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https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/global-christian-right/

an 12 21

an investigation by the media outletopenDemocracy revealed Friday that the dark money groups masterminding the far-right assault on reproductive freedoms in the U.S. have also spent at least $28 million in recent years on efforts to roll back the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people worldwide.

The new analysis shows that prominent anti-abortion groups including the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), theFederalist Society, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family and Heartbeat International have "been involved in recent efforts to limit reproductive rights in Europe and Latin America."

The organizations form what openDemocracydescribes as "the 'dark money' global empire of the U.S. Christian right," which is exporting its legal strategy, army of lawyers, and resources overseas to forestall and reverse international progress on abortion access.

ADF, a far-right Christian legal advocacy group with ties to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, has spent years laying the groundwork for the draconian Mississippi abortion ban at the heart of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a Supreme Court case that could imperil reproductive freedoms across the U.S.

But ADF's influence extends well beyond its home country. According to openDemocracy, the organization—whose global arm is called ADF International—spent $15.3 million between 2016 and 2019 on efforts to gut abortion rights overseas.

"The European offices of ACLJ and ADF have intervened in dozens of European court cases against sexual and reproductive rights," the outlet notes. "Last year, Poland's constitutional court voted to ban abortion in cases of fetal defects. [ACLJ] submitted arguments in favor of the new restrictions, condemned by the Council of Europe as a grave 'human rights violation.'"

"The European branch of ACLJ also intervened for the first time at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights," openDemocracy observes. "The government of El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, was sued for the imprisonment and death of a woman who had experienced a miscarriage."

As for the Federalist Society—of which all six current right-wing Supreme Court justices are either current or former members—"Europe was the main destination of foreign spending," openDemocracyfinds.

"Europeans are too naive in thinking that achievements in women's rights and sexual and reproductive health are irreversible," said Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, told the outlet. "The anti-choice movement does not only have a lot of money, they also have a plan and the determination. Europe should wake up, and it should wake up fast."

While under U.S. tax law the far-right groups have largely succeeded in keeping their funding sources hidden from the public, openDemocracy examined "financial information disclosed by grantmakers" showing that the National Christian Foundation (NCF) and Fidelity Charitable donated $93 million to the organizations between 2016 and 2020.

Feminist researcher Sonia Corrêa of Sexuality Policy Watch said openDemocracy's report "exposes once again the long-running organic connections between anti-abortion forces in the U.S. and Latin America."

Neil Datta, secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, similarly argued that the findings "further demonstrate the growing trend of religious extremists forging cross-border alliances to advance... pseudo-legal arguments and engaging in formal legal processes aiming to unstitch the fabric of human rights protection."

In an op-ed for the New York Times on Thursday, openDemocracy's Mary Fitzgerald argued that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Mississippi's abortion ban and undercuts Roe v. Wade, the nation will "join of a small cadre of increasingly authoritarian countries that have become more restrictive on abortion in recent years."

Fitzgerald went on to cite specific examples:

Poland's constitutional tribunal ruled on a retrograde abortion ban last year which effectively banned abortion in all cases apart from rape, incest or threat of life or health to the mother, after the ruling Law and Justice party packed the court.

Hungary's Viktor Orban is ramping up its talk on "family values," and a 2016 United Nations report criticized the country for obstructing abortion access.

Vladimir Putin's Russia has just joined the misleadingly titled Geneva Consensus Declaration: a document co-sponsored by the United States under the Trump administration with repressive governments including Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil, Mr. Orban's Hungary, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's Egypt, and signed by dozens more of the world's most repressive regimes from Saudi Arabia to Uganda. (President Biden announced in January that the United States would withdraw.) The declaration's authors also claim that there is no international right to abortion.

"Later this month President Biden will host the Summit for Democracy, with a key focus on promoting human rights around the world," Fitzgerald noted. "But as U.S. courts continue to dismantle basic rights enjoyed in countless other modern democracies, the most pressing question must be: How can democracy do its job at home if only half the population is granted full human rights?"

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/scholar-explains-how-the-conservative-movement-transmits-sanitized-versions-of-white-supremacist-ideology/

paul r salon

As the longest sustained period of racial justice protests in American history segues into the heat of election season, dark shadows have appeared, from the vigilante _{killing of protesters}_ in Kenosha, Wisconsin — and _{widespread conservative defenses}_ of the teenage accused murderer — to ludicrous _{charges against protesters, including "terrorism,"}_ to the Trump administration's _{crackdown on federal antiracism training}_, calling it "anti-American," and Attorney General Bill Barr's call for _{protesters to be charged with sedition}_.

So much for the notions that Donald Trump has no ideology, or, for that matter, that getting rid of him will make America great again. In July of 2016, I wrote about _{why such views were myopic}_: "Trump advances core paleoconservative positions," researcher Bruce Wilson told me, including "rebuilding infrastructure, protective tariffs, securing borders and stopping immigration, neutralizing designated internal enemies and isolationism."

Trump's record as president has been surprisingly consistent for such an erratic figure, with his purely rhetorical support for infrastructure as the most notable exception. And therein lies a key to the current moment:With infrastructure removed from the equation — the most broadly popular position Trump's ever embraced — the remaining white nationalism stands out in stark relief, highlighted in the frenzied push toward violent confrontation around the election, and beyond.

Dr. James Scaminaci III has just published a report about the long historical genesis of this recent push for Political Research Associates, "_{Battle With Bullets: Advancing a Vision of Civil War}_." Scaminaci has a PhD in sociology from Stanford and has worked as a civilian intelligence analyst with expertise on the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and organized crime. So the spread of social chaos, internecine violence and associated enabling ideologies is a subject he's familiar with.

