It’s no surprise that the issue that inspired Putin to amend the constitution for the first time since 1993 is a same-sex marriage ban. It was part of a 24-page draft that also named Russia the "successor to the Soviet Union," delineated the country's "faith in God," and upheld "defence of historical truth" pertaining to World War II, The Guardian reported. Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's lower house, told the media that fixing "the status of marriage as a union between a man and a woman" is "the most important proposal" for him. "And I am happy that this amendment has appeared under the signature of the head of state,” he said.

I wouldn’t, however, expect a U.S. president to be on board with this kind of decision, but then again, Trump is president. He has more than shouldered as his own the cause of religious conservatives wanting to roll back Obama-era rights the rest of us must have gotten a little too comfortable with, so the entertainer-in-chief worked to ban transgender troops in the military. His administration argued that civil rights protections shouldn’t extend to employees who suffer discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender, according to The Washington Post. And even more deplorably, the Trump administration fought to change a rule governing adoption to make it easier for agencies to turn down same-sex couples. The Supreme Court announced on Feb. 24 that it would hear arguments on the latter issue in Fulton v. Philadelphia. The case followed a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation that revealed two “Christian” foster agencies had refused to place children in LGBTQ homes.

Civil rights advocates rushed to criticize the agencies, with Sen. Bernie Sanders even calling the president a "homophobe" in a Facebook post that linked to an article about the adoption rule change; but count on Vice President Mike Pence to laud Trump’s discriminatory steps backward as necessary. "We’ve reversed the rule implemented in the closing days of the last administration that jeopardized the ability of faith-based providers to serve those in need by penalizing them for their deeply held religious beliefs," Pence told NBC News in November. "We will stand for the freedom of religion and we will stand with faith-based organizations to support adoption." It’s hard to know who in Trump’s administration will actually stand for the people.