I constantly tell my students that one of the hardest tasks in journalism is to write a balanced, insightful profile of a controversial person. This is especially hard to do here inside the Beltway, but that is not the topic of the day.

No, I want to praise S.C. Gwynne’s news feature in Texas Monthly about Episcopal, or we probably should say Anglican, Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth. You may know Gwynne’s byline from his years at Time and then in a wide variety of other settings.

This is another one of those stories about the local, regional, national and global conflicts in the Episcopal Church and, thus, the Anglican Communion as a whole. Iker is a conservative and, in fact, someone who is even out of step with most conservative Episcopalians in the United States in that he continues to oppose the ordination of women, a step embraced by many, if not most, evangelicals and charismatics.

Iker, thus, is a highly symbolic figure for the nation’s few remaining old-fashioned Anglo-Catholics, a man who is truly loved or hated depending on which pews a reporter visits on a given Sunday. This bishop has no problem talking with Catholic and Orthodox leaders, but struggles to make headway in talks with the principalities and powers of his own church — at least in North America.

So Gwynne has his hands full, writing for a Lone Star magazine with a long history of progressive journalism. Frankly, I think he did amazingly well.

However, I was especially interested in how he would handle — you knew this was coming — the inevitable timeline describing the history of the Anglican wars. I realize that this is a magazine piece, as opposed to a 600-word wire report, but check this out:

What happened in Fort Worth was part of a widening schism in the Episcopal Church, and in the larger Anglican Communion to which it belongs, that has been growing for decades. (The Episcopal Church is the American name of the Anglican Church, created by Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church in 1534; Anglican churches operate in about 160 countries and have some 78 million members.) The discontent has its roots in the seventies, when the church made changes to its liturgy and decided to ordain women priests. There were also issues of Scripture, as growing numbers of Episcopalians questioned the literal truth of basic tenets of the faith: the Resurrection, the Atonement, the uniqueness of Jesus as savior. The rift opened wide in 2003 when a partnered gay man named Gene Robinson was consecrated by the church’s general convention as bishop of New Hampshire. Many conservatives went into open revolt, some parishes left, and nearly two thirds of the global Anglican church declared itself in “broken” or “impaired” communion with its more liberal American branch.

Then in 2006 the church did something that many of the more conservative Episcopalians could not bear: It elected a woman, Nevada bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, as its presiding bishop, the nominal head of the church. Schori was not only a woman — which to Iker and other conservatives meant that the church, in electing her, had turned its back both on the word of the Bible and on two thousand years of Christian teaching — but one who had voted for Gene Robinson and blessed same-sex unions. She believed that God’s revelation was ongoing (meaning that core doctrines of the church were liable to change) and was prone to saying things like “I simply refuse to hold the doctrine that there is no access to God except through Jesus. I personally reject the claim that Christianity has the truth and all other religions are in error.” This indeed ran counter to age-old teachings of the church. But her election proved that her views, while anathema to the majority of the Anglican Communion, were nonetheless in keeping with the mainstream of thought and practice in the Episcopal Church.

Hosanna! I think he gets it! This summary places the Robinson consecration and the election of Jefferts Schori in a doctrinal context — in relation to Iker, the majority of the global communion and the establishment of the U.S. church.

With those facts covered, Gwynne can return to talking to the conflict on the ground in Fort Worth, carefully talking to leaders on both sides and showing how this legal war could affect thousands of believers in pews from coast to coast.

I have to ask: Does this Gwynne guy actually have some church-history courses in his past? These are not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill fact paragraphs. May other journalists who are covering similar stories in their regions take note. Print this story out and file it for reference. I would be interested in hearing from Episcopalians on the left and Anglicans on the right about this. Do you see any factual errors?

Photo: Hey, I haven’t used it in at least a month.