Scaminaci traces the roots of culture-war and race-war narratives as far back as the Haitian revolution of the early 19th century. He observes that Steve Bannon nurtured those carefully at Breitbart News and they have played a key role in radicalizing Trump's base over the past five years, to the point where some of his supporters are visibly preparing themselves for violence. Some parts of this story have been relatively well covered, but Scaminaci provides a much more integrated and historically extensive account of how we reached our present state. I reached out to him recently for an interview by email to discuss some of his key insights and how they provide us with a much clearer picture of the forces pushing America toward civil war. The following has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

In your article, you write: "Over the last several years, a narrative around the threat of civil war — and more specifically, a racial civil war — has been growing on the Right." You observe that this comes in different versions and has deep historical roots, dating back to the colonial era. Before getting into the details, why is it important to recognize this history and learn about it?

I wanted to convey that what we are seeing now on the right wing has a long history, a history that is either overlooked or ignored. Jill Lepore and other scholars looking at the right have noted that modern day "patriots" cast themselves as lineal descendants of the founding fathers and the American Revolution — that they are revolutionaries against the existing "tyrannical" federal government. But that history is drenched in violence and blood against Black and indigenous peoples. That context cannot be omitted. And the idea that whites are under existential threat from Black folks also needs to be put into historical context.

Second, the right-wing idea that the federal government is "tyrannical" is largely the product of white supremacist politicians, both Republican and Democratic, and intellectuals like William F. Buckley. This was the idea that post-World War II federal support for civil rights was federal overreach, was unconstitutional, and that it upset allegedly harmonious race relations in the South and eventually in the North.

According to white supremacists, the existential threat to white people in the Jim Crow South came from Black folks, whether children or adults, even touching anything that could be shared with whites. A schoolbook touched by a Black child became a Black textbook. Blacks and whites could not share drinking fountains or sit in the same seats on a bus.

What I wanted to portray in "Battle With Bullets" is that whites have long viewed any expression of nonviolent Black agency as an existential threat to themselves that required whites to resort to a brutal, genocidal racial civil war. One can understand the palpable fear of a slave revolt before 1861. But white supremacists have claimed that registering to vote, voting, moving into a white neighborhood after a history of redlining, moving into managerial or foreman positions in the workplace, or being cast as heroes or superheroes are existential threats.

You write that "The most dangerous versions of that [civil war] narrative come from leaders with paramilitary forces, while other appeals seem intended to generate a heightened sense of crisis." Can you give an example of each and then help us understand how the two are related?

Roger Stone is a political operative who has graduated from ratfucking political operations into calling for a civil war or violence or martial law. He is an ideological chaos agent. He can help set the narrative mood for the right wing. As Chip Berlet has written, elites know how to write the score for scripted violence. Somehow, the gunmen always know who to kill. In a similar category are the numerous Christian right leaderswho broadcast the same civil war message to their Christian nationalist supporters and followers. I also quoted [Dallas megachurch pastor] Robert Jeffress in the article.

David Neiwert owns the beat on tracking the transmission of fringe ideas to the conservative mainstream. Even a decade before Trump, the ideological lines were blurring.

In 2008,Michael Savage, a right-wing radio host, said, "[T]he white person is being erased from America's future. ... There is a racial element to the immigration invasion." Then Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly claimed, "So now, it's becoming a race war."The _{Center for American Progress}_ went on to note that O'Reilly claimed that immigration reformers "hate America ... because it's run primarily by white, Christian men" and were seeking "to change the complexion...of America."

That is no different from Jean Raspail's theme in "The Camp of the Saints" or the narrative at The Social Contract, a white nationalist journal which published Raspail's novel. Or Glenn Beck on Fox News in February 2009, airing his _{racial civil war scenario}_ within one month of the first Black president taking office. Or a variety of Christian Right leaders during the Obama years calling for or suggesting a racial civil war is coming, including _{Tony Perkins}_, _{Larry Klayman}_ and _{Rick Joyner}_.

In 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the "_{symbiotic dance}_" between white supremacist groups and John Tanton's hardline anti-immigration movement, as well as the _{sharing of conspiracy narratives}_ between white supremacists and the "patriot" militia movement.

The conservative movement, both the political and religious wings, transmit sanitized versions of white supremacist ideology. The latter is premised on preparing for, if not instigating, a racial civil war in America.

John Jackson, a scholar who covers "scientific" racism, in a recent article titled, "_{Going Full Nazi}_,"asked the question: "[W]hat is the point of drawing a line between the 'mainstream' and the 'alt' right? Perhaps there is no useful distinction to be made." The angry white guys with guns are dangerous because they have weapons of war. But the dividing line between them and the "Fourth Generation Warfare" chaos agents creating a crisis of legitimacy is increasingly blurred.

You write that this rhetoric is rooted in a narrative adapted from the1973 French novel you just mentioned, "The Camp of the Saints." Can you explain its basic narrative?

The novel has seven key ideas that its critics and proponents have noted. One, mass migration is an invasion. Two, immigrants and refugees are invaders. Three, the invaders will eventually destroy Western culture and replace Western populations. Four, the West's political elites do not have the moral strength to defend the West. Five, the invaders must be physically removed and/or violently repelled. Six, there is a difference between the "real country" and "real citizens" and the "legal country" and "legal citizens." Seven, multiracial, multiethnic or multi-confessional societies are not only unstable but undesirable, and lead to the "balkanization" of societies — a view also imported from Serbian genocidal propaganda into the American and global right.

The main variations within this "Camp of the Saints" worldview are whether the political elites lack moral strength to resist the invasions ("Great Replacement"), enact immoral policies which weaken Western societies to invasion ("demographic winter") or actively collaborate with the governments of the invading migrants to facilitate the invasion (as in John Tanton's network). The other variation distinguishes the neo-Nazis from all the other segments: whether or not the Jews are responsible for the destruction of their societies ("white genocide").

