Concerned Women for America’s leading “scholar” Janice Shaw Crouse is defending the conviction of three members of the Russian band “Pussy Riot” on charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” The three women were sentenced by a Russian court to two years in a prison colony in a decision condemned by the U.S., the E.U. and human rights groups. Their crime was a performance staged in a cathedral in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin and denounced the increasingly close ties between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church.
In a column today, Crouse defends the convictions, writing that Pussy Riot “insult[ed] Christians” and that the band members should “accept responsibility for your actions” and “repent.”
So next time Concerned Women for America complains about the Obama administration’s supposed threats to freedom, just remember that they have no problem with Russia imprisoning political activists.
Have the women repented or taken responsibility for their actions? Their formal statements about the incident reveal their utter lack of morality, embrace of a “blame-everyone-but-us” ideology, and disdain for capitalism and individual responsibility. Like their U.S. counterparts, they want “human rights, civil and political freedoms” for themselves but not for Christian believers or anyone else with different beliefs.
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The media — both in Russia and in the U.S. — ignores the religious bigotry directed at Christianity and, instead, jumps to the defense of anyone who shows intolerance towards the church. It is apparent from the closing statements of the three Russian feminists on trial that they are not sorry for their actions and, in fact, view themselves as the victims, not the Christians that they denigrated. The punk rock group entered the sanctuary with the intent to insult Christians, and when they were held accountable, they claimed that it was someone else’s fault.
If you want to rage against that which you perceive to be unjust or unfair, it would go a long way toward credibility to also accept responsibility for your actions.
