Let’s give credit where credit is due. Professional homophobe Scott Lively wants you to know that he’s pleased to have played a key role in driving the vicious anti-gay frenzy that is gripping Russia.

In an interview with MSNBC, Lively makes it clear that he thinks Russia is a paragon of morality, in no small part because the country took his advice to criminalize anything gay.

Lively toured Russia in 2006-2007 and found a receptive audience for his message that gays are a “dark force” in human history, the genesis of the Nazi movement and predators recruiting unwitting children. As a kind of Johnny Appleseed of hatred, Lively sowed seeds that are now bearing fruit. “Yes, I think I influenced the Russian law,” Lively says. Boris Dittrich, the director of LGBT advocacy for Human Rights Watch, said that as Lively met with regional politicians, anti-gay bans followed until homophobia became the national standard.

And, boy, is Lively happy about that. He has declared that Putin is “the defender of Christian civilization.” He wants Russian officials to boast about their anti-gay campaign at the Olympics by unfurling a rainbow banner over the games so “the global homosexual movement” would be reminded that “the rainbow belongs to God!”

Lively refuses to connect the dots between his virulent proselytizing and the anti-gay violence that has become commonplace in Russia. “Wow, that’s a leap,” Lively said in the interview. Of course, what would you expect of the man who proudly proclaims himself the father of Uganda’s anti-gay movement. You remember Uganda. That’s the place where legislators passed a bill that effectively made homosexuality a capital offense. It’s also the reason why Lively is on trial in a U.S. court for crimes against humanity.

Despite Lively’s efforts to stop that lawsuit, a U.S. district court judge ruled last month that the case can move ahead.