You note that for both France and the United States, the historical roots of this narrative go back to the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. In the U.S. this has produced the "white genocide theory" and in France the "great replacement" theory. What distinguishes them and what draws them together?

The "white genocide" theory is premised on the fear of a Black slave revolt against the white slave-owning society. The "great replacement" theory is based on the fear of massive nonwhite immigration coupled with lower white birth rates leading to a "replacement" of the white population with a nonwhite population, and the transformation of the culture.

White supremacists use the more palatable, more sanitized "great replacement" theory interchangeably and conflate them. But they have different causal mechanisms.

On the other hand, the neo-Nazis and other proponents of the "white genocide" narrative consider any action by Black people to improve themselves, to gain access to privileged white spheres of social action or to more equitably redistribute power and status as an existential threat. "Great replacement" proponents do not share this outlook. Nor do "great replacement" proponents, in general, blame Jews for what they consider to be massive immigration.

You write, "It would be a mistake to see these various 'White Replacement' narratives as isolated from mainstream conservative thought in Europe or America." How has their influence spread through terrorist acts?

In the right-wing information sphere, ideas swirl around, mix, recombine and mutate over time to fit changing circumstances. Raspail's "Camp of the Saints" is foundational to this narrative or worldview. Raspail directly influenced the emergence and popularity of the "great replacement" theory, which is the catchall theory cited by white terrorists.

But Bat Ye'or's conception of the problem — that European elites conspire with Arab elites to produce both subservience to Islam and the "great replacement" — directly influenced the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, who was motivated to provoke a decades-long civil war to stop the formation of what Ye'or called "Eurabia." Breivik, as well as the "great replacement" narrative, have inspired numerous white terrorist acts around the globe.

Returning to the American context, How did Steve Bannon and Breitbart spread their influence?

Bannon's principal contribution was to use Breitbart News to mix white supremacist ideology into the Republican Party and the Christian Right, and to heavily promote Raspail's "Camp of the Saints." In 2015 and 2016, Breitbart was the largest driver of ideological influence on the right.

How has this spread through the Trump administration?

The "Camp of the Saints" worldview largely shapes Stephen Miller's approach to immigration issues. Raspail's bottom line was that "the barbarians had to be repelled" either by violence or cruelty or both. Trump's _{immigration policy has been cruel}_, and as Adam Serwer noted, "_{cruelty is the point}_."

You also call attention to the Christian right's specific variant called "demographic winter," and argue that this has played a central role in evangelical support for Trump and his wall. What should people know about that?

The term "demographic winter" appears to have come from Don Feder, communications director of the World Congress of Families [a far-right, anti-LGBT Christian group]. He is the most prominent WCF official _{linked to the Tanton}_ _{anti-immigration network}_ and was apparently influenced by Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" ideas, which circulate widely in conservative and right-wing Jewish circles.

In November 2005, Feder's view of Muslims in France reflected the worldview of Raspail and other "Eurabia" writers. Feder blamed the French riots of that year on "_{demographic winter}_," "lax immigration policies" and "brain-dead multiculturalism." Where "demographic winter" differs from Raspail, the "great replacement" and the Eurabia narratives is that liberal elite support for women's reproductive freedom and gay marriage are the principal culprits, in addition to massive Muslim immigration.

What resonates with conservative Christians and Christian nationalists is the idea that Christian (Western) civilization is under threat from nonwhite immigration, Christians are being persecuted in the West and around the world, and _{only a strong, authoritarian leader building a wall can save them}_.

Survey data supports my contention that white evangelical Protestants have a "Camp of the Saints" worldview: Seventy-eight percent favor strict limits on "legal immigration," 76% favor "building a [border] wall," 69% support a "temporary" Muslim ban and, 54% favor "preventing refugees from coming into the United States," according to October 2019 PRRI data.

The last section of your article deals with the emergence of the "Boogaloo boys"during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. How can we better understand them in terms of the longer history you've laid out? What lessons need to be learned?

The first lesson to be learned is that Donald Trump and _{local elected}_ _{Republican}_ _{officials}_, especially the so-called "constitutional sheriffs," have a much closer relationship to the armed wing of the Christian right. _{Bruce Wilson}_ and _{David Neiwert}_ have been _{tracking that}_.

The second lesson is that Trump is openly orchestrating armed demonstrations of force against Democratic Party governors and mayors.

The third lesson is that it is very easy to take off your camouflage fatigues and put on a Hawaiian shirt and pretend you just got concerned — but not before you spent around $2,000 on a rifle, tactical gear and ammunition. Journalists should stop being so credulous.

The last lesson is that claims that the "patriot" militia support Black Lives Matter protests are preposterous. The BLM protests are not simply about wrongful deaths at the hands of law enforcement — something a majority of whites can see and empathize with.

BLM is calling for reckoning, a "Third Reconstruction" of America — politically, economically and culturally — in the context of a deliberate confrontation with that racist, violent history. Even at the intellectual level of the "Never Trumpers," those potentially most sympathetic to BLM, there is a blindness or an inability to confront that larger American history and the smaller Republican Party history regarding racism. To think that "angry white men with guns" have thought it through is absurd.

What's the most important question I haven't asked? And what's the answer?

I do not know the answer to the question: "Why do scholars and journalists not consider the religious basis of America's long-term crisis of legitimacy in terms of politics and science?" But I would suggest that scholars and journalists have glommed on to the least important of Richard Hofstadter's explanations, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," and ignored his more trenchant analysis in "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," which focuses on the epistemological disruption caused by fundamentalist Protestantism. They also ignore Marty Lipset's and Earl Raab's use of the concept of monism in describing the right wing in "The Politics of Unreason." Those old guys were on to something.

march 2019

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/03/27/world-congress-families-lists-speakers-upcoming-gathering

no lnx

below is a list of speakers for the upcoming meeting of the anti-LGBT hate group World Congress of Families in Verona, Italy. To read the full story about the gathering, click here.