In your spare time this weekend, consider taking a few minutes to read Devin Friedman’s lengthy GQ piece that gives the background leading up to the shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller. Scott Roeder was found guilty yesterday of first-degree murder for shooting Tiller. Tiller was an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Kansas where he was handing out bulletins to people before he was shot on May 31, 2009. Friedman’s piece is very engaging and well written, and you feel like you get into the two men’s heads a little bit.

I was fairly pleased with how the author conducted numerous interviews and gives us many, many details to show various dimensions of the story. For example, I don’t remember the last piece I read that explicitly detailed what happens during a late-term abortion. I don’t exactly search for that in stories, but in this context, it’s helpful to get the full picture.

With the title “Savior vs. Savior,” I had high hopes that we might learn something about their respective religions. Unfortunately, while the story offers bits and pieces about Roeder’s and Tiller’s faith, the writer clearly decided at some point of his reporting process that religion was just a minor detail. This is the gist of what we read about Tiller’s church attendance.

George Tiller became a parishioner at Reformation Lutheran because he no longer felt welcome at his old church. There’d been some controversy within the Reformation congregation about whether or not to accept him. Over the years, as he showed up every Sunday, there had been some attrition. But everyone was now pretty galvanized. The ushers identified and dealt with any demonstrators who showed up.

The article never really explains Tiller’s faith at all, though. Similarly, the author mentions briefly in footnotes and once in the story that Roeder was interested in Messianic Judaism and described a conversion experience.

He started watching The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. At the end of the show, Pat Robertson would ask you to accept Jesus. And one morning when Pat Robertson asked, Scott got down on the floor and tried to pray, though he wasn’t sure he knew how. That was how he was born again. For the first time in a long, long while, he felt some hope, saw some light, and it was easy to move toward that from where he was.

This is how he was born again? Did Roeder use those words? More details, please.

He found the truth in lots of places. There was a period he sent money to a preacher down in Texas who would sell you a “miracle link” cloth that would connect you up with a miracle if you sent it back to him to put on his altar. He was exposed on TV as a fraud by Diane Sawyer.

This is interesting, but I’m wondering what this meant for Roeder’s faith? Did he become disillusioned after this period? What got him interested in Messianic Judaism? Does he consider himself a Christian, born again … or something? So we have some vague ideas about Roeder’s faith but nothing concrete.

NPR’s Neal Conan interviewed Friedman for “Talk of the Nation,” where Friedman talks about how Roeder was not in the mainstream of Christianity. “Eventually he becomes what’s called a, uh, a Messianic Jew, I think.” Perhaps his pauses suggest he considered it minor in his reporting. “He had troubled with the mainstream of that religion and so he sort of cobbled his theories together with some friends who were a little bit more fringe.” Here’s more from the interview:

Conan: You mentioned he was a member of something called messianic Jewish faith, not something I have much familiarity with it and from your description not something that’s closely we would regard as mainstream Jewry.

Friedman: No, it’s a Christian sort of basis. It’s like basically you’re a Christian but you believe that you should follow the laws of the Old Testament and by following those laws you’re considering yourself a Jew who believes in Christ. That’s the only way the savior is going to come back.

If an NPR reporter doesn’t know what a Messianic Jew is, GQ readers probably don’t either. Perhaps the reporter could have added a clearer explanation in the story. Later in the NPR interview, a caller also inquired about Roeder’s religion.

Caller: How much of an influence Roeder’s religious philosophy factored into his decision? … Was that the deciding factor in him becoming a murderer?

Friedman: In my opinion and in talking to him, I think that his beliefs informed his religion rather than the other way around. Coming to Kansas, I expected this monolithic community where everyone had the same beliefs religiously and they were on the same page and that’s where they went from. Really people were from all over the spectrum religiously. A lot of people I met who knew Scott from protesting vehemently disagreed with his religious views and basically thought he was totally wrong.

Caller: You’re saying that his beliefs just led him to find what he was looking for specifically within that religious context?

Friedman: Yeah, if I had to look for a motivating factor for this murder, he talked a lot about the information he gathered on the Internet.

Say that again? He expected a monolithic religious community?

