Some newspapers become obsessed with localizing just for the sake of localizing. Editors will look at something that happened in India and then get their reporters to find local Indian-Americans to comment on the issue. I know first-hand because I have been asked to do these stories in the past.

Similarly, some reporters will take a larger trend and try to apply it to religious groups: “Lots of people are on Facebook—pastors, too!” If you’re seeing a trend, chances are that it’s making waves in religious communities as well. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to take a step further with these kinds of trend stories. Take the pastors who join Facebook. Who cares? What makes them different from another Facebook user?

Using the Catholic app Confession news hook, Lisa Fernandez takes a look at how faith apps are growing in popularity for the Mercury News.

This piece takes the “look, religious people are doing it, too” approach to a new level by looking at how the technologies might conflict with religious practices.

Just before sundown Friday, a group of plugged-in Jews released a custom-made app to alert their Facebook friends and Twitter followers that they were checking out, logging off and generally not answering their e-mails for the next 25 hours.

Then, with iPhones tucked away in a cutesy sleeping bag, these frenetic, high-tech Jews met — in real time — at an organic ranch in Los Altos Hills to drink wine, break bread and honor the Jewish mandate of not using technology on Shabbat.

This just-off-the-shelf smartphone application, the Sabbath Manifesto, was designed by members of a Jewish nonprofit called Reboot. And it’s just one of a plethora of religious apps bombarding the online landscape as each faith tries to stake its claim.

Many see these electronic forms of religion as an extension of age-old concepts of study, prayer and evangelism. Others see the apps as potentially controversial, or confusing at best, when a Buddhist meditation timer or the teachings of Jesus are juxtaposed next to “Angry Birds” and a Netflix account.

The juxtaposition idea almost works for me, but as an occasional “Angry Birds” player and Netflix watcher, what’s the controversy? That said, there isn’t anything particularly zen about having my Twitter, NPR and gchat apps going at the same time.

The article especially looks at some Muslim apps and gives some pricing and download specifics, offering mostly a positive perspective.

Tahir Anwar, whom some have nicknamed the “high tech imam” at the South Bay Islamic Association where he works and regularly is plugged in to his Apple products, has no problem with religious apps.

…In fact, Anwar helped design a few apps now being offered both for free and for sale, at his friend Azmat Tanauli’s company, Salik Productions, in Sunnyvale. Anwar’s sons, Adam, 9, and Mohammad, 4, and his nephews, Abdullah, 8, and Ahmad, 7, regularly whip out an iPad or other electronic device to listen to the Arabic translations of the 99 names of Allah through an app, Divine Names, or study the 569 words in the Koran with Quranic Words. Anwar also helped create an app to advise Muslims on what to do, step-by-step, on their first hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca.

“Every day, there are about 1,000 new downloads,” Tanauli said. “People are downloading from everywhere — the UK, China, Indonesia.”

Since the company launched these apps in March 2009, Tanauli said, about 500,000 sacred Muslim apps have been downloaded. By far, learning the words in the Koran has been most popular, he said, despite the regular fee of nearly $15 for the app.

I’d be curious if anyone expresses concerns about religious apps, either from a Muslim perspective or another perspective. Fernandez spoke with Rachel Wagner, religion professor at Ithaca College and author of Sacred Texting, about some of the questions raised with using the apps.

Other religions, and different branches within them, offer apps too. Hindu apps present virtual incense and coconut offerings to the elephant-headed god Ganesh. The Gurbani World app allows Sikhs to listen and watch morning and evening Sikh prayers. Buddhists can download the Ultimate Buddhist Library, and numerous mobile Koans, or riddles. Bible Shaker offers Bible verses at the touch of the screen, with the option to e-mail Romans 5:11, for example, to all your friends.

As Wagner and others have pointed out, these religious apps sometimes raise curious questions. Can you bring a smartphone with a downloaded Koran or Torah into the bathroom? Is it rude to stare at your iPhone or Droid in church even if you’re staring at a New Testament app? Do virtual offerings to the Hindu gods count?

Something tells me that the most significant questions are not whether you can read religious texts on the toilet or whether it’s rude to use an app. It seems like there are bigger questions about whether apps alter a religious ritual or experience? Do they form a religious experience differently than if they didn’t have the app? Nice questions are being raised, but are there are more to explore that seem particular to religion?

The Tennessean had a front-page story last week with lots of religion in it. You can get a good feel for the tone of the piece from the headline “Tennessee bill would jail Shariah followers: Proposed law is ‘nonsense,’ critic says.”

