Russian LGBT's have a US preacher to thank for homophobia?

Probably not. There has been deep-seated homophobia in Russia for decades, and this is a sign that increasingly isolated right-wingers are just finding cause with each other. It has happened with abortion too; American Christian supremacists and Islamic fundies find common cause blocking reproductive rights in international organizations.

Ex-KGB leaders, the U.S. Republikan Party, wanky euro nationalist groups, Christian fundies, and Muslim fundies generally all hate gays. We should be glad all the authoritarian thugs can get along!

No I don’t think so, he may have been a small time instigator but homophobia in Russia had been there for a long time.

What a nice guy. Did he start it? No. Did he throw gasoline on the fire? Yes.

It’s so hard for me to imagine someone feeling proud of being anti-LGBT, and pushing an agenda of hate. I was just about floored when I saw it was a top story on MSN.com today.

That’s ridiculous. Sure, this guy isn’t a paragon of progressive thought. However, all the preaching in the world won’t do any good if people aren’t already disposed to hear the message.

I think that the russians already feel anti-gay (Russian orthodox religion is, after all, a Catholic offshoot) and this guy just ‘helps’ the cause.

Any pastor claiming responsibility for the actions of the Russian state is diluted with their own ego. Russia does what Russia does because it wants to. They don’t go out of their way to heed outside influences.

@DWW25921 I think you mean deluded, correct?

@rojo Nope, ego diluted with water…lol, good catch!!

@rojo I reckon that will work too!

I’m sure the religious wrong in the US have been quick to support homophobia wherever they see it. But the real problem in Russia is tribalism or ethnic pride. Russian population is growing thanks to immigration and a reasonably high birth rate amoun the immigrant portion of the Russian population, but native ethnic Russians have been facing negative population growth now for a generation. They fear their ethnicity will be lost in a pool of pure humanness and they hate that idea. I think they are very wrong to hate it. I’d much rather focus opposition on the tribalism that is fueling their brutality and bigotry. But that’s really what’s driving Russian homophobia. They want all native Russians cranking out more babies so Mother Russia can finally take its rightful place ruling the whole world. Archaic, stupid, dangerous thought in a world awash in nuclear weapons, but there it is.

It’s probably a complicated issue with many facets contributing, some of it is probably leftover hatred for the Bolsheviks, who pushed for sexual revolutions of all kinds and also killed around 40 million people.

Of course, those same people also blamed Nazism on the supposed fact that all of the Nazi’s were gay. Figure that one out.