Cathy Young on Why the Pussy Riot Case Still Matters

A few days after a Moscow appellate court upheld the conviction of three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot but released one of them with a suspended sentence, the women's lawyers are taking their claim to the European Court of Human Rights. The case, in which the singer/activists received two-year prison terms for a protest performance in an Orthodox cathedral, may have largely faded from the spotlight; but strong international support for the group continues.

Yet as Cathy Young observes, there are some dissenting voices from usually not Kremlin-friendly quarters on the right. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher and Pajamas Media's Rick Moran, for example, charge that the Pussy Riot lovefest is yet another example of how Christianity-trashing is glorified as artistic freedom—while attacks on Islam are decried as hateful. Such double standards do exist, Young writes. But in this instance, the claims of anti-Christian bigotry are off-base. The feminist punks' activism has been directed entirely against the authoritarian Russian state.