The story left me confused, however. Namely, while the story asserted that Muslim’s private religious practice would be banned if this bill passed, I didn’t have the foggiest idea how that would happen. Particularly since we’re told that the bill exempts the “peaceful” practice of Islam. Thankfully the online version of the story includes a link to the actual bill. I read it (you can do so here) to find out some of the answers to the many questions I had.

The difference between the bill and the article’s characterization of the bill was significant. The article describes Shariah as the “Islamic code … which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers.” I couldn’t help but think that foot washing and prayers weren’t what the bill writers had in mind when crafting legislation. And, in fact, they didn’t. They don’t mention the terms “feet washing” or “prayers” in the bill but they do mention words that don’t appear in the story, such as “jihad” and “terrorism.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d oppose the bill no matter (not shocking news since I’m libertarian), but the bill is obviously an attempt to give Tennessee more legal tools to fight those Muslim organizations that support terrorism.

While I happen to disagree with the means by which the lawmakers are going about it, that’s just not made clear in the story. It’s not that the views of the bill’s proponents are absent from the story, it’s just that they’re not explained well. We’re told, for instance, that they think Shariah can be a “danger” to homeland security but we’re not told precisely how, even though the text of the bill itself gives more than enough explanation for why its authors have this view. Here’s the lede:

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who’s practicing it.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

Imam Mohamed Ahmed of the Islamic Center of Nashville on 12th Avenue South said Islam teaches its followers to obey the law of the land. Shariah law, he said,
teaches moral values.

“What do you mean, really, by saying I can’t abide by Shariah law?” he said. “Shariah law is telling me don’t steal. Do you want me to steal and rob a bank?”

The story might have had a more balanced tenor if right up front it noted that the peaceful practice of Islam is protected but that anyone who, according the bill, supports organizations involved in “sharia-based jihad and terrorism” commits a felony. It’s just highly debatable, at best, and to say that people who practice feet washing and prayer are going to jail for 15 years, under this bill. Unless the version I’m reading is different than the one the reporter had access to.

Basically the bill has a section where it defines its terms. It says that for the purposes of legislation, peaceful practice of Islam is fine and only criminalizes provision of material support to groups that support terror in the name of Sharia (which it defines as “sharia organizations”). So the bill further defines, for the purposes of legislation, “Sharia” as those rules that are said to come from Allah or the prophet Mohammeded that also “include directly or indirectly the encouragement of any person to support the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States or Tennessee Constitutions, or the destruction of the national existence of the United States or the sovereignty of this state, and which includes among other methods to achieve these ends, the likely use of imminent violence.”

Don’t get me wrong, I still oppose this bill (its definition of terms is but one reason for this) but I just don’t get the feeling it’s well presented by the article.

By attacking straw men, such as feet-washing, praying and prohibitions on bank robbing, we miss out on an opportunity to explore some very real concerns that people have about Sharia as it’s practiced in the world today.

And I’m not suggesting that the reporter should have talked about Sharia laws about capital punishment for conversion to Christianity or the taking of four wives or stoning rape victims, either. It’s not that these things should be ignored by U.S. reporters writing about this important conversation going on in Western democracies trying to deal with assimilation of Muslims, it’s just that this bill has nothing to do with these examples, either. Rather, this bill deals with jihad violence. A discussion on the merits of the bill as it relates to that would be more illuminating.

I think the way the topic is handled might also give short shrift to the extensiveness of Sharia. Take this, for example:

Charles Haynes, a senior scholar with the First Amendment Center in Nashville, disagrees. He said the bill is based on a complete misunderstanding of Shariah law, which he described as a set of voluntary religious rules, similar to Catholic canon law or Jewish religious law.

It’s certainly true that Sharia covers areas similar to canon law. But it also goes much, much further. The implementation of Sharia varies widely, of course, but it’s fair to say that the distinction between church and state is a foreign one. The legislation specifically says that it’s targeting the political aspect of the Muslim code. (There’s so much interesting civil liberties meat to this claim, one that is challenging for those of us who live in countries with Christian or Jewish histories to process.)

The rest of the quotes from Haynes are also great and would be excellent as part of a larger conversation on how to fight terrorism that is religious in nature. I’d love to hear perspectives from across the spectrum about how well our laws are handling this threat. Get classic liberal Judge Richard Posner, or someone like him, to weigh in. In “Not A Suicide Pact,” he argued that civil liberties need to be adjusted to deal with public safety vis-a-vis terrorism.

