While Vladimir Putin’s government is hostile to evangelical Christians in Russia, U.S. Religious Right leaders are fawning over Putin in response to his crackdown on his country’s gay community. On Friday, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer chatted with right-wing pastor Scott Lively about his anti-gay activism in Russia, and the two hailed Putin as a hero.

Lively said that Russia is rightfully returning to Tsarism: “They’re reaching back to the Tsarist model when the Russian Orthodox Church was very strong and they had Christian values in their society, and I think it’s a positive thing for the whole world.”

Putin also won accolades from Fischer, who said that “the leader of Russia now sounds more like somebody who supports and embraces Christianity than the President of the United States, which has always been a Christian country.”

“Our country is far more Marxist” than Russia, Lively insisted. “It’s like a role reversal and I think that if other countries in the world adopt the Russian policy, we can build a barrier against this global homosexual agenda and perhaps even start to roll it back here at home.”