Here’s a weird one to throw on your radar. Jonathan Larsen at The Fucking News — it’s a real news source, don’t let the ribald language fool delicate Wonkette readers! — reports that this week there is “quiet optimism” that weak and sad Christian extremist House Speaker Mike Johnson will finally be able to muscle (we use the verb loosely) aid for Ukraine through the House.
Did he finally realize that being on the side of Putin the genocidal fascist was bad? Ha ha, not exactly. It’s more that there may be other Christian extremists in his ear, evangelical Ukrainians to be specific, who have been laying the groundwork to win support from Johnson (and from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) for their radicalized anti-LGBTQ+ Christian plans for Ukraine.
Surprise, this is all tied up with the National Prayer Breakfasts held in the United States and elsewhere, and with The Family, the extremist Christians who put them on. (If you’re thinking, wait, aren’t these the folks who have such a bad habit of traveling to Uganda and giving them support for their Kill The Gays bills? Yes.)
There are a lot of details to absorb and lots of links to click, so we’ll do our best to summarize as succinctly as possible, and then send you to Larsen for your rabbitholing.
Evangelicals are a very small minority in Ukraine, like two percent, but the gist of their argument is that Vladimir Putin and his state-run Russian Orthodox Christianity are the enemy of their religious freedom. (Both sides hate LGBTQ+ people, they just wear different frocks, you’d think they could fucking get over it. Ha ha, just described the history of Christianity.)
Apparently, Zelenskyy has just agreed to give this little group of evangelical Ukrainians their own national prayer breakfast, which they can use for their anti-LGBTQ+ networking.
Back in January, three evangelical Ukrainian leaders and a member of parliament named Pavlo Unguryan, whom Larsen describes as one of the most important evangelicals in Ukraine, delivered a letter to Mike Johnson, basically laying out how their religious freedom — you know what that means when these types say it — was under attack. In other words, a message tailor-made for a perpetually aggrieved white Christian extremist like Johnson.
“It was important for brother Mike,” said [Valerii Antoniuk, head of the All-Ukrainian Union of the Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists], “to hear the voice of fellow believers.”
Like we were saying, tailor-made.
Antoniuk described the discussion in theocratic terms, calling for “friendly fraternal conversation between the two Christian nations, because both America and Ukraine are countries that are based on faith in Jesus Christ.”
Uh huh.
The common enemy? “Russia and other forces of darkness,” said Unguryan. Wonder who else is under that “other forces of darkness” heading, but we have a guess.
And Unguryan gave Johnson an inventory of how these dark forces have assaulted Christianity: “[D]estroying churches, killing and persecuting pastors and priests, kidnapping children and raping babies.”
All terrible! But again, we wonder who they’re lumping in with old Putin.
Is it the gays? Tell us if it’s the gays.
Anyway, Larsen says these Ukrainian evangelical dudes met with Zelenskyy just this past week and begged him for a prayer breakfast. It’s not a meal request, these prayer breakfasts are big networking, crusading, world-domination shit for these freaks. Reportedly, it’s the only thing they begged him for.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, needed their help in trying to influence the very Americans currently holding up direly needed aid for his country. So, as Larsen says, they needed something from each other.
Larsen has much more background on who these creeps are, the foul souls in the American evangelical movement they’re connected with, and which lawmakers in the US are listening to them. (The rabbitholing to which we referred!) Read it all, but here’s how he concludes:
If Republicans in the coming days do back Johnson, and agree to fund Ukraine’s fight, it may be thanks to a campaign to frame it as a battle for religious freedom. And if that’s the case, it may be thanks to a covert diplomatic effort pursued over months by Family evangelicals, with an eye toward shaping Ukraine’s future in their god’s image.
The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my …
Lotta fuckin’ gray area in the world, isn’t there?
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
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