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· John Eastman, law professor at Chapman University. Eastman also serves as chairman of the board of the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage. Over the years, he has referred to homosexuality as “barbarism”; voiced support for Uganda’s harsh anti-LGBT bill that would impose life sentences in some instances; and claimed that “a good portion of this [LGBT] movement seeks to remove age of consent so they can have sex with teenage boys.”

· Mike Donnelly, director of global outreach for the Home School Legal Defense Association.HSLDA’s founder and former chair was Michael Farris, currently president of anti-LGBT hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. HSLDA has opposed the federal non-discrimination act, which would protect sexual orientation and gender identity. HSLDA lobbied in 2006 against same-sex marriage and in 2015, following the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US, released a statement claiming dire consequences for the “rights of parents, families, and others.”

Robert Siedlecki, former senior counsel with the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives with the U.S. Department of Justice.Siedlecki worked closely with the Sam Brownback administration in Kansas as social and rehabilitation secretary, but stepped down after less than a year in office following a tenure “marked by controversy over administrative decisions and the governor’s policies,” according to Kansas.com, which included criticism over Siedlecki’s reorganization of management, plans to close some offices and pursuit of religious social services initiatives.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/italy-is-this-weeks-hot-spot-for-right-wing-activists-converging-for-world-congress-of-families/

The World Congress of Families, the international network of anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice activists who have allied themselves with right-wing nationalist and authoritarian leaders in Europe and Russia, will convene their 2019 global summit in Verona, Italy on March 29-31. U.S. Religious Right leaders scheduled to speak include anti-LGBTQ activist Jim Garlow, right-wing law professor John Eastman, and home schooling advocate Mike Donnelly.

The marriage of “traditional values” activism with the right-wing nationalist populism embraced by the Religious Right in both the U.S. and Europe is reflected in the appearance of another speaker. Steve Turley is an author and podcaster who argues that Trump’s “redemptive” presidency is one sign that “the political influence of the Religious Right is just beginning.” In his book, “The Return of Christendom: Demography, Politics, and the Coming Christian Majority,” he wrote, “I want to argue that we are actually seeing nothing less than a conservative Christian resurgence in our demographics and politics that promises not suicide but rather the salvation of the West.”

Now, that’s the kind of talk that gets you invited to WCF, though it is far more optimistic than the dire “demographic winter” predictions, prevalent on the right, that warn white Christians in Europe and elsewhere are being “replaced.”

Earlier this month, Turley published a podcast titled, “WHITES Projected to Become Dominant SUPERMAJORITY in U.S.” While “the current multicultural insanity that’s unleashed a virulent and pernicious Cultural Marxism upon our nation” is causing damage, Turley said, that such multiculturalism is “slowly and surely dissipating” and it will be replaced by “the restoration of a distinctively American culture, custom and tradition that will continue to define our nation for generations to come.”

The WCF hosts regional gatherings as well as its global summit, at which conservative culture warriors re-energize their opposition to feminism and liberalism, brag about their political victories, and share information and strategies for defeating “gender ideology” and defending “traditional” views on sexuality, family, and gender roles.

The World Congress of Families is currently run as a project of the International Organization for the Family, the successor organization to the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, which started the WCF in the 1990s as an outgrowth of conversations between Russian and American social conservatives. Howard Center founder Allan Carlson will also be speaking in Verona.

The IOF and WCF are run by Brian Brown, who made a name for himself as the head of the National Organization for Marriage and its failed effort to prevent marriage equality from becoming the law of the land in the United States. Brown spends enough time in Russia, where he once helped lobby for legislation to ban gay couples from adopting, to have a favorite restaurant in the Moscow airport. After launching the IOF in South Africa in late 2016, Brown made one of his frequent trips to Russia to seek funding from Putin-aligned oligarchs and operatives.

Among the speakers are WCF representatives from Russia—Alexey Komov, Brown’s connection to the political support and deep pockets of “God’s oligarch” Konstantin Malofeev—and from Africa—Theresa Okafor, who has defended harsh anti-LGBTQ legislation in several countries. Joining them are a bevy of right-wing Italian politicians, academics, and activists. Other speakers include public officials from Hungary, Croatia, Malawi, Uganda, and, in a nod to right-wing nostalgia for the reign of Christian monarchs, a sprinkling of royalty, including “Her Serene Highness, Gloria, Dowager Princess of Thurn and Taxis” and Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou.

The three most recent global summits—in Georgia, Hungary, and Moldova—were a boost to Russia’s geopolitical strategy, as they lent support in each nation to the forces resisting closer ties to the European Union.

Last year’s global summit was held in Moldova, where Brown joined Moldova’s Putin-allied President Igor Dodon in hosting a conference at which speakers denounced LGBTQ people as “perverts” and declared progressive civil society organizations to be threats to the family. President Donald Trump was described by an evangelical pastor from Utah as an answer to prayer.

At the opening plenary, Dodon said that propagandizing on behalf of sexual minorities should not be allowed, and that gay pride celebrations should be illegal. Brown gushed about how “blessed” Moldova is to have a president who is “willing to stand for the truth.” Dodon is scheduled to speak again in Verona. Other returning speakers include Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov from the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarchal Commission for Family and Motherhood.

Among the other speakers in Moldova were the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg, who gave a PowerPoint presentation on “Five Myths of Gender Identity,” and Patrick Henry College professor Stephen Baskerville, who told attendees that sexuality has become a political ideology that is not about freedom and equality but power and authoritarianism. “What we are up against here is something very similar to the movements such as communism or fascism in the last century, and more recently Islamism,” Baskerville said. At the same panel, speakers from Russia and France denounced feminism, sex education, and tolerance of “perversions.”

