In the conservative political world, Jay Sekulow is hailed as an avowed crusader for religious liberty and the super-attorney behind the American Center for Law and Justice, a group Time magazine called a “powerful counterweight to the liberal American Civil Liberties Union.” Unlike many conservatives, Sekulow, a Fox News legal analyst, has long backed Mitt Romney, whom he calls his friend. Sekulow advised Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, and has reprised that role during the 2012 election. He and his group have also joined forces with anti-gay crusaders in Africa to criminalize homosexuality.<\/p>\n
Sekulow and his son Jordan opened affiliated offices of the ACLJ in Africa to lobby politicians to “take the Christian’s views into consideration as they draft legislation and policies,” according to ACLJ’s website. ACLJ’s Zimbabwe office has pushed an agenda that backs outlawing same-sex marriage and making sure that homosexuality “remain a criminal activity.” (Zimbabwe had outlawed homosexuality in 2006.) Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe is among the most ruthless dictators in the world\u2014but in 2010 ACLJ-Zimbabwe’s chairman, Pastor Alex Chisango, led Mugabe and others in prayer to kick off Zimbabwe’s constitutional reform drive. ACLJ wanted to ensure that, whatever else changed in the country’s constitution, homosexuality remained illegal and same-sex marriage was banned. (Another ACLJ office in Kenya lobbied to eliminate an exemption allowing an abortion when a women’s life is at risk.)<\/p>\n