American Anti-LGBT Activists Go to Russia for September Gathering
Jacobs tried to distance WCF from the Russian gathering, telling Buzzfeed earlier this month that it was not a WCF event and that WCF had provided no funding.
However, in July, the event’s Russian organizer Alexey Komov (who is WCF representative to Russia), claimed that the meeting was still linked to WCF. And indeed, the next big World Congress is numbered IX, not VIII, though VIII was supposedly “suspended.” Nevertheless, WCF also posted this press release on September 8, claiming that though the International Family Forum event was not affiliated with WCF, some WCF personnel would be in attendance.
And they were. Both Jacobs and Feder were on hand, as Right Wing Watch reports, careful to distance themselves from WCF while talking to reporters. Also in attendance was Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, who was apparently a speaker on one of the panels. Brown has been increasing his activity overseas since at least 2013, perhaps in the wake of increased acceptance of LGBT people at home and the growing number of states legalizing same-sex marriage.
Austin Ruse, president of the anti-LGBT hate group C-FAM (Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute) and part of the original WCF organizing committee, said he was going to attend the new Russian conference, and Janice Shaw Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute of Concerned Women for America Tweeted in August that she, too, would be attending. Penny Nance, CWA president, pulled the group from the originally slated WCF conference in opposition to Putin’s policy toward Ukraine. Evan Hurst at TWOCARE noted that Crouse, who sits on the board of directors of WCF, hinted in another Tweet on September 5 that she appears to be looking for a job, though she is still listed at the LaHaye Institute (though no longer as an expert on the CWA website).
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