In Moldova, Komov talked about his efforts to create a “friends of Mount Athos” group that would allow like-minded Catholic and Protestant leaders to visit the historic Orthodox stronghold. Brown said he had visited Mount Athos three times, once with Dodon.

Choosing to take the summit to Italy this year reflects the rise of right-wing nationalist sentiment in Italy and across Europe. And it builds on work done last year by WCF sponsoring organization CitizenGO, with the help of the Family Research Council and the Leadership Institute, to train and strengthen anti-LGBTQ groups in the country.

The choice of Italy also suggests a move, after having cemented strong ties with conservative Orthodox leaders, to build on WCF’s already-strong connections to the conservative Catholics who fuel the anti-abortion and anti-equality movements in western Europe. It was a bit of a coup for WCF to get Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to address last year’s summit in Moldova. And this week, Pope Francis responded to controversy generated by WCF opponents by talking about the need to reaffirm the “greatness and irreplaceability” of a “family founded on marriage between a man and  woman:

In the delicate situation of today’s world, the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman assumes an essential importance and mission. It is necessary to rediscover the plan drawn by God for the family, to reaffirm its greatness and irreplaceability in the service of life and society.

Giuseppe Zenti, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Verona, is scheduled to speak. In response to critics who characterized the WCF as wanting to bring about a return to the Middle Ages, the bishop defended the values of that era. “The Enlightenment and ideological historiography that classifies the Middle Ages as obscurantist is part of the past,” he said in an interview with Vatican Insider. “It seems strange to me that some people want to exhume it without knowing the heritage of the cultural values during the Middle Ages.”

The Mormon hierarchy has also been supportive of WCF, which held its 2015 summit in Salt Lake City. In Verona, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon church is formally known, will be represented by Elder Massimo De Feo of the General Authority Seventies, a leadership body in the church.

Support for the summit from Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, Minister for Family and Disability Lorenzo Fontana, Minister for Education Marco Bussetti and other political leaders, has generated significant criticism and organizing in opposition by progressive advocates. To the disgustof Breitbart, a story in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica described the conference as a gathering of neofascists, anti-abortionists, and homophobes.

Not even Salvini’s leadership of the right-wing League party, whose government coalition includes the Five Star Movement party, could keep a leader of Five Star from saying that the conference was for “right-wing losers.” And there has even been dissent from within Salvini’s own party. Verona city council member Mauro Bonato resigned his position as local League leader, saying the party was meant to promote local autonomy, not “go back to ancient times where women are only the slaves of men.” He said he found the words of a WCF speaker chilling and said he could not accept giving a stage to people who equate homosexuality with Satanism.

Last week, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte publicly distanced himself from the conference, whose organizers reportedly had used the logo of his office without his approval.

The World Congress of Families was founded in 1997, but the U.S. Religious Right’s understanding of the culture war as a global conflict intensified during the administration of Barack Obama, when the promotion of LGBTQ human rights and protection of reproductive choice were elements of U.S. foreign policy. Religious Right groups rushed to embrace Putin’s positioning of himself and Russia as the saviors of Western civilization and the protectors of Christendom against the decadent and secularist forces they see as threats to that legacy, i.e. the European Union and, at that time, the U.S. If Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, the Obama-era anti-Americanism, if you will, of the U.S. Religious Right would undoubtedly have grown even more strident. But with Trump in the White House, they have the U.S. government on their side, and one more leader who, like Putin and various Putin-wannabes, will help them wage war against “gender ideology”—the globalized right-wing umbrella term that can cover reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, sex ed, and anything that might upset traditionalist gender roles and norms, even laws against domestic violence.

The Religious Right’s eagerness to work with authoritarians in the name of traditional family values extends well beyond WCF—and well beyond Putin. For example, Brown has embraced Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who talks about Christian values while fostering anti-Semitism, undermining media and civil society, and getting rid of checks and balances on his power. When asked by journalist Sarah Posner about Orbán’s moves against media and his political opposition, FRC’s Peter Sprigg dismissed those as “procedural things” that were less important than Orbán’s commitment to “defending Western civilization rooted in Christianity.”

Tags: Alexey KomovBrian BrownIgor DodonJim GarlowJohn EastmanMike DonnellySteve TurleyTheresa OkaforViktor OrbanVladimir PutinAnti-AbortionAnti-ChoiceAnti-GayAnti-LGBTInternationalTrump AdministrationFamily Research CouncilInternational Organization for the FamilyWorld Congress of Families

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/trump-linked-christian-fundamentalists-are-pouring-dark-money-into-europe-and-boosting-the-far-right/

**Claire Provost**and **Mary Fitzgerald**

According to a :{new analysis released by openDemocracy:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, Christian-right fundamentalists linked to the Trump administration and Steve Bannon are among a dozen American groups that have poured at least $50 million of dark money into Europe over the last decade.

[graf]

Between them, these groups have backed armies of ultra-conservative lawyers and political activists, as well as so-called family values campaigns against LGBTQ rights, sex education and abortion—and a number appear to have increasing links with Europe’s far right.

They are spending money on a scale “not previously imagined,” according to lawmakers and human rights advocates, who have called openDemocracy’s findings “shocking.”

Among the biggest spenders is a group whose chief counsel is also Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow. Another organization has collaborated with a controversial Rome-based institute backed by Steve Bannon.

None of these American groups discloses who its donors are—though at least two have links to famous conservative billionaires, such as the Koch brothers (who helped bankroll the Tea Party movement) and the family of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

‘Nobody should be in any doubt as to the insidious nature of these fundamentalist groups’

The increasing ties between some of these Christian conservative groups and the European far right will be on display this weekend at a summit of the World Congress of Families (WCF): a network of American, Russian and other ultra-conservative activists.

