It includes some pretty big names, like conservative Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, National Organization for Marriage leader Brian Brown, and American Family Association spokesperson Bryan Fischer. In almost every case it has been his distinctive combination of homophobia and Islamophobia that has made Putin one of the Christian right’s favorite international figures. The cultural conservative preference for authoritarian Christian Slavs who are fighting Muslims has, as Beinart notes, carried over from the Serbs to their traditional sponsors in Moscow, and most especially to the former KGB officer who has revived Russia’s pre-communist tradition of militantly traditionalist Christianity.
Putin’s attacks on “gay propaganda” have been particularly heartwarming to Christian-right folk, probably because of echoes they hear of their own longtime warnings about a sinister “homosexual agenda” pervading U.S. politics and culture. Here’s Franklin Graham gushing about this during a trip to Russia: [...]
So there is a paradox at the center of Christian-right attitudes toward Putin’s Russia: His own conspicuous traditionalist Christianity, which makes him an ally against gay and Muslim agendas, makes him an enemy of conservative Evangelicals in his own country. Since Putin’s not likely to abandon his position favoring a near-monopoly for the Russian Orthodox Church, that makes him disappointing as a heartthrob for the Focus on Family crowd. But there’s still Donald Trump.
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