Following up Haynes quotes with someone from the Islamic Center of Murfreesbro just gives us more of one side of the debate. All of their quotes are helpful. But they need to be part of a conversation that isn’t one-sided.

Claiming the bill criminalizes peaceful, private religious practice is debatable, at best. Neglecting to mention related federal precedents that recently passed Constitutional muster at the Supreme Court, also might not be helpful.

Since this bill aims to address those who provide material support to any group planning to engage in an act of terrorism (by enabling the Attorney General to designate identified groups and then prosecute those aiding them), it seems to me that a better discussion might focus on whether such aims are reasonable, achievable or present any civil rights barriers.

So again, I wish that this article would have done a better job of backing up its claim that the private practice of Sharia would get you a 15-year-jail sentence. I wish that we could have either gotten a more neutral description of what the bill would accomplish, practically, or at least get the bill’s proponents to weigh in on what it would do, practically. And focusing on foot-washing while literally ignoring terrorism — the clear aim of the bill from its definition (“AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code … relative to terrorism”) to its final page — just doesn’t seem fair.

Of course, I also hope that we’ll see an article that takes Sharia’s potential conflicts with state and federal constitutions more seriously — for everyone’s sake.

Bizarre.

That’s my first reaction to a 1,900-word investigative report by The Oklahoman concerning the church attended by two Oklahoma City Council candidates.

Downright bizarre. That’s my second reaction.

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure whether I’m reacting to the nature of the allegations or the Page 1 Sunday report itself.

Cue the theme music from “Jaws,” and let’s dive right in. The top of the story:

Two Oklahoma City Council candidates attend a church observers have criticized for flying the Confederate flag, making political commentary from the pulpit and training children to use automatic weapons at a church camp.

Windsor Hills Baptist Church’s activities have been described as radical by critics who fear it could influence city council decisions if its members are elected Tuesday.

OK, immediately, one thing jumps out at me (besides the freaky image of kids shooting guns at church camp, I mean): the vagueness of the sourcing.

A church observers have criticized?

Activities … described as radical by critics?

Seriously, this is a Page 1 Sunday story, and that’s all you’ve got in the way of sourcing?

Keep reading, and the main sources turn out to be an official with the local chapter of Americans for Separation of Church and State, two former church members (one quoted anonymously) and a black pastor critical of the Confederate flag. In a letter posted on the church website, one writer accuses the publication of basing the story on the “evidence” of a “notorious liar” and “his buddy.”

The story describes the church this way:

Windsor Hills Baptist Church is an independent, fundamental Baptist church. The church runs Windsor Hills Baptist School and Oklahoma Baptist College, all at 5517 NW 23 in Oklahoma City.

My first thought was that perhaps the reporters meant to write fundamentalist church. But fundamental is how the church describes itself on its website.

As for the allegations themselves, this appears to be the full extent of the claim concerning the flying of the Confederate flag:

Oklahoma Baptist College, which trains preachers, holds the North South School of the Prophets at the end of the school year.

Students divide up sides and are judged on sermons they give. Photographs of the event posted on the college’s website show one group of students holding American flags and the other group of students holding Confederate flags.

Now, again, the word “bizarre” comes to mind. But do those circumstances impress you as the same thing as the church actually flying the Confederate flag outside its building? Unless I’m missing something, that hasn’t been alleged, despite the claim in the lede.

As for the children learning to shoot guns, the story goes out of its way to insinuate that the church is involved in “militia-type training.” Yet a state official shoots down that allegation:

Ed Cunnius, the coordinator of the state Wildlife Conservation Department’s shotgun training program, said the camp has some of the best supervision that he sees when presenting the department’s program. The department has taken its basic Shotgun Training Education Program to the camp for three years.

Cunnius said before the first time he went to the camp he heard something about it being a militia-style camp, checked into it and found the accusation false.

“If it was something that was out of the way or something that wasn’t kosher, I would be the first one not to be there,” he said. “I wouldn’t expose the department to any kind of controversy, or I wouldn’t expose my program to anything that would be questionable.”

As for the church possibly violating its tax-exempt status by engaging in political activities, this seems to be the strongest of the allegations. Of course, that’s not so sensational — from a headline-making perspective — as Confederate flags and kids shooting guns.

Among those questioning the attacks on the council candidates’ religion is Patrick B. McGuigan, a former editorial page editor for The Oklahoman. In a letter on the church’s website, McGuigan writes:

I believe all 13 people who ran for City Council should be honored for their willingness to serve, not denigrated for their religious beliefs. In terms of politics, robust debate clarifying contrasting policy views is important to assure citizens are well informed, yet some of the things said and done these last few weeks fall more into the category of slander than of robust debate. To whatever extent these words of mine are heard and read, I encourage civility by all parties, and generosity about the motivations of those with contrasting points of view.