Oh dear. Religion may not have been the motivating factor in Tiller’s work or Roeder’s decision to kill, but it deserves to be explored more in a basic profile, much less a 9,000-word piece.

As I mentioned the other day, media coverage of the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., always offers conservative activists new opportunities to bash the mainstream press. As a journalist who has always worked in the mainstream, I frankly wish that the mainstream press would make their work a little harder to do.

What we have at the top of this post is a pretty typical example of this genre. It is full of movement code words and, I am sure, contains the kind of language — “pro-aborts,” for example — that will make people on the other side of the issue roll their eyes. It’s a conservative video from a conservative group.

However, it makes some valid points. Please watch it, to understand where these media critics are coming from.

For example, you know and I know that crowd estimates have become highly politicized here inside the Beltway. One side sees 100 people. The other side counts 1,000 people. I think it’s important for the press to quote the estimates on both sides, since the police are now reluctant to give estimates. It’s an imperfect science, at best.

But the CNN language that is quoted and shown? Get out of here. That’s just crazy stuff. And what can we say about the online piece from nonNewsweek? Here is the top of the item by Krista Gesaman:

Today is the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, and droves of women are prepared to face rainy weather to support their positions during the annual Washington, D.C., demonstrations. But there will be one major difference with the demonstration route this year — it’s shorter.

“The organizers are getting older, and it’s more difficult for them to walk a long distance,” says Stanley Radzilowski, an officer in the planning unit for the Washington, D.C., police department. A majority of the participants are in their 60s and were the original pioneers either for or against the case, he says.

So this raises the question: where are the young, vibrant women supporting their pro-life or pro-choice positions? Likely, they’re at home. “Young women are still concerned about these issues, but they’re not trained to go out and protest,” says Kristy Maddux, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, who specializes in historical feminism.

Where to begin?

Well, as conservative media critic Matthew Balan noted, the folks at nonNewsweek could have started their research by reading, no, not Right to Life News, but their own sister publication — The Washington Post. In that newsroom, the rising tide of young marchers has in recent years turned into a theme that runs through the coverage.

But this is a case in which the conservative people that made this video could have strengthened their case by citing accurate, informed coverage, as well as bashing away at some of the inaccurate and often embarrassingly biased coverage that — this is painful to say — is out there, year after year.

The folks at ThineEyes.org could have, for example, included part of that recent Metro column in the Post by Robert McCartney, the one that opened like this:

I went to the March for Life rally … on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn’t it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What’s more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it’s gaining strength, even if it’s not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous. … In this case, I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.

Yes, it’s important for media critics to stress that their goal is to praise good journalism, as well as to spotlight the bad. Bashing away, year after year, can be balanced with praise for journalists who are striving to get the facts right.

It never hurts, for example, to point journalists toward one of the towering achievements in media criticism on this topic, which would be the famous 1990 Los Angeles Times series on media bias and abortion, written by the late David Shaw. In this case, the reporter himself was pro-abortion rights, but he was also pro-journalism. That series continues to be must reading, 20 years later.

Let’s close with one of its more famous passages:

… It’s not surprising that some abortion-rights activists would see journalists as their natural allies. Most major newspapers support abortion rights on their editorial pages, and two major media studies have shown that 80% to 90% of U.S. journalists personally favor abortion rights. Moreover, some reporters participated in a big abortion rights march in Washington last year, and the American Newspaper Guild, the union that represents news and editorial employees at many major papers, has officially endorsed “freedom of choice in abortion decisions.”

On an issue as emotional as abortion, some combatants on each side expect reporters to allow their personal beliefs to take precedence over their professional obligation to be fair and impartial.

And all of the fair-minded journalists said: Amen.

Grant Desme is making it to The Show. Just not the one Nuke LaLoosh dreamed about.

The decision by one of the Oakland A’s top prospects — he was considered a lock for the Majors one day — to leave baseball and enter seminary is a story that, quite remarkably, has gotten the attention it deserves by media outlets big and small, local and national.

