Anti-LGBT pundit Pat Buchanan backs Putin's anti-LGBT law

Failed presidential candidate and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan lent his support to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his syndicated column on Tuesday, arguing that Putin is actually protecting Christians from discrimination.

"Putin is trying to re-establish the Orthodox Church as the moral compass of the nation it had been for 1,000 years before Russia fell captive to the atheistic and pagan ideology of Marxism," Buchanan wrote in conservative news site Townhall, citing recent statements by Putin in a July 2013 meeting with church leaders.

"In many of the world's regions, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa inter-confessional tensions are mounting, and the rights of religious minorities are infringed, including Christians and Orthodox Christians," Putin said at the meeting, prompting Buchanan to criticize President Barack Obama's August 6 remarks rebuking of Russia's law banning "homosexual propaganda."

"Has Obama ever spoken out so forcefully for international action to save Christians?" Buchanan wrote. "Has the New York Times ever exhibited a fraction of the concern for persecuted Christians it daily exhibits for harassed homosexuals?"

Buchanan, who was fired from MSNBC in February 2012 over racially-inflammatory comments in his latest book, had also called for what he termed "a new era in civil disobedience" in April 2013 to fight burgeoning marriage equality efforts in the U.S, following a long history of homophobic commentary during his time under a larger public spotlight.

[h/t Media Matters]

[Image via Fox News]