the two movements there is definitely a connection.”
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It is no coincidence that the article of Buchanan, which tells about the participants “cultural, social and moral war” between Russia and “hedonistic” West mentioned a little-known organization called the world Congress of families. According to Buchanan, the defence Ministry has called the transformation of Russia into “the leader of the movement in defense of the family” one of the top 10 trends of 2013. To understand how Russia has challenged and changed US in the post Herald of Christian fundamentalists, we need to understand what is videoconferencing and how it in recent years, the impact on Russian politics.
The world Congress of families is based in Rockford, Illinois, and is a Scion of Govardovskii of the center for family, religion and society. VKS says that he wants to “strengthen the foundations of society”, speaking, among other things, to protect “the natural family based on marriage between a man and a woman.” Directs them to Brian brown (Brian Brown), who is also a co-founder and President of the far-right National organization in defense of marriage, which is strongly opposed to gays. Just this week, according to BuzzFeed, brown went to Moscow to continue the establishment of the transatlantic relations between Russia and the us religious right.
In the 20 years since its founding in 1997, VKS has become one of the main centers of attraction of the extreme right-wing American evangelists, through which they spread their fundamentalism as well as one of the main organizations in the world among opponents of the LGBT community. As reported by the human rights organization “South centre for the legal protection of the poor” (Southern Poverty Law Center), VKS is “one of the key driving forces behind the American religious right who promote the spread of homophobia throughout the world.” But videoconferencing on such charges are not offended. So, in 2016, he held a conference in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, where speakers called participants to “decisively confront homofascists and rainbow radicals”. The conference discussed a variety of issues — from how sex education “undermines the family and parental authority” and before the judicial system holds the “indoctrination of the people, pitting them against family.” (Numerous requests to comment on these points videoconferencing is not answered.)
But videoconferencing is not entirely the product of American exports. This is not just some attempt to advertise for foreign consumption Christian extremism along with baseball and Apple pie. Rather, videoconferencing is the result of joint Russian-American homophobic ingenuity. As recently stated by a graduate student at the University of South Florida Christopher Stroop (Stroop, Christopher), videoconferencing was the brainchild of faculty of sociology of Moscow state University Anatoly Antonov and Victor medkova, and Allan Carlson (Allan Carlson), who is currently the honorary President of the VKS. According to the publication, Mother Jones, the two Russian was seeking funds to prevent the onset of Russia’s “demographic winter”, believing that progressive legislation on issues of birth control and LGBT rights will lead to civilizational collapse. In the course of their work they came across the materials Carlson. Gathered in the apartment of the “Russian Orthodox mysticism”, the trio outlined the contours of an organization that was supposed to help right-wing Christians around the world and to bring Russia back to the positions from which she has denied in the times of Soviet atheism.
After the creation of the VCS in the West, there was a significant progressive change, but Russia made a strong leap in the opposite direction. During third presidential term Putin Moscow not only took the helm of the global movement against homosexuality, but also further undermine the rules and norms concerning the basic rights to abortion. So, in 2011, the Kremlin passed a law against abortion, which, as written by the magazine the Nation, “many activists and supporters of freedom of choice considered the first salvo in the attempt to ban this procedure.”
But this law did not arise in a vacuum, because Moscow in time for the first in the world decided to legalize abortion. Rather, those Russian legislators who insisted on toughening of rules of carrying out of abortions within the country, drew inspiration from their American counterparts, and especially in HQs. I must say that the package of measures to limit abortion, developed by the Duma Deputy Elena Mizulina, was adopted the next day after the management of SCD, including Carlson and managing Director Larry Jacobs (Larry Jacobs), gathered in Moscow “Demographic summit”, which today is the most successful event of the Congress held in Russia. As he said later, the head of one of the Russian organizations in the protection of women’s rights, “was 100% clear that all of the [law against abortion] was copied from the experience of American fundamentalists and conservative circles of several European countries, where abortion is banned or severely restricted”. Later videoconferencing claimed in its promotional materials: “Congress helped organize the first modern Russian law limiting abortion.”
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Shortly after the “Demographic summit” Putin announced that in 2012, plans to return to the presidency, succeeding Dmitry Medvedev. As the economic situation in the country was far from brilliant, he appealed for support to the chauvinists, the nationalists and the disaffected of all stripes. For the first half year stay in power, Putin cornered protesting opposition, a stifled independent media and brought the Kremlin hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. All these steps indicate that his worldview has shifted to the right. He returned to the triumvirate of the reign of Nicholas I, under the name of “Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality”.