The AP article offered the details you would expect — Desme is a lifelong Catholic who “kept his path quiet within the sports world” — but without much discussion of why he felt so compelled. I particularly liked this history lesson:

“Al Travers, who gave up 24 runs during a one-game career for a makeshift Detroit Tigers team in 1912, became a Catholic priest. More recently, Chase Hilgenbrinck of the New England Revolution left Major League Soccer in 2008 to enter a seminary.

It’s a good story, but I can easily image the AP’s Eric Gorski digging deeper into this story. That is, if the Godbeat was still blessed by his membership.

And what about the local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, which isn’t exactly known for its sensitive treatment of the Catholic Church?

Pretty good. The overall story isn’t significantly different than the AP’s. But the structure and choice of quotes are. It starts:

“Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more,” Desme said on a conference call. “It took a while to trust that and open up to it and aim full-steam toward him.

“I love the game, but I’m going to aspire to higher things.”

The decision was entirely unexpected. Desme said A’s general manager Billy Beane was shocked, and assistant GM David Forst made sure director of player development Keith Lieppman was sitting down before relaying the news.

“He was right on the verge of fame and fortune and glamour, and he’s denying all that,” Lieppman said. “He’s going in a totally different direction. Grant said it was a very powerful call, and that’s much more important.”

It’s interesting to see a baseball front office guy refer to someone’s ministerial calling. But that pales in comparison to the quote that closes the article:

“For those of us who were never good enough to make it to the big leagues, this is a head-scratcher,” one American League scout said. “But during this time in baseball when there’s so much lying and selfishness and hypocrisy, I’ve got to say I think this is very refreshing. This is someone who has his priorities intact. God bless him.”

God bless him, indeed.

Desme’s move reminds me of when Fernando Tatis, the only player to ever hit two grand slams in the same inning and off the same pitcher, returned to the Majors to fund the construction of a church in his native Dominican Republic, and MLB.com has a story saying that Desme isn’t that unusual.

If that’s true, I know one church softball league I need to stay out of.

This is a case where I know, in a few days, GetReligion readers are going to send me URLs for this Orthodox story when the mainstream media in America get around to covering it. Thus, I think I’ll go ahead and try to get ahead of the curve.

I imagine that there will be coverage, for all of the wrong reasons.

I certainly think that there should be coverage, for all of the right reasons.

Here is the top of the Moscow Times report that is causing a stir on the other side of the Atlantic. The headline is certainly an eye-opener: “Patriarch Blames Crime and Drugs for Haitian Quake.”

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said crime, drugs and corruption caused last week’s massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Haiti.

Kirill, speaking during a … visit to Kazakhstan, said the Haitian people bore responsibility for the calamity because they had turned away from God, the Ferghana.ru news agency reported late Monday.

“Haiti is a country of poverty and crime, famine, drugs and corruption, where people have lost their moral face,” Kirill was quoted as saying.

He compared Haiti with the Dominican Republic, which are located on the same Caribbean island. “I’ve visited the island divided between two countries, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. One of them is developing, while the other is affected by crimes, economic recession and political unrest. That part of the island was shattered by the earthquake,” he said.

While there is no mention of Voodoo in this text, I think it is safe to say that — to American ears — Kirill’s words are just as shocking as those of the Rev. Pat Robertson, which ignited a firestorm in the American media.

Will the mainstream media in America and Great Britain jump on these words in a similar manner? I’ll be honest: I totally understand why journalists may want to do so.

The theological principle here is quite similar to that offered by Robertson. The two men have simply accused the majority of the Haitian people of different sins. For Robertson, the Voodoo traditions centering on the worship of various spirits (Or is that “Spirits”? ) in addition to a greater God (Or is that “gods”?) represent a form of idolatry. The God of the Bible is not fond of idolatry. For the patriarch, other sins are involved in this national tragedy.

The crucial journalistic question, of course, is this: What did the patriarch actually say?

