In response to the crisis in Crimea, President Obama has levied sanctions against Russia and Russian government officials, one of whom is Yelena Mizulina, the chair of the Russian Duma's committee on Family, Women and Children's Affairs and an anti-LGBT extremist. Her status as the latter make her a perfect ally for NOM, which is raising a stink over her inclusion for sanctions.
On NOM's blog, Christopher Plante writes:
A recent LifeSiteNews article by Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D. should have Christians the world over very worried about the actions of President Obama and his Administration. In America we have seen his very active efforts to impose genderless marriage on all the states and the Department of Justice’s actions against our First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. However, now Mr. Obama has taken his attack on the Christian view of marriage across the globe.
Chris, Brian Brown has been to
Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, France, and, most famously, Russia, where he expressed support for its anti-LGBT laws. These were all NOM-related activities. Isn't it a little hypocritical for NOM to criticize President Obama for promoting his ideas abroad, while NOM is promoting its ideas abroad? Wait, no, let me rephrase that. It is a little hypocritical for NOM to criticize President Obama for promoting his ideas abroad, while NOM is promoting its ideas abroad. Wait, no, let me rephrase that. It is extremely hypocritical for NOM to criticize President Obama for promoting his ideas abroad, while NOM is promoting its ideas abroad.
Plante continues:
As part of the sanctions the Obama Administration has imposed on Russia for their adventurism in Crimea, the White House published a list of Russian officials impacted by the sanctions. However, there is one name on the list that has many people scratching their heads - Yelena Mizulina, chair of the Russian Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children’s Affairs, and a staunch defender of the Christian view of marriage.
This paragraph is a disturbing whitewash of how truly evil Mizulina is. According to
her Wikipedia page:
In June 2012, the Duma Committee on matters of Family that Mizulina presides, rendered public a project entited "The State Concept of Family Policy until 2025", which proposes amongst other things, several controversial elements including the following:
[...]
strongly condemns homosexuality
[...]
Yelena Mizulina is the author of several legislative projects directed against propaganda of homosexuality. She believes that the phrase "gays are people too" should be considered potentially extremist by the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare. Yelena Mizulina is also in favor of confiscating children from gay parents, including from those that are the biological parents of the children.
She has also filed frivolous criminal complaints against Nikolay Alexeyev. Yet none of this appears to worry NOM. Not that we should expect deadly homophobia to worry them.
Plante continues (emphasis mine):
The official White House press release, titled “Fact Sheet: Ukraine-Related Sanctions,” states that the sanctions are a “response to the Russian government’s actions contributing to the crisis in Ukraine.” Yet in the description of the alleged crimes of the sanctioned Russian individuals, Ms. Mizulina is simply described as being sanctioned “for her status as a State Duma Deputy."
"President Obama is using the economic sanctions against Yelena Mizulina to send a very clear message to Russian Christians," Fr. Maxim Obukhov, the father of the Russian pro-life movement, told LifeSiteNews. "There is much talk about a cold war, but President Obama has openly declared war upon Christians who oppose the culture of death both at home and abroad."
So here we have more victim complex whining from religious conservatives. There is no war on Christians in America or Russia. There is in some places in the Middle East, which is terrible, but I only brought that up to acknowledge where persecution is occurring so I wouldn't be accused of denying it. Let's stay in America and Russia.
America is 78% Christian. Almost every President has been a Christian. The House and the Senate are overwhelmingly Christian. The reason that (only) some Christians see themselves as persecuted is that they think they are deserving of privileges that others aren't, and when they don't get them, they complain.
Now to Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church has extremely close ties to Putin. He had Pussy Riot thrown in jail for offending the Church. The Church supports Russia's anti-LGBT laws, which Putin also supported to please it and build a base of support within the Church. Orthodox Christians in Russia have special privilege.
Now let's talk about the culture of death. What exactly could Maxim Obukhov be referring to? The only statement about a specific political/religious belief in the entire blog post is:
... the Christian view of marriage.
I.e. opposition to marriage equality. Or, as Maxim Obukhov puts it, opposition to a "culture of death".
Of course, NOM has previously said that marriage equality is worse than the death of a parent. Unfortunately, we can no longer look at these outrageous statements as outrageous. For NOM, they're now normal.