A drag queen who dressed as Jesus Christ and performed a rock rendition of The Lord’s Prayer has been arrested in the Philippines under the country’s obscenity laws, sparking a fierce debate about fre
e speech and protections for members of the LGBTQ community. The Philippines is a deeply Christian country and the Catholic Church maintains significant influence both in daily life and politics. Amadeus Fernando Pagente, 33, whose drag name is Pura Luka Vega and who uses the pronoun they/them, was widely accused of blasphemy by officials with the Catholic church and others after videos of their performance singing “Ama Namin,” the Tagalog version of the prayer, went viral in July.
But they also defended the act as a form of art, telling CNN affiliate CNN Philippines in an interview that the performance was an expression of the feeling of exclusion as a queer person in a deeply Catholic country. “I understand that people call my performance blasphemous, offensive or regrettable. However, they shouldn’t tell me how I practice my faith or how I do my drag. That performance was not for you to begin with.
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