This is one reason that I hope the story draws some coverage, to flesh out some of the gaping holes in the Moscow Times report:

Asked to clarify Kirill’s comments, a church spokesman said … that the news report had “misinterpreted” the patriarch’s words and “taken them out of context.” The spokesman, Alexander Volkov, could not immediately clarify, saying only that a transcript of the speech would appear “later” on the Moscow Patriarchate’s web site.

A church scholar said Kirill’s comments had astonished his foreign listeners in Almaty, but they were quite ordinary to the Orthodox faithful.

“For those who often listen to Patriarch Kirill, such statements seem quite ordinary, but I know that some people in Almaty were amazed,” said the scholar, Alexander Soldatov, editor of the religious web site Portal-Credo.ru.

Kirill is known for his statements about large-scale disasters. Last year, he blamed the global financial crisis on the spiritual degradation of the world and called it a trial.

If you want to keep an eye out for that transcript, here is the link for the Moscow Patriarchate. This may take a while.

Some may find it strange that Kirill, in addition to making these controversial comments, has also expressed his condolences to the people of Haiti in their time of grief. Certainly, the International Orthodox Christian Charities (click here for info) have mobilized to send aid to Haiti. Of course, Robertson also repeatedly called for prayers for the Haitian people and urged his audience to give generously to efforts to pour aid into the stricken nation.

The bottom line: In Christian theology it is possible to believe that compassion and alms are Christian duties, while also believing that corporate sins may have mysterious consequences. The press likes this concept when it is applied to, oh, environmental issues and some aspects of American foreign policy.

Obviously this is a controversial and offensive stance in the modern world. It would be good if the press covered Kirill’s words and allowed intelligent, informed voices on both sides of this doctrinal debate to speak their minds. I am assuming, of course, that a transcript of what Kirill actually said is available, showing his words in context.

Meanwhile, the patriarch has also said:

“On these sad days, all Russian Orthodox believers and I condole with you and all residents of the island who have lost their relatives and loved ones,” the Patriarch said in a wire sent to Haitian President Rene Preval published by the Patriarch’s press service on Friday. The Patriarch said in the wire he is “praying for the prompt healing of the wounded and spiritual assistance to all those who have lost their housing, and also the strengthening of those who are now working on dealing with the aftermath of this natural disaster.”

Stay tuned.

Like many of you, I’ve been recreationally following the Proposition 8 trial. (Unlike many, this has not been a religious endeavor for me.) Testimony concluded yesterday, with the judge saying he needs about two months to review the evidence before issuing a verdict on the constitutionality of California’s voter-approved measure banning gay marriage.

The Los Angeles Times reports that proponents of gay marriage are encouraged that they’ll win at the trial level and that Prop. 8 supporters seem resigned to prevailing down the road. You can read that article here. But what might be more interesting is to compare the ways LAT scribe Maura Dolan covered testimony from the trial. Did she give experts for both sides the same shake?

Before answering this, we need to agree on a standard for measuring coverage. One reader suggested I count paragraphs devoted to direct examination, which is generally favorable, to those regarding cross-examination, which generally is not.

I’ll start by disregarding Dolan’s article Tuesday about testimony from Kenneth P. Miller, an expert for Prop. 8 supporters, because it focused only on what Miller said under cross-examination. What about the article that followed yesterday?

In this, Dolan rehashes Miller’s testimony, though the focus is on David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values. The count: Of the piece’s 13 paragraphs, not including the two lede graphs, three paragraphs go to Blankenhorn’s direct examination and only two to his cross-examination:

After testifying that marriage was designed for two heterosexual parents to bear and raise children, Blankenhorn said he decided during the last two years to support domestic partnerships for gays and lesbians as a “humane compromise.”

He said he previously had feared domestic partnerships would undermine marriage and discriminate against gays, but concluded that they were more legalistic arrangements than marriage.

Under cross-examination by David Boies, an attorney for challengers of the ballot measure, Blankenhorn admitted he knew of no study that showed children reared by gay couples fared worse than those raised by heterosexual parents.