Right-wing politicians and their supporters from across Europe are expected to attend the event in Verona, Italy—including the Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who has described the WCF as a showcase for “:{the Europe that we like:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.”

A cross-party group of more than 40 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has called on the EU’s transparency tsar Frans Timmermans to look into the influence of “U.S. Christian fundamentalists… with the greatest urgency” ahead of May’s European Parliament elections.

In a letter reacting to openDemocracy’s findings, and copied to the presidents of the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament, the MEPs have demanded action to protect European democracy “against nefarious outside influences.”

Scottish National Party MEP Alyn Smith, who sits on the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and signed the letter, said on Wednesday: “This investigation by openDemocracy is extremely timely and shines a light on a major challenge facing democracy in Europe.”

OpenDemocracy’s findings “are highly alarming, and nobody should be in any doubt as to the insidious nature of these fundamentalist groups,” he continued. “No group of any kind should be able to use dark money to distort debate and to subvert democracy in Europe, least of all groups such as these whose causes are deeply regressive.”

‘The Europe we like’

OpenDemocracy has examined :{a decade of U.S. Christian organizations’ financial accounts:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: and found that several of them appear to have significantly increased their spending in Europe over the past five years.

These findings come as far-right parties aim for big wins in the upcoming European Parliament elections in May, and show how large amounts of foreign money have supported the spread of their “traditional values” messages.

OpenDemocracy has reviewed hundreds of pages of financial filings for a dozen religious conservative groups that are registered as tax-exempt non-profit organizations, and thus are required to disclose some information about their foreign spending.

Some of these groups have been previously accused of supporting campaigns to criminalize homosexuality in Africa, :{“draconian” anti-abortion laws in Latin America:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: and controversial projects to encourage gay people in the United States to :{“leave homosexuality.”:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:

But the extent of their European activity has—until now—received little scrutiny. The new investigation reveals that some of these groups have:

Five of the conservative groups have previously been listed as :{partners of the World Congress of Families (WCF):(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: network, which is meeting in Verona this week.

It’s not just European politicians who are concerned about them: These groups are controversial in America too. The WCF itself has been described as an “:{anti-LGBT hate group:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors extremist movements and tracks this network’s :{increasing connections with the far right:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

The SPLC :{explains:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: that “viewing homosexuality as unbiblical or simply opposing same-sex marriage” is not enough to be categorized as a “hate group.” Groups on this list go further—claiming that homosexuality is dangerous, linked to pedophilia, and should be criminalized, disseminating “disparaging ‘facts’ about LGBT people that are simply untrue.”

This is, says SPLC, “no different to how white supremacists and nativist extremists propagate lies about black people and immigrants to make these communities seem like a danger to society.”

Joseph Grabowski, a WCF spokesperson, told openDemocracy: “We dispute entirely the premise [of the ‘hate group’ designation]… It’s an unfortunate slight for the countless Americans and the people around the world who hold the same views as we do on marriage, the nature of family and the right to life, that are part of the fabric of Christianity and also other traditional points of view,” he said.

The WCF is a project of the :{International Organization for the Family:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: and the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, whose :{directors:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: include :{an:{ultra-conservative Spanish activist linked to the leader of the far-right Vox party:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

Other directors include :{a close associate:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: of a Russian oligarch who sponsored a 2014 :{“secret meeting”:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: in Vienna with key French and Austrian far-right leaders—and an :{Italian politician:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: facing corruption charges in his country.

Over the last decade, the WCF has hosted at least seven major meetings in Europe, attended by hundreds of religious right activists and a growing list of far-right politicians. Its 2017 meeting in Budapest was :{opened:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.

Among the :{conveners:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: of this week’s event in Verona is an Italian anti-abortion group :{linked:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: to the neo-fascist Forza Nuova party, whose leader is also expected to attend the WCF.

Trump, the far-right and the Christian ‘legal army’

Two of the Trump-linked groups examined by openDemocracy are Christian-right legal powerhouses:Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the American Center for Law and Justice. Together, they have spent more than $20 million in Europe since 2008.

They don’t disclose their funders, but journalists have previously traced at least $1 million in grants to ADF from a foundation controlled by the billionaire family of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, and Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater mercenary firm.

ADF was co-founded by Alan Sears, a Christian-right leader who co-authored a book against “the homosexual agenda.” It is increasingly active internationally, including in Latin America. It supported a 2016 law in Belize making gay sex punishable :{with 10 years in jail:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

This group tripled its annual spending in Europe between 2012 and 2016, to more than $2.6 million a year. It now has :{offices:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: in Belgium, France, Austria, Switzerland and the UK, and spends :{hundreds of thousands of euros:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: lobbying EU officials, according to separate transparency data.

Among its European projects, the group supported the defense of a notorious German activist who :{compared abortion to the Holocaust:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: and accused specific doctors of murder.

This year, ADF International also co-hosted :{an event:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: with the French group La Manif Pour Tous, which has been previously been linked to the far-right party :{Front National:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

Ahead of the last European Parliament elections in 2014, La Manif Pour Tous launched a “:{Europe for Family:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:” campaign that got 230 French candidates to sign a pledge opposing marriage equality, trans rights and sex education.

Speaking to openDemocracy, a spokesperson for ADF International said they are “exclusively privately funded by people from all over the world, who care about human rights” and that their activities include “advocating for freedom of speech in Europe.”

Asked for more detail about whom the group gives its money to, they said: “Since our advocacy involves court cases in countries where people are harassed, stigmatized, and even killed because of their religious convictions, it is our general policy not to disclose any recipients of funding in order to protect their personal safety and livelihoods.”

The second of the two Trump-linked groups, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ),also operates through the courts. It was founded in 1990 by American televangelist Pat Robertson to :{oppose the American Civil Liberties Union:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

The group’s current chief counsel is Jay Sekulow, a conservative talk-show host who has been described as “:{the top lawyer:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:” on Donald Trump’s legal team in the Mueller inquiry.

