Friday, October 4, 2013

Exporting homophobia: Right Wing Watch exposes NOM Chief Brian Brown's secret Moscow trip to lobby for law banning adoptions by gays

Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, has exposed the National Organization for Marriage's undisclosed trip to lobby Russia's congress, DUMA, on behalf of a law banning adoptions by qualified LGBTs, even in the face of recently publicized horrific beatings in Russian orphanages.
     The law passed less than a week after Brown's visit. NOM did not disclose the trip, refused to respond to Right Wing Watch's inquiries or to provide a copy of the speech Brown gave to DUMA lawmakers.
     According to Russian news reports, the French activists and Brown attended two events in Moscow. One was a joint meeting on changes in international adoption laws with the Duma’s committee on foreign affairs and its committee on family, women and children – whose chair, Yelena Mizulina, authored the ban on gay “propaganda” and the adoption bill.
     The other event was a roundtable discussion on "Traditional Values: The Future of the European Peoples," hosted by the St. Basil the Great Foundation – a Catholic group run by Konstantin Malofeev, the head of a private equity group and spirited anti-gay activist – and also sponsored by the Duma’s family committee, the right-wing Center for Social-Conservative Policy, and a new multi-party group of Russian MPs formed, with approval of the Russian Orthodox Church, to “protect traditional Christian values” and fight “aggressive liberalism” inreaction to Pussy Riot’s protests. Among the measures pushed by the group was the new law imposing jail time for “insulting religious feelings.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

ShareThis