Blankenhorn also conceded that same-sex marriage would probably “improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.”

But the article also tacks on five paragraphs, a third of the story, to the previously reported cross-examination of Miller.

How does this compare to Dolan’s articles focusing on expert witnesses for supporters of gay marriage? (This gay-marriage friendly article about religion’s role in Prop. 8’s passage doesn’t count because it deals with evidence admitted but not witnesses actually taking the stand.) In “Psychologist testifies on ‘remarkable similarities’ of gay and straight couples,” six paragraphs were about direct examination of an expert for gay marriage supporters and eight concerned cross-examination.

Dolan it appears generally focused more energy on the tough questions asked during cross-examination — of the witnesses for both sides, not just one. To that we should say: well done.

Faithful readers may be wondering what has happened to the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway this week, since she is the other GetReligionista (besides moi) who almost always posts here on a daily basis.

MZ is out of the country at the moment, visiting a location at which there is zippo in the way of options to get on the Internet. I believe that she will be back on Capitol Hill and blogging again early next week. GetReligion readers who frequently cross digital swords with the lady (and you know who you are) may think about putting your feet up and reading a book for a few days.

Of course, we could ask Mark Hemingway to substitute for her — the way he subbed for Brad during his first round of law-school exams — except that both halves of the new hip-hop duo MZ MARK are on the same trip (which frequently happens when married folks head off to visit family). There is no truth to the rumors that Mark is out of town in order to do a guest appearance on “30 Rock.”

I should also mention, after receiving quite a few puzzled emails, that Mark has been added to our official list of contributors and that he will be posting a few times a week in order to provide MZ a bit more time for her other writing duties. Some of you may have noticed that, in addition to her other freelancing work, MZ is now writing a regular column for Christianity Today called “Throwing Inkwells.” Click here if you want to see a sample of her work there.

So this is why things have been a bit slow, this week, during business hours. On top of the MZ MARK gap, I have been in the classroom more than usual since we are in the second week of the spring term here at the Washington Journalism Center. So this has been a bad week for me, when it comes to blogging while the sun is up.

Please be patient with us, for a few more days.

One more thing: Feb. 1 marks the end of GetReligion’s sixth year online, with the posting of our “What we do, why we do it” essay. Does anyone have any suggestions for a proper way to observe this “birthday”?

Please be kind.

Every now and then, a story that I have followed for years and filed over in category A gets connected in some completely logical way with another important story that I have filed in category B and, suddenly, I am shocked to discover something new — a major story in category C.

I think the Washington Times just printed a perfect example of this phenomenon. It will be interesting to see if anyone follows up on this story.

The story in category A: China’s one-child-per-couple policy, which has long been the subject of passionate protest by religious activists. When combined with that society’s prejudice in favor of male children, you end up with a powerful form of sexism that results in the abortion of millions of unborn children who happen to be female. Of course, there are also secular human-rights activists — feminists, even — who are concerned about this issue.

The story in category B: The growing global concern about the sexual trafficking of young people, mostly girls, in what amounts to a new form of slavery. Once again, this issue has inspired activism in a wide variety of religious groups and in secular human-rights circles, as well.

And the story in category C? Here is the top of Cheryl Wetzstein’s report:

When Chinese officials created the country’s one-child-per-couple policy in 1978, they intended to contain the country’s burgeoning population for the sake of economic growth, national security and environmental preservation.

But Chinese boys now outnumber Chinese girls by the millions, and the impact of the lopsided sex imbalance is starting to spill beyond China’s borders.

This phenomenon of “missing girls” has turned China into “a giant magnet” for human traffickers, who lure or kidnap women and sell them — even multiple times — into forced marriages or the commercial sex trade, says Ambassador Mark Lagon, who oversaw human rights issues at the State Department during the administration of President George W. Bush.

“The impact is obvious. It’s creating a ‘Wild West’ sex industry in China,” Mr. Lagon said.