This group has had an office in Strasbourg, France—home of the European Court of Human Rights—for more than 20 years, from where it has :{intervened in numerous cases:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:on issues including same-sex marriage, abortion rights and artificial insemination.

The director of its Strasbourg outfit :{has also represented the Holy See at the Council of Europe:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, while its Moscow center :{has praised:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: Putin’s laws banning “gay propaganda.”

Trump, Franklin Graham and U.S.-sanctioned Kremlin officials

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is another major spender. It is led by the famous evangelical preacher’s son, Franklin Graham, who said Satan is the :{architect of same-sex marriage:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: and described Islam as an “:{evil and very wicked religion:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.”

Franklin Graham, who has supported Trump as someone who “:{defends the faith:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:,” was in Russia earlier this month :{meeting with Kremlin officials under U.S. sanctions:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, on a trip that he said was personally signed off on by Vice President Michael Pence.

In 2018, his group organized :{festivals:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: in England and Scotland amid protests from Muslim and LGBT rights groups. It also supports “rapid response chaplains” that target crises and :{have been accused:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: of “chasing ambulances” and “exploiting tragedy.”

Its filings disclose more than $23 million spent in Europe through two different U.S. entities between 2008 and 2014—making it the largest spender in this region, of the American groups analyzed by openDemocracy.

However, 2014 is the latest year for which openDemocracy was able to find public documents for this group, which has offices in the :{UK, Germany, France and Spain:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, so the true extent of its influence in the region is not yet known.

Training Europeans, on the ‘front lines of the Culture War’

A number of groups spending smaller amounts of money appear to have increased their activities in Europe in recent years.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which combines a conservative Christian worldview with free-market economics, has received :{hundreds of thousands of dollars:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: from the Koch family foundations.

This group spent more than $1.7 million in Europe since 2008, with its spending in the region rising in recent years (from around $166,000 in 2008 to almost $240,000 in 2017).

In Italy, it has collaborated with the :{Dignitatis Humanae Institute:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:—of which Steve Bannon is a trustee—that has locally controversial plans to use a monastery outside Rome as a :{“gladiator school for culture warriors.”:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:

Also on the list is the U.S. branch of the Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), an ultra-conservative transnational Catholic movement that :{says it’s:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: “on the front lines of the Culture War, peacefully defending the values of tradition, family and private ownership.”

This group said it spent about $100,000 in Europe since 2010. Its filings don’t detail where this money went, but the TFP has been linked to :{a controversial think tank:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: in Poland that has helped develop policies for far-right Law and Justice (PiS) politicians.

A ‘wake-up call’ to prevent ‘foreign interference’

Under U.S. law, the groups analyzed by openDemocracy are required to publicly disclose some information about their foreign spending, but not the names of their overseas recipients, details of what activities they fund—or the identities of their own funders.

The $50 million figure drawn from :{openDemocracy’s analysis:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: is also a likely underestimation of the resources that U.S. conservatives have channeled into Europe in recent years.

Data for 2018 is not yet available; meanwhile, there are some important loopholes. Religious organizations registered as churches, for example, don’t need to file the same disclosures.

A number of other U.S. Christian conservative groups appear to be spending money in Europe, but do not disclose this on their U.S. filings—including the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, which has coordinated the WCF network.

Reacting to openDemocracy’s findings, German Green MEP Terry Reintke, who sits on equality-related committees at the European Parliament, said: “This extreme extent of financial support flooding the EU is shocking—especially with the European elections ahead of us.”

The SNP MEP Alyn Smith has said he and his fellow parliamentarians who signed Wednesday’s letter have called for the mobilization of “EU institutions and member states in preventing malign actors such as those identified in the investigation from interfering in the European Parliament elections in May—and beyond.”

Caroline Hickson, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Network, said: “The scale of this meddling by U.S. extremists is shocking, but sadly no surprise to us. Every day European societies face concerted attacks by outside forces seeking to impose reproductive coercion… This is utterly at odds with the European values of democracy and human rights.”

“This is dark money coming into Europe to threaten human rights, and we’re not doing anything about it,” warned Neil Datta, secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development, describing the amounts of money involved as “staggering.”

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https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/anti-lgbt-hate-group-world-congress-families-gather-moldova-week-reveals-details-last

...Dodon claimed at the press conference that about 2,000 people would be in attendance, including 400 experts, politicians and opinion-makers from more than 50 nations.

Since the January announcement, IOF and WCF have been tight-lipped about the gathering. They have bucked the usual practice of announcing speakers weeks or months in advance via press release and website. The website for the Moldovan gathering (launched in March) for weeks claimed that a speakers’ list was “coming soon,” but the Monday before the conference, one had not been made public. Finally, with just a day before opening ceremonies at the gathering, a list of speakers and schedule was posted on the website.

IOF had teased in August on its website that “some of the top religious leaders in the world” would be attending, including the Vatican secretary of state, Archbishop Pietro Parolin; Patriarch Kirill, who is Patriarch of Moscow; and Elder Christoffel Golden, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Dodon will also be speaking, “along with a stellar list of experts, academics and inspirational leaders.” With the release of the official schedule, however, it appears that Patriarch Kirill will not be attending, though a representative for him will be. 

In an IOF email newsletter dated September 10, Brown noted he and Dodon will be addressing WCF, and also said IOF staff will lead panel discussions at the conference, including WCF founder Allan Carlson and Nicole King, editor of The Natural Familyjournal, which IOF publishes. The newsletter said:

All told, attendees at WCF XII will have thirteen discussion panels from which to learn from experts, covering such diverse and important topics as emplowering [sic] families in the education of their children, how George Soros operates, challenges to the sanctity of life and strategies to confront them, gender ideology, the United Nations, motherhood, faith and politics.

