LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

Today's edition of the Guardian has a distressing article about the rise of homophobia in post-Soviet Eastern European states. It comes as no surprise that the homophobic movement has ties to certain Evangelist groups...

' Last year in Latvia, police said they could not step in to protect the gay rights rally because they had not been given authorisation from the mayor to do so. Counterprotesters, who were to all intents and purposes engaged in an illegal protest, gathered freely to chant, throw holy water and excrement. The police detained 14 people for acts of violence.

Igors Maslakovs was among the anti-gay protesters. Describing himself as a businessman, Maslakovs stopped work last year to devote his time to founding and running Latvia's "No Pride" organisation. The No Pride logo shows two male stick figures having sex with a red line through the middle. The group website, which was built using Maslakovs' money, announces its purpose: "To fight against the opinion that homosexual lifestyle is proper and even recommended, which is enforced on Latvian society by [the] EU."

Maslakovs' account of last year's Pride event differs only marginally from those of the supporters: "It wasn't human excrement, it was chicken shit." He claims it was aimed at the two Anglican pastors who led the morning service and that they got what they deserved.

Maslakovs' views on homosexuality, he says, are Christian beliefs. He has particular affinity with the New Generation Church, an evangelical organisation with a swelling international congregation of mostly Russian speakers. The group now has 108 churches in 15 countries, including Argentina, Israel and America. It is headed by Aleksey Ledyaev, a publicity-savvy pastor with close ties to the Christian right in America. In February, Pastor Ledyaev attended a breakfast at the White House hosted by President Bush. "He's a very good man, a very powerful man. He has many connections with parliament and worldwide connections to the USA and Russia. He agrees with me," says Maslakovs.

Pastor Ledyaev declined an interview, writing instead: "I believe that Christians and their traditional values are discriminated against today, and not the gays and lesbians." In his sermons, he has been more explicit, saying of homosexuals: "God will bring evil upon them! God will drive them out and they will fall!" Many of the counterprotesters at last year's Pride wore "I Love the New Generation" T-shirts. '

The New Generation Church Wikipedia article is very partisan and does not mention their homophobic mandate. I found further background on their US ties here:

' An election campaign for the sheriff of a practically unheard of county in America's Pacific Northwest is hardly the place one would expect to find itself in the middle of a row involving the homophobic preacher Dr. Ken Hutcherson, The White House, the Department of State, the FBI, Latvian gays and the Riga-based New Generation Church together with a preacher from Kazakhstan.

But a four-paragraph item in today's Everett Herald mentioning that Tom Greene, who is campaigning for election as Snohomish County Sheriff, is holding a fundraising breakfast at the Holiday Inn later this month caught our eye.

While we have never heard of Mr. Greene--or even Snohomish County (head north out of Seattle and you will soon cross the border between King County and Snohomish County), we did recognise the name of the event's guest speaker.

Dr. Ken Hutcherson, the former linebacker with the Seattle Seahawks in the NFL, founder and chief of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, near Seattle, and, he claims, "special envoy of the White House".

The bottom line is that the campaigning law enforcer, in his bid to be elected sheriff, is being backed by an alleged law-breaker.

Hutcherson has links to the New Generation Church, which is based in Riga, Latvia, and headed by Alexei Ledyaev, a native of Kazakhstan

In February, Ledyaev was accompanied by Hutcherson on a visit to the White House for a meeting with Jay Hein, the head of President Bush's "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", set-up by the President in January 2001 to protect traditional Christian values in the society. The office is under the President's direct control.

Hutcherson claims that at this meeting, Hein appointed him a "special envoy" of the White House--a claim that the White House is denying. '

(Found at DownWithTyrrany! blog.)

More on Antioch Bible Church and homophobia here and here. The latter link notes Hutcherson as one of the African-American Evangelists who claim gay rights are 'not a Civil Rights issue'.

(NB their church slogan - 'Black and White in a Gray World'. Actually, my world is in colour, thanks...)

A reminder that the Dominion means exactly what their name implies - they want dominion over the whole world and they are doing their best to achieve it. And that nothing scares them more than a person who owns their sexuality.