In China, “an entire nation of women” is missing because they were aborted before they were born, said Reggie Littlejohn, founder of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a nonprofit anti-sex slavery group. “This is gendercide.”

The story connects the dots between statistics from a variety of different, starting with the prediction by the official Chinese Academy of Social Services that, by 2020, at least 24 million Chinese men might not be able to find brides. Wetzstein notes that “previous estimates put that number in the 30 million to 50 million range.”

But the Chinese traditions favoring male children are deep — even ancient.

Chinese parents believe they must have a son to carry their family name, inherit family properties, support them in their old age and host their funeral ceremonies. Tradition says children belong to their father’s lineages, and daughters become part of their husband’s families.

Because of these ancient beliefs, China’s one-child policy forces couples to choose between “their future retirement and the lives of their daughters,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, a nonprofit pro-life group who has been tracking the one-child policy since the late 1980s.

What is the religion hook in this story?

In a way there is none, other than the high-profile role that religious groups have played in protesting both the one-child policy in China and weak efforts by governments worldwide to fight the rising tide of sexual trafficking. Of course, issue of abortion — government-mandated abortions — looms over the debates about the actions of the Chinese government.

In other words, while all three of these hellish stories are rooted in concerns about basic human rights, they are often portrayed as “conservative” issues or even “evangelical” issues because so many religious conservatives are involved in efforts to combat these abuses. Thus, I have topped this post with one of our “Got news?” headlines.

But this could change, because the movement to fight sexual trafficking is broadening. The U.S. government is also quietly concerned about the situation in China.

… (The) most immediate and horrifying consequence of China’s “missing girls” is that it is fueling a growing trade in human beings, especially girls and women, say those who are fighting it.

The State Department’s 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report downgraded China to its Tier 2 “watch list,” because it is a “source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.”

While women from many countries are being captured or trafficked into China, North Korean women are especially vulnerable. … If North Korean women protest or try to flee their forced marriages or prostitution houses, they can be “repatriated” to North Korea, said Mr. Lagon. Upon their return, they are treated like criminals and are likely to be beaten, imprisoned or killed, he said.

Laura Lederer, a former State Department official who now is part of Global Centurion, a nonprofit group fighting sex slavery, said that the sex imbalance in China is leading to a “new tsunami of demand.”

Stay tuned and, by all means, please watch for coverage in other newspapers and wire services.

The lead story on The New York Times Web site this morning was a heartbreaking report about Haiti’s children in the aftermath of the earthquake. The lead story now, of course, is about Apple’s new iPad (insert joke here about the name). Lest we drown in our obsession with Apple products (I’m included in this crowd), let’s take a minute to read about Haiti’s children.

Haiti’s children, 45 percent of the population, are among the most disoriented and vulnerable of the survivors of the earthquake. By the many tens of thousands, they have lost their parents, their homes, their schools and their bearings.

But as Haitian and international groups begin tending to the neediest among them, many children are clearly traumatized and at risk.

“There are health concerns, malnutrition concerns, psychosocial issues and, of course, we are concerned that unaccompanied children will be exploited by unscrupulous people who may wish to traffic them for adoption, for the sex trade or for domestic servitude,” said Kent Page, a spokesman for Unicef.

After the earthquake, families like Kristin Heaton’s were tremendously concerned that their process to adopt children from Haiti would come to a halt. One of our readers pointed out this religion ghost in a Times article following the Heatons’ struggle to get their new daughters.

Desperate for food and water, Bettania, 7, and Dieunette, 2, were among 53 children whisked out of the ruins of their group home in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 19 in a high-profile rescue made possible by the easing of immigration requirements between the United States and Haiti.

Dieunette arrived caked in dried diarrhea. Bettania’s clothing had to be burned. But they spent the weekend here in rural Nebraska cuddling on a plush sofa, feet warmed by a fire, outfitted like princesses, being hugged and kissed as they ate and drank, laughed and played with a toy poodle. They looked thoroughly contented—perhaps for the first time in their short lives.

