The summer my parents’ marriage was falling apart, my best friend’s two moms saved me—even though my dad said they were going to Hell.
By Dena Landon… Illustrations by Vinnie Neuberg… complete story.
“Hey Penny, is Carrie awake?” I ducked through the screen door, letting it bang shut behind me. The sun had barely crested the Seattle skyline and I was already at my best friends’ house. Her mom, Joy, grabbed a bowl from the cabinets and a box of cereal and set it on the kitchen table. “I’ll go check,” she said. I pulled up a stool and sat down, pouring out the sugary cereal and adding the milk that Penny, Carrie’s other mom, fetched from the fridge.It was the summer before my mother left my dad.
“This is pure action,” says reader reporter Michael N. About ten activists on Monday afternoon bought a ticket to – quite legally – to get to the South Tower of the Zurich Grossmünster. At about 50 meters but they unfurled a huge banner reading “Free Pussy Riot – Fuck Putin now.” Continue reading “PUSSY RIOT SUPPORTERS OCCUPY FRAUMÜNSTER TOWER IN ZURICH”
Yekaterina Samutsevich is seen here being escorted into court
Russian prosecutors have asked for three years’ in prison for three women musicians accused of inciting religious hatred during a protest in a cathedral.
The three members of the punk band Pussy Riot played a song attacking Russian leader Vladimir Putin in front of an altar on 21 February.
They told the court their performance was a political act, not aimed at hurting the feelings of believers.
Supporters of the women have condemned the case as disproportionate.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, could have faced a maximum sentence of seven years.
The Free Pussy riot campaign has gone global, hitting at the heart of oppression, semi slavery and open violence against women, in the sexist macho State and the medieval inquisitorial evil church.
Yana Zhadanova of the Femen movement charged the Russian Patriarch yelling Free Pussy Riot, but it was she who got beaten up and sentenced to 15 days prison.
Free Yana Zhdanova ..
“Kirill had just stepped out from a plane when our activist Yana Zhdanova performed her ‘sex attack,'” FEMEN‘s Inna Shevchenko tells ANIMAL over Skype. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill the First was about to launch into a press conference at a Ukrainian airport, but, as Inna says, “We don’t need his shit.”
On their LiveJournal, FEMEN clarifies: “Ukrainian women are proud and free and will never kiss a copper’s boot, even if it is hidden under the stinking Pope cassock.” The quote reads like an homage to the classic Voina action when a performance artist, dressed in a priest cassock and a cop uniform, robbed a supermarket to point out the hypocrisy of Russia’s incestuous relationship of church and state.
FEMEN have written that the action Kill Kirill was in support of “arrested activists.” The Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Russia has recently condemned “devious” activist rockers Pussy Riot to hell and his influence allegedly resulted in Pussy Riot facing seven years in prison for the blasphemy of a protest song in a Moscow church. Meanwhile, Kirill was caught in a scandal when his $30,000 designer watch was Photoshopped out of a church press photo. They forgot about the shadow.
Three members of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk-rock band, began a hunger strike after a Moscow court suddenly told them they must prepare their defense for tria in 4 days. Maria Alyokhina, Yakaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were taken into custody in March, after the group’s February performance of “Virgin Mary Put Putin Away,” an anti-Putin song, inside the Russian Orthodox Church‘s main cathedral, asking the Virgin Mary to chase President Vladimir Putin out of power. The three women were arrested over four months ago and have been held without bail on charges of criminal hooliganism — which carry a possible seven-year prison sentence. Two other female members of the band have avoided arrest thus far. The Church has called for heavy sentences and the case goes to the heart of the open anti women bigotry built into the State and Church.
And so, Yana, brandishing only the provocative slogan of “Kill Kirill” on her chest, rushed the Patriarch. She was grabbed, imprisoned and sentenced to 15 days in prison. The courts refuse to see her action as a protest and instead are charging her with hooliganism. Inna tells us that while Yana was in custody, she was roughly interrogated as the cops are confounded about how she snuck her way into this exclusive, televised, heavily guarded event. After the “sex attack,” Kirill continued, routinely mumbling out a blessing.
And so, FEMEN continue to resist Russian political influence and orthodoxy with their signature tactic–their bare breasts as weapons of shock and awe. They write that they want to keep Kirill “far from political and social life of Ukraine” and are “against such visits of Kiril brotherhood to Ukraine that [brings its] Russian shit to sick Ukrainian society.” Something tells us this visit will be quite memorable.
Despite being in a hierarchical, antigay religions ,the vast majority of U.S. Catholics support gay rights, believe gay identity cannot be altered, favor gays adopting kids, believe in either gay civil unions or marriage and believe that sexual relationships between two people of the same sex is quite alright, according to a study from the Public Religion Research Institute, .
Not only do a vast majority of Catholics in the United States have a gay rights framework, their views are more friendly to our community that the general public, white evangelicals, and white mainline protestants. In other words, we might find more support at the local Catholic Church than the neighborhood hetero bar.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the Catholic Church maintains a hateful attitude towards gay people, which is not surprising since the Pope was a former Nazi. With the hierarchy of the Catholic Church being usurped by the progressive views of its members, perhaps we can look forward to change in the future.
In the meantime, it is up to us to challenge the homophobia and transphobia of dominant religions and fight for the rights of all. It’s hard to imagine living in a world where mainstream religious organizations would not be organizing centers for homophobia and bigotry; however, with the support of many Catholics, a vision of such a world is viable.
Yekaterina Samutsevich is seen here being escorted into court
Sting, Madonna give support: Putin and Patriarch witch-hunt Pussy Riot « The Free
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