Russia's saber-rattling in Ukraine may have the religious right in a bit of a diplomatic pinch. People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch reports that nearly every major religious right group in this country is planning on attending an international summit of kindred organizations to be held this September at the Kremlin.
In September, social conservative leaders from around the globe, including representatives of several major American Religious Right groups are planning to hold the annual World Congress of Families gathering at the Kremlin. The gathering is supported by political leaders in Russian Orthodox Church and will include a joint session with the Russian parliament.
American social conservatives have rallied – with varying levels of enthusiasm – to support Russian President Vladimir Putin as his government has passed a series of anti-gay laws and joined with the church to take up other “family values” issues.
According to
this sponsorship list, every major religious right organization in this country is a paying partner with the World Congress of Families. And the leaders of several of them traveled to Moscow last October to help plan this year's gathering. As part of that meeting, they sat down with Yelena Mizulina, the coauthor of the "gay propaganda bill." This should come as no surprise, given how fundies have been falling all over themselves lately to praise Putin for his rabidly homophobic line.
However, according to Buzzfeed's Lester Feder, the fundies are being pwned by the Kremlin. Putin's embrace of naked homophobia is part of a larger effort to push back against the EU's expansion into the former Soviet bloc.
The longer the crisis in the Ukraine continues, the more likely that the fundies are going to be in a real bind. Do they really want to be this close to Putin right now? Either way, the irony of how much they love Putin is pretty stark, considering how rabidly anti-Communist the fundies were.