Trump's Lawyer Backed Putin's Anti-Gay Agenda
A charity led by Jay Sekulow openly supported Vladimir Putin’s push to ban ‘gay propaganda’ from Russia.
BETSY WOODRUFF
06.21.17 1:00 AM ET
Before Jay Sekulow became the face of President Donald Trump’s legal team, his group’s Russian branch boosted a cause very close to Vladimir Putin’s heart: a law banning “gay propaganda.”
Sekulow heads the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group focused on religious liberty and free speech. It has branches around the world: one in Europe, one in Zimbabwe, one in Kenya, and one in Moscow, called the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice (SCLJ). And while the SCLJ spars with Putin’s government over Christians’ rights to talk about their faith, it has publicly praised anti-blasphemy laws and laws banning “gay propaganda” targeted at minors.
Tax filings show the ACLJ provided more than $1.5 million in funding to its Russia affiliate from 2011 to 2015, the most recent years with available data.
The co-chair of the SCLJ, Anatoly Pchelintsev, told Voice of America in 2012 that “homosexual propaganda” exists in “both direct and hidden forms,” and that legislation to bar it would be good, as the Human Rights Campaign has detailed. And he praised the passage of a regional law banning the so-called propaganda.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-lawyer-backed-putins-anti-gay-agenda
