The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

It's a well-established fact that American evangelicals have been increasingly exporting their homophobia abroad as their losses pile up at home.

One of the places where that bigotry has most firmly taken root, of course, is Russia, where the government is cracking down on the basic rights of LGBT people and turning a blind eye to a shocking upsurge in anti-LGBT vigilante violence.

But according to a new report from Right Wing Watch, evangelical anti-gay, pro-Russian advocacy doesn't stop at that country's borders: the World Congress of Families -- an SPLC-certified anti-LGBT hate group -- is meddling in the crisis in Ukraine.

But the World Congress of Families' involvement in relations between Ukraine, Russia, and the European Union is more complicated than [the WCF's Don] Feder's release lets on. Although WCF has distanced itself from Feder's foreign policy opinions, Feder has been very clear where his loyalty lies in Ukraine's unrest. In a column earlier this month, Feder attacked the "Maidan mob" that had ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and bashed the EU's "willingness to accept same-sex 'marriage,' abortion on demand, and anti-religion ethos."

And the WCF itself has allied with anti-EU activists in Ukraine to push anti-gay causes, putting itself right in the middle of a powerful anti-EU wedge issue.

Many right-wing groups, including the World Congress of Families, have enthusiastically praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's new focus on opposing gay rights and abortion access, promoting large families, and close alliance with the Russian Orthodox church, while conveniently ignoring the role these "family issues" play in his consolidation and expansion of power. When Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine two weeks ago, that dynamic became harder to ignore...

Speaking at a press conference in Kiev in October [2013], Feder warned Ukrainians against following the US into the "abyss" of gay rights.

"Everywhere you look, from Washington to the United Nations to the European Union to the courts, the family is threatened," he said. "There are forces in your country that want to put you on the road America's taken. I urge you to resist them."

He went on to warn that gay rights advances in the United States were leading to legalized pedophilia, "a campaign to abolish gender distinctions," and ultimately "the criminalization of Christianity."

Video, after the jump.

Sitting alongside Feder at the press conference are Alexey Komov, a Moscow organizer for WCF; Fabrice Sorlin, a far-right anti-LGBT extremist from France; and Aleksander Skvortsov, a representative of a group called the Parents Committee of Ukraine.

Right Wing Watch concludes:

The World Congress of Families and the American groups it allies with- including Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage - seem to be conveniently ignoring the role that anti-gay activism is playing in Russian President Vladimir Putin's expansionist plans, including his efforts to wrest Ukraine's loyalties away from the European Union.

Click here for their full report. It's worth reading.

In related news, World Congress of Families planning committee member and notorious anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively wrote a column today on World Net Daily claiming that homosexuality caused the crisis in Ukraine.

Seriously.

The crux of the human-rights debate is what it means to be human. Russia appears to be returning to its pre-Soviet understanding that humans are made in the image of God, and that our "rights" are really duties of respect and care for each other imposed on us by Him. This is why the first principle of both the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights is the protection of the Christian church, from which the very concept of modern human rights emerged. And this is why the greatest point of conflict between the U.S. and Russia is the question of homosexuality. (I believe even the conflict in Ukraine is being driven to a large extent by this issue, at least on the part of the Obama State Department and the homosexualist leaders of the EU.)

There is no human right to sodomy to be found in nearly 4,000 years of human-rights jurisprudence. It is an invention of Cultural Marxists in the late 20th century and rests on their dangerous premise that the state, not God, grants us our rights. In fact, the "right" to sodomy is really an anti-right, because it can only be granted at the expense of the true human rights of religious freedom and family values.