Bizarre.

Downright bizarre.

As I have stated before, human-rights activists have long viewed the safety of Egypt’s ancient Coptic churches as a highly symbolic issue — the canary in the coal mine that is that complex land.

This is especially important right now, as the fragile coalition that currently leads Egypt tries to find its way along the tricky road from what was to what is and on to what will be. Many people are overjoyed and elated. Others are being cautious and quiet — with good cause.

However, I think anyone who knows anything about Egypt would have to say that journalists should be keeping their eyes on the actions of the military.

After all, the army is in charge right now.

With that fact in mind, the following Assyrian International News Agency report is troubling, to say the least:

For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army’s use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday’s army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

“When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen,” said Monk Ava Bishoy. “Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest.” …

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. “The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying ‘Lord have mercy’ without running away. This is what really upset them,” he said. “As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Victory, Victory’.”

These are inflammatory and disturbing images, to say the least. The story includes similar reports from other monasteries, including more injuries from live ammunition and monks being beaten with batons by soldiers.

It is crucial, at this stage, to realize that there have been high-profile demonstrations in recent weeks in which many Muslims and Copts have stood together in calling for reform and for peace and cooperation between the vast majority of the nation that is Muslim and the 10 percent of the population that is Coptic, as well as members of Egypt’s other minority religions.

As always, however, it’s crucial to remember that there is no one Islam in this scene, including in the leadership of the nation’s army. That is a fact that is worthy of news coverage. Period.

One would hope that mainstream journalists would realize the intense symbolism of Egyptian soldiers attacking ancient monasteries that contain some of the land’s most treasured Christian icons, altars, relics and texts. Live ammunition used on monks who have attempted to guard the perimeter of their sanctuary? If there is another side to this report — and their might well be — journalists need to find it.

But here is the key: Let me know if you see a single mainstream news report that follows up on these attacks. Got news?

Alas, once again, these attacks seem to be material worthy of “Christian” or even “conservative” news, while mainstream journalists have not tuned in the reports. Here is a typical Google News search. Search around.

Well, there is this Associated Press report:

The deputy to Osama bin Laden issued al-Qaida’s second message since the Egyptian uprising, accusing the nation’s Christian leadership of inciting interfaith tensions and denying that the terror network was behind last month’s bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed 21 and sparked protests.

The message Friday from Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 leader of the terror network, comes amid renewed Muslim-Christian tension over the slaying of a Coptic priest and a dispute involving a monastery.

As with his first message, delivered Feb. 18, al-Zawahri in his new, 35-minute videotape makes no mention of the protests or Hosni Mubarak’s fall from power. Al-Qaida had advocated for the destruction of Mubarak’s regime — and al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a failed militant uprising against the former president in the 1990s.

But the pro-democracy tone of the protests, led by secular liberals, contrasted greatly with the Islamic state al-Qaida envisions. In the latest video, al-Zawahri devoted much of the time to the Muslim-Christian divide. But he denied that his group was behind the Alexandria bombing, according to a transcript by the SITE Intel group, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages.

Ahead of the bombing, extremist Islamic websites affiliated with al-Qaida circulated lists of Coptic churches in Egypt and Europe — including one that was hit on New Year’s — along with instructions on how to attack them.

Egypt is a complex and dangerous place at the moment, even as the celebrations continue. Journalists attempting to find their way deeper into this coal mind might want to keep an eye on the canaries.

I like the concept of a Washington Post story on the Maryland Senate’s passage of a same-sex marriage bill.

I’m not in love with the execution of the piece, which focuses on Catholic lawmakers.

Read the story’s opening, and it seems that the state’s three top leaders are all devout Catholics, and all are bucking the church on the issue:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley regularly attends a weekday Mass and has sent his four children to Catholic schools.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) used to teach and coach at his old Catholic high school in Annapolis.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) grew up serving as an altar boy in the idyllic wood-frame Catholic church his family helped build in Clinton.

But the presence of three Catholics at the helm in Annapolis hasn’t stopped a same-sex marriage bill from wending its way through the legislature, triggering deep disappointment among church leaders as it suggests a waning of Catholic influence in this heavily Catholic state.

Not so fast, though. Keep reading, and the story gets a little more complicated. So much so that one wonders if the headline — Md’s top leaders cross Catholic hierarchy on gay marriage — isn’t a tad misleading. Or maybe a whole lot misleading.