Christian fundamentalists in America with glee watching the actions of Putin — especially after the election of Barack Obama for a second term fighters for same-sex marriage and gay rights went on the offensive. In 2013, Moscow has pushed through a law “prohibiting propaganda of homosexuality” directed primarily against caught in the siege of the LGBT community. Although in the West, this law has been widely criticized, the religious right in America, all the forces supported by the Kremlin. As reported in his article the Daily Beast website, the law banning the promotion of homosexuality as measures against abortion before it, did not appear at a certain time of the reaction atmosphere, and were the result of “long-term, carefully planned campaign to influence state and government to take the legal mechanisms of the “Christian right”. This campaign was the result of the efforts of American and Russian representatives from the VCS who “successfully spread originated in the United States, a cultural war that harm women and people with different sexual orientations in the world.” The extreme right in the United States in that year was even supported by the Russian ban on adoptions by Americans of children from Russia, and the fundamentalists extolled this move of Putin, claiming that it will prevent children to live with same-sex parents.
And then in early 2014, Russia began the invasion of the South of Ukraine, saying its claim to Crimea, which caused the sanctions and hostile attitude. Then the plane was shot down MH17 — probably the separatists, using Russian support. On the background of the most severe in decades, the gap between the Kremlin and the White house ATT confirmed its intention to hold its annual conference in September 2014 in Moscow. But suddenly the United States has included in its sanctions list two main supporters of videoconferencing in Russia — Mizulina and the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin. Citing “uncertainty around the sanctions,” videoconferencing has officially refused to hold the conference.
But that didn’t stop bosses HQs to come to this event, which was renamed the “Large family and future of humanity”, and to continue strengthening ties with those close to the Kremlin people. Fundamentalists of videoconferencing has not only continued to build relationships with the radical Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, but as told me the Scab, “held a conference exactly as it was supposed to go”. (To get an idea about the views Malofeeva enough to remember his view that Orthodox Christians can’t be fascists, because “the Russians suffered more from the Nazis than any other country in the world.”) As written in 2014, journalist Hannah Levintova (Hannah Levintova), the conference was “almost under the same name in the same place at the same time and on the same schedule.” In addition, the official Russian representative in videoconferencing Alexey Komov told Russian media that the Congress in spite of everything helped organize the conference.
But this time something changed. In the third year of Putin’s third term and a few months later after Russia turned on the head of the order that emerged after the cold war, it has started to receive support from the extreme right of the West. It’s very different forces, starting with the white nationalists, voodushevljajushe and support trump in the election campaign, and to political organizations which firmly set out to split NATO and the European Union. While Washington sought to legalize same-sex marriage, Russia, to the joy of Christian fundamentalist on both sides of the Atlantic, suddenly turned into the world’s major Bastion of “traditional” values.
As I said a Scab conference 2014 “was the time when Russia led the process of nationalization and export of such “traditional” values.” There was a time when Mizulina said that today the conference of this kind in Europe or in America is impossible. Of course, she was wrong; in 2015, this conference was held in salt lake city, and it took place after only a few months after the decision was made to legalize same-sex marriage in all of America. But in that situation, the political moment Russia, according to supporters of Christian fundamentalism, snatched from the hands of the United States palm and became the world leader of the Christian right. Moscow is quite successful in this case and even surpassed their American counterparts in adopting the reactionary social laws. And she recently abolished criminal penalties for domestic violence. The scab, remembering the consequences of the 2014 conference, said: “Russia has put on the mantle of a leader of global social conservatism…. This conference gave her the opportunity to say: “Today we’re in charge”. And people responded to it, and went for it.”
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Today is easy to find fundamentalists, who are scattered small demon before Putin allegedly addressed to God. For example, Bryan Fischer (Bryan Fischer) that till 2015 was the official representative of the Association of American families, called Putin a “lion of Christianity.” Evangelist Franklin Graham (Franklin Graham) also praises Putin, calling him “a defender of traditional Christianity.” And Buchanan praises Putin that constantly. Even the recent tensions related to the fact that Russia adopted a law limiting non-Orthodox missionary activities, and those did not dampen the ardor of American fundamentalists standing on the side of Moscow. But trump, like all American presidents of recent decades, without much attention relates to social issues. And if he decides to exclude from the number of priority the question of the abolition of gay marriage and rights to abortion, the extreme right in America will have increasingly to turn to Moscow for support, significantly strengthening the position of the Kremlin.
Answering the question of Buchanan, we can say that hardly know whose side God. But the Russians are happy to regain the support of radical Christian extremists in America and as long as possible to wear on his head the crown of leadership of Christian fundamentalism, and even after the election trump. “They use the history of anti-communism as a means of persuasion,’ said Scab. They say, “We survived communism and therefore know how to resist him”. And they act in exact accordance with this scenario, which is the scenario of the cold war, arguing that communism and secularization are one and the same”.
It is unclear, how will the transatlantic relationship Christian fundamentalists when trump, whose love for money (like Putin) are much stronger than the love of God. But today right-wing Christians all over the world there is a clear and undeniable leader. Said Jacobs of videoconferencing after the gathering in Moscow in 2014, “Russia today is the hope for the world.”