“I knew God would find a way to bring them home, but who would have thought like this, through a catastrophic disaster?” said Kristin Heaton, their 49-year-old adoptive mother. “Can you hear them giggling away? It doesn’t feel real.”

We see little glimpses that this family has some sort of faith, but it’s never spelled out. You can see at the words “hope” and “faith” magnets in the picture at the top of the article (presumably, “love” is somewhere else on the fridge). Then there’s a photo of the Heaton family bowing for prayer and the story says the spent hours in prayer after the earthquake. So we have several vague references that this family has faith, but no clear picture of what it would be.

The Today Show (the YouTube clip above), the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Nebraska outlets covered the successful adoption, but none of them extend the story any further. Local news station KETV offered a few more vague quotes.

“It did not go easily. It was difficult and everything that could have gone wrong, I think, went wrong,” said Kristin Heaton. “Yet God got these kids out of there.”

… While that fight goes on, the girls will be shown a new life in Nebraska.

“We are blessed beyond measure,” Kristin Heaton said.

Sounds like there’s a religion angle to be teased out. Perhaps the reporter could have asked the family a really simple question: why did they adopt children in the first place? As Haiti recovers, we’ll probably read more and more adoption stories, but religion should not be treated as window dressing. Of course, some people adopt for reasons other than faith, but this family seems to have something motivating them. The vague references in the story tells me that faith had something to do with it.

Let’s gather ‘round the TV as we celebrate one of America’s biggest holidays, Super Bowl Sunday. And if the game’s a dud we can laugh at the commercials, many of which feature beer and babes.

This year, a new Super Bowl advertiser (Focus on the Family) is paying CBS to air a spot with a different kind of message about (pick one) pro-life or anti-abortion values.

As we could have predicted, some pro-choice (or pro-abortion) groups are SHOCKED that Focus would do such. And Focus is SURPRISED that they are shocked!!!

An Associated Press story available at the Sports Illustrated web site captures the shock and surprise surrounding this ad, which will feature college football star Tim Tebow and his mother:

The New York-based Women’s Media Center was coordinating the protest with backing from the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority and other groups.

“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year — an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jehmu Greene, president of the Women’s Media Center.

“By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers,” the letter said.

(P.S. #1: When did women’s groups come to believe that the Super Bowl’s marathon mix of man-on-man violence and ads that objectify sisters was a hallowed ground that demanded their protection?)

Meanwhile, Focus has gone from not acknowledging the ad to discussing it to (in the AP piece) defending it:

Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, said funds for the Tebow ad were donated by a few “very generous friends” and did not come from the group’s general fund.

Schneeberger said he and his colleagues “were a little surprised” at the furor over the ad.

“There’s nothing political and controversial about it,” he said. “When the day arrives, and you sit down to watch the game on TV, those who oppose it will be quite surprised at what the ad is all about.”

“We understand that some people don’t think very highly of what we do,” Schneeberger said. “We’re not trying to sell you a soft drink—we’re not selling anything. We’re trying to celebrate families.”

(P.S. #2: I once had a close friend who routinely embarrassed me in social situations. Time after time he would do things that others found offensive. He was always surprised by people’s reactions, but then he would go on to offend again and again. I wonder what ever happened to him.)

The story is popping up in papers and other media outlets nationwide, but so far I haven’t seen any local angles or coverage in Colorado papers.

It would also be intriguing to see coverage that explored some of these related issues more deeply:

* What kinds of advocacy ads have aired or not aired on previous Super Bowls?

* What does this conflict say about the unique and elevated status the Super Bowl has in our national life?

* Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision opening the doors to greater political advocacy by corporations, what’s the role of free speech on mega-events like the Super Bowl?

For his part, Tebow has asked viewers to respect a point of view that led to his being born:

“I know some people won’t agree with it, but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe,” Tebow said. “I’ve always been very convicted of it (his views on abortion) because that’s the reason I’m here, because my mom was a very courageous woman. So any way that I could help, I would do it.”