Brown’s address to WCF, according to the newsletter, will deal with

…the importance of uniting countries in the east with those in the west to present a global defense of the natural family. Brown will point out that ideas to deconstruct the family and redefine institutions such as marriage, parenthood and gender often start with elites in the west, and are then pushed by wealthy leftist ideologues like George Soros who use their power and influence to spread them worldwide.

Hungarian-born philanthropist George Soros has become a target of the right over the years, which has created conspiracy theories around him suggesting he funds some sort of global order that seeks to undermine Europe’s Christian values and impose multiculturalism on the continent.Soros is a frequent target of Hungarian authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose party has passed “Stop Soros” laws to crack down on civil society groups who help immigrants.

Some other details about WCF are emerging via Eastern European media. Accent-TV Moldova reported August 22 that Dodon held a meeting of the WCF working group at which organizational issues were discussed,

as more than a hundred representatives from over 40 countries will arrive at the Congress including high-ranking officials, ministers of the Orthodox and Catholic Church and other confessions, public figures [sic].

Co-convening sponsors of this year’s gathering include IOF, WCF, CitizenGO and Din Suflet (“From the Heart”), a charity organization launched in February 2017 by Moldovan first lady Galina Dodon. The Jamestown Foundation notes funding for Din Suflet is notoriously non-transparent, though Igor Dodon has said the Chinese and Turkish embassies are sponsors. CitizenGO is headquartered in Madrid, Spain, and bills itself as a “community of active citizens” using online petitions and action alerts as a resource. Brian Brown sits on the board of trustees of CitizenGO, as does WCF Russian representative Alexey Komov.

Russian Ties

WCF Moldova is being held under the auspices of Dodon, who is actively courting relationships with Russia. In December 2017, he told an Orthodox Christian site:

I believe that without the Orthodox faith, without our traditions, Moldova has no future. Moldova needs a partnership with Russia; Moldova absolutely needs to preserve and strengthen our Orthodox Church. Indeed, we are now going through a very difficult period, but I am sure that with faith we will get through it all.

The Jamestown Foundation noted September 4 that the Kremlin “is finding fertile ground in Moldova for advancing its agenda.” In recent years, the Foundation says, “Moldova has increasingly begun to resemble Russia when it comes to democratic backsliding.”

WCF also has deep ties to Russia. It was founded in 1997 as a result of a meeting between founder Allan Carlson and Russian academics. The organization maintains a WCF Russia representative, Alexey Komov, who, with backing from the WCF, has helped the latter forge bonds between the powerful Christian evangelical lobby in the U.S. and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russian oligarch and Orthodox backer Konstantin Malofeev funded a 2014 gathering in Moscow that included WCF representatives. Originally, the gathering was to be an official WCF conference, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that year caused WCF to quietly “cancel” the conference publicly. However, a similar gathering with a similar name and schedule on the same dates and in the same location occurred in its stead. Balkan Insight reported in January that Dodon had allegedly approached Malofeev to fund this year’s WCF, but it’s not clear that such a request was actually made, or whether Malofeev is involved with WCF-Moldova.

Radio Free Europe reported September 2 that at a May press conference held in Moldova with Brian Brown, Dodon reported that Malofeev would be funding WCF. When asked later by RFE about that, Dodon claimed his wife’s charity, Din Suflet, would be the only funder.

Alexey Komov is a business partner of Malofeev, and maintains ties to far-right European political actors like the Lega Nord or Northern League (now Lega or League), the Italian anti-immigrant party, which is also a pro-Russia voice in Italy. Malofeev sponsored a secret meeting in 2014 in Vienna through his St. Basil the Great Foundation, which he attended alongside Russian Alexander Dugin, French far-right politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Aymeric Chauprade, then of the French far-right party the National Front, and Heinz-Christian Strache, of Austria’s far-right party the FPÖ (Strache is now Austria’s vice chancellor).

This Orthodox-Evangelical alliance, of which WCF is an integral part, seeks to undermine the progressive values it claims are rampant in the European Union (EU) and United Nations in Eastern Europe. They preach a dogma of the so-called “natural family,” which posits the only valid family is a heterosexual cisgender married couple and their biological children. The alliance uses anti-LGBT and anti-choice beliefs and rhetoric to influence Eastern European countries to turn away from the EU and embrace policies that are harmful to LGBT people and reproductive rights.

Dodon fully supports the anti-LGBT and anti-choice agenda of WCF, telling the U.S. ambassador to Moldova last year that he opposed an LGBT march that was scheduled to take place in May. He said it would contradict traditional values, the Orthodox religion and morality. “They [LGBT people] cannot and will not be accepted by me personally, neither by the entire society.”

The 2017 march was halted by police soon after it started to prevent clashes with Orthodox groups. According to PinkNews, Dodon told reporters, “I have never promised to be president of the gays, they should have elected their own president.”

Dodon is exactly the kind of authoritarian leaderBrian Brown and WCF have been courting in recent years. Brown has spoken approvingly, for example, of anti-democratic Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, and posted a congratulatory letter on the IOF website in April after Orbán was re-elected president, signed by Brown and WCF founder Allan Carlson:

At another level, your victory is also a beam of hope for Western Christian Civilization. Many nations in Europe have grown weary and seek little more than a childless decline and ultimate disappearance. In contrast, you have mobilized the Hungarian people toward rebuilding a family-centered, religiously grounded nation, as a contribution to the renewal of all Europe and the recovery of an authentic Christendom.

Brown continued: “We remain proud to be partnered with your government and you in convening The World Congress of Families XI in Budapest last May. And we look forward to continued close cooperation.”

With WCF-Moldova, Brown and WCF continue seeking close cooperation with other anti-democratic authoritarian leaders as well.

Speakers at this year’s event include the following:

Panelists include the following: