Why Global Far-Right Groups Applaud Russia's Anti-LGTBQ+ Measures

Beyond Borders

Many of Putin's ideas about tradition resonate with far-right American Christians, including the Appalachian Orthodox converts' communities I worked with, who think they are being persecuted for their views about gender and sexuality.

While the language of family values resonated with right-wing voters during and since the Trump presidency, values rhetoric has a much longer history among the American Christian right. During the 20th century, anthropologist Sophie Bjork-James has noted, these arguments took off among white Protestants over fears about race, economic instability and feminism.

After World War II, as Americans grappled with the looming threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, family values became a key part of patriotic rhetoric that contrasted the "red threat" of the Soviet Union with a supposedly God-fearing, blessed America. Family values politics inspired the creation of conservative groups like the Moral Majority and the Family Research Council as reproductive rights and fledgling gay rights intensified their concerns.

Though focused on promoting American Christian values, the movement looked abroad for connections and support. Relationships forged between the Roman Catholic Church and the ROC, as well as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the ROC in the early 2010s, helped spur on the types of traditional values movements seen around the world today. Increasingly, these groups have focused on LGBTQ+ populations, portraying them as alien to traditional values.

Russian political figures and the ROC have participated in local and global organizations that promote traditional family values, including the World Congress of Families and some home-schooling networks formed in the U.S. Some far-right figures involved in such groups promote "traditionalism": an anti-modern philosophy that focuses on social, sexual and racial purity.

From Culture to Authoritarianism

Cold War-style language that U.S. politicians once used to criticize the Soviet Union has now been inverted: Many right-wing American Christians who believe their country has lost its traditional religious heritage and is headed toward Marxism see the West as the new "red scare." For some who criticize the West as "woke," contemporary Russia is a better social model and an arbiter of traditional morality.

Yet anti-LGBTQ+ policies, family values rhetoric and the notion that Russia is "traditional" are not simply part of the new global culture wars. Rather, they are part of what I call reactive world-building: radicalized groups working toward what they see as a Christian, pro-family future with authoritarian politics at the helm.

The language of the Christian right has consistently emphasized obedience to hierarchical authority. In my own work on far-right American converts to Orthodox Christianity, I have met people who support antidemocratic politics if they believe it can deliver the kind of culture they want to see – and even individuals who call themselves fascist. Some express interest in moving to Russia, with American Orthodox convert priest Rev. Joseph Gleason offering a public example.

Under Putin, family values are used as a way to advance post-Soviet Russian power and control globally. That might come as a shock for American allies – although given some far-right compatriots' interest in moving there, perhaps not.

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Assistant Professor of Religion and Anthropology, Northeastern University

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