To wit:

— O’Malley has said he’ll sign the bill if it reaches his desk. But far from advocating same-sex marriage, he seems to be willing to accept that terminology because he believes that “civil unions” should provide gays with the same legal protections as heterosexual couples:

“I’d be willing to sign any law that reaches me as long as it protects rights equally. I’m not going to get hung up on the words used to describe equal protection under the law.”

— Busch comes across as a nominal Catholic. He won’t say how often he attends Mass and readily acknowledges that “I’m not a guy who makes every Sunday.”

— And Miller characterizes himself as “not a very good Catholic.” Despite that, he actually voted against this particular bill. In fact, this is how a Baltimore Sun story describes him:

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, another opponent, also believes Marylanders would reject same-sex marriage at referendum, in part because the question would share the 2012 ballot with President Barack Obama’s re-election.

Miller predicted that Obama’s name will motivate two constituencies likely to oppose same-sex marriage: Conservatives voting against the president and blacks who supported Obama in record numbers two years ago.

How exactly is Miller — as an opponent of the same-sex marriage bill — bucking the Catholic hierarchy? This is how the Post explains it:

And although Miller voted against the bill in the Senate on Thursday, he had moved to head off a filibuster attempt by opponents so that it could move forward.

What was Miller’s reasoning for heading off a filibuster? The story doesn’t say.

Confused yet?

I did appreciate that the story gives all of the three top lawmakers an opportunity to discuss their Catholic backgrounds and how their religious beliefs inform — and don’t inform — their politics. For instance, Miller points to his parents to explain one of his first high-profile breaks with the church in his 25-year tenure as Senate president:

In the early 1990s, Miller, a gregarious lawyer, presided over two grueling years of debate over abortion, siding with those who wanted to put protections for women into Maryland law in the event Roe v. Wade was repealed.

Miller said his mother told him that “it was a women’s issue and that I needed to support the women.”

Miller has since been a strong advocate on some issues affecting the Catholic Church, including a proposed tax credit to help bolster its schools. But he said he’s “not a very good Catholic” despite regular attendance at churches in his district.

“I think we should have women for priests,” he said. “I think there should be contraception to stop the spread of AIDs in Africa. I support capital punishment, and I’m pro-choice in the early stages of pregnancy.”

Still, as I read the Post story, I kept looking for concrete details to back up the claim up high that the same-sex marriage bill’s passing “suggests a waning of Catholic influence in this heavily Catholic state.” But outside of this one vote in the state Senate, the story provides no context to back up that statement. No background is given to assess Catholic influence — or not — in the past. No facts are offered to indicate how exactly the reported influence has waned.

At the end of this 1,600-word piece, two things are clear: 1. Three top Maryland lawmakers have Catholic backgrounds. 2. The state Senate narrowly passed a same-sex marriage bill. But where the Catholic church fits in the bill’s passage — and in the state’s political trends — remains extremely murky. At least to me.

Agree? Disagree?

Read the whole story and weigh in with your comments. Remember, GetReligion is concerned about journalism and media coverage, not the same-sex marriage issue itself.

Time magazine has a feature story on the death of Noor al-Maleki, a young Arizona woman who was killed by her own father. He was convicted this week of her so-called “honor killing,” and I write “so-called” because I have trouble putting the word “honor” next to any practice so barbaric as spilling your daughter’s blood in order to cleanse your family’s reputation.

Anyway, reporter Nadya Labi does a good job of tackling the subject by choosing to focus in on this one case. As we discussed just a couple of days ago, the topic is fraught with tension and reporters struggle in covering honor issues. I was thinking back to the story of the Muzzamil “Mo” Hassan and how it would have been covered if he’d been the head of, say, Focus on the Family’s broadcasting division instead of the head of a Muslim TV network.

In this story, we learn about Noor and the mother of her boyfriend, Amal Khalaf. Noor was living with Khalaf because things were very rough at her home. She bristled against her parents’ strict rules — and the marriage they arranged for her — and they didn’t appreciate her independence or acceptance of American freedoms. Much of the story goes through the sequence of events that led to her death. Noor and Khalaf were run over by the Dad’s car. Khalaf survived her injuries. Noor did not.

For his part, Faleh al-Maleki says he only intended to scare his daughter and to spit on her when he accidentally ran the car over them. He was convicted on Feb. 22 and faces up to 46 years in prison. The story does touch on religion, such as here:

Islam doesn’t sanction honor killings, and the practice is not limited to Muslims. The crimes also occur in Christian communities