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A Tennessee college can now legally discriminate students on the basis of their “lifestyle and sexual choices”
Carson-Newman University, a private Southern Baptist college in Tennessee, can now legally discriminate students on the basis of their “lifestyle and sexual choices”. All to protect its Christian values.
According to Dr. O’Brien’s interview with Local8, the request was filed under the advice of the college attorney to “reaffirm” the “religious principles” of the private university in the face of a “changing world”. A world that is trying to become less of a discriminating hell for minorities. In theletter addressed to the Department of Education, the president included “sexual orientation, gender identity (including but not limited to transgendered status), marital status, past and present practices regarding marriage, sex outside marriage, pregnancy, and abortion” as “student and employee characteristics” to be taken in consideration for admission and employment.
LGBTQ rights have increasingly improved in the U.S. in the past years with the endorsement of laws such as the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal Act” of 2010 and the legalisation of same-sex marriage across the whole country in June 2015, but there is still a long way to go for equality. Despite reassurances from the college that no students will be actively discriminated against, it’s a completely backwards attitude and hopefully one which gets reversed ASAP.

Watch Pussy Riot’s video for ‘Refugees In’ shot at Dismaland

The political punks’ latest offering shows powerful solidarity with those who are fleeing from conflict – all the more poignant post-Paris attacks
After Friday’s horrifying Paris attacks, repercussions were feared among refugees with a number of US States deciding to close their borders against migrants and a resurgence of Islamophobia. To express their solidarity with the refugees, Russian activists Pussy Riot have just released a powerful and angry video called “Refugees In”, shot by Ralf Schmerberg at Bansky’s Dismaland.
The footage captures the violent clashes between the police and the crowd from the band’s performance at the artist’s UK installation last September, completed with an unnerving mix of electronic music, drumming and furious lyrics:
The eerie music video channels the anger of the activists, who violently accuse the European governments of being “fucking liars” and meeting refugees with “razors wires”, repeating on a loop: “Refugees in, Nazis out, governments here, should feel the shame, fucking liars, you’re to blame”.
According to Nadya Tolokonnikova’s interview with Noisey, the song was written in only two days in collaboration with London-based Mike Snelle and produced by bretonLABS and Ten Ven. Tolokonnikova, said the song theme was inspired by a meeting between Pussy Riot and a young refugee from Sudan and added the following inspiring words: “The time of grief for the dead should not become a time when we betray the belief of hundreds of thousands in the humaneness of the European world. Our grief should not teach us to aim for revenge, war and hate. It should teach us to help and show real compassion to each other.”

Over 100,000 women in Texas have self-induced an abortion

With pro-life politics as strong as ever in the Southern States, the masses are turning to illegal drugs, herbs and getting punched in the stomach to end their pregnancy
The pro-life vs pro-choice war has been raging in the US for a long time. Now shocking news has come to light revealing how women in the south have been getting by. According to a new reporton abortion practices in Texas, between 100,000 and 240,000 women have tried to self-induce abortions. This means looking to alternative and dangerous methods to end a pregnancy, including using illegally sourced misoprostol, herbs and illicit drugs, getting punched in the abdomen and taking hormonal pills.
Why is this a problem for Texan women specifically? More than a half of the 41 abortion clinics that were open in 2012 have been shut down in the last three years, probably as a consequence of the Texas House Bill 2. Known as HB2, the law went to effect in 2013 and caused drastic changes to access to reproductive health care, requiring all clinics to be ambulatory surgical centres. The shrinking number of abortion centres as well as logistic and financial problems might have pressured more than 100,000 Texan women to have to have abortions without medical help.
It’s clear pro-life politics are out of control when women are putting their very lives at risk to end their pregnancy. Presently the Texas House Bill 2 is being challenged in front of the US Supreme Court by providers who would like to overturn it – which will make it one of the most important abortion rights cases that the US has seen in decades. If there’s one positive thing to be drawn from this research, it’s that it’s likely to have a significant impact on the ruling.

Watch M.I.A.’s heartbreaking new music video for ‘Borders’

After launching her politically-charged new single “Borders” last week, M.I.A. has unleashed this self-directed visual to accompany it, which shows the artist join a group of refugees as they try and climb wire over fences, huddle up on tiny boats, and travel across the sea.
Just as in Pussy Riot's ”Refugees In”, the video and lyrics show a powerful solidary with those who are fleeing from conflict, with M.I.A. singing, “Borders, what's up with that? Politics, what's up with that? Police shots, what's up with that?"
According to a press release, the track will appear on her forthcoming fifth studio album Matahdatah