Conventional wisdom says that if you share views with a murderous dictator who’s currently waging war on a neighboring country causing the deaths of thousands, you should rethink those views. CNSNews.com apparently is unaware that such conventional wisdom exists, because it’s supporting Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It appeased Putin at the start of his war on Ukraine, and it continues to support him because he hates LGBT people at least as much as CNS does. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman, CNS’ chief homophobe and longtime fan of Putin’s anti-LGBT policies, uncritically gushed over Putin’s latest crackdown a Dec. 12 article:
In an apparent attempt to strengthen the traditional Christian beliefs and practices of Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed into law on Dec. 5 legislation that will further ban pro-homosexual propaganda throughout the country.
In 2013, a law was passed to protect children from pro-LGBTQ materials. The new law expands those provisions to people age 18 and older.
The law prohibits the promotion of LGBTQ materials in advertising, the media, online, and in books, films and cinema, reported the Daily Mail.
It also prohibits the promotion of LGBTQ relationships or expressions that seek to depict homosexual couplings as normal. And it bans materials promoting pedophilia and gender transition.
Further, the law can be used to prevent “gay pride” marches or LGBTQ demonstrations. The legislation was approved by both legislative chambers before Putin signed it.
Chapman went on to approvingly quote Putin’s favorite orthodox bishop (whom it has occasionally criticized for supporting Putin), Putin’s favorite pro-war “philosopher,” and … Jesus:
In a sermon on homosexual marriage, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said the trend of legalizing “gay marriage” is “a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.” It “means people are choosing a path of self-destruction,” reported Fr. John Peck, the pastor of All Saints of North America Orthodox Church.
[…]Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin, speaking in August, said there is a spiritual war going on.
“[W]e are Holy Russia, as His Holiness the Patriarch says, and we are confronted by forces of absolute global historical evil,” said Dugin. “Hence, more and more often we are talking about Armageddon, the end times, and the Apocalypse. This is all taking place before our eyes. We are taking part in the final (maybe the penultimate — no one knows) and very important battle. Without a spiritual, ideological, intellectual dimension, we cannot win.”
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ says, “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world for the causes of sin.”
A anonymously written Jan. 23 article (though one must assume that Chapman had a hand in it) cheered Putin bashing “Western elites” in a speech given five months earlier while he touted his illegal annexations of parts of Ukraine:
Russian President Vladimir Putin ave a major address on Sept. 30, 2022 in which he attacked what he called “the dictatorship of the Western elites,” whom he accused of rejecting the traditional family and pushing transgenderism.
Putin gave the speech to mark Russia’s annexation of four regions of the Ukraine—Luhansk, Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhia.
“Now they have completely moved to a radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family,” Putin said in his attack on Western elites.
“Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquiring the features of a “reverse religion” [the opposite of what the religion is] – outright Satanism,” said Putin. “In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you shall know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including many people in the West itself.”
The anonymous author offered no criticism or response, even though there was more than enough time to locate one.
A Feb. 21 article by Chapman served up more uncritical praise of Putin for raging against Western culture in general and LGBT people in particular:
In his speech before the Federal Assembly in Moscow today, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the Western powers, particularly the United States, about their ongoing “destruction of the family,” and added that Russia will protect its children “from degradation and degeneration.”
“Look what they are doing to their own people,” President Putin told a large crowd assembled in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow. “It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life.” (Gostiny Dvor is a large exhibition center.)
“They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages,” said Putin. “Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.”
Chapman failed to mention that Putin’s anti-LGBT laws do, in fact, intrude into people’s private lives. Inatead, he included pictures of LGBT pride parades and President Biden officiating at the marriage of a same-sex couple and called out a Christian denomination that failed to hate LGBT people to his liking to advance Putin’s narrative:
The Anglican Church, the Church of England currently is considering using “gender-neutral terms to refer to God,” reported the New York Times. The Church of England also recently voted to bestow church blessings on homosexuals married in a civil court.
Putin further said, “Millions of people in the West realize that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.”
Chapman then cited a pro-Russia professor to help Putin bash the U.S. for helping Ukraine:
John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and a leading scholar of realpolitik, said “the United States has tied its own reputation to the outcome of the conflict” in Ukraine.
“President Joe Biden has labelled Russia’s war in Ukraine a ‘genocide’ and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a ‘war criminal’ who should face a ‘war crimes trial,'” said Mearsheimer in Foreign Affairs. “Presidential proclamations such as these make it hard to imagine Washington backing down; if Russia prevailed in Ukraine, the United States’ position in the world would suffer a serious blow.
Despite previous criticism of Kirill at CNS, Chapman has also praised him. An Oct. 13 article touted how Kirill said of Putin, “God put you in power so that you could perform a service of special importance and of great responsibility for the fate of the country and the people entrusted to your care.” Chapman uncritically wrote in a Nov. 2 article:
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “fighter of the Anti-Christ,” a view that is not surprising given that Putin has said he and Mother Russia are fighting against the “outright Satanism” of the West.
Patriarch Kirill made his remarks about Putin in a speech opening the 24th Congress of the World Russian People’s Council in late October, reported the Washington Examiner.
In addition to describing Putin as a “fighter of the Anti-Christ,” the patriarch said that Russia is battling against a “unipolar world,” globalism, and “the essence of this phenomenon is the creation in the world of conditions for the emergence of a sole ruler, who will be the Antichrist.”
And, yes, Chapman went on to approvingly quote Putin ranting about Western culture again:
The Russian president also denounced gender ideology and sex-change surgery as manifestations of Western moral decay.
“Do we really want, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of ‘mum’ and ‘dad’, to have ‘parent No. 1’, ‘parent No. 2’, ‘No. 3’? Have they gone completely insane?” said Putin.
He continued, “Do we really want … it drilled into children in our schools … that there are supposedly genders besides women and men, and [children to be] offered the chance to undergo sex -hange operations? … We have a different future, our own future.”
On Oct. 26, Newsweek reported that Alexsey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, calling for the “de-Satanization” of Ukraine, which, he claims, has been overrun by “hundreds of sects.”
Chapman offered no criticism of Kirill or Putin, which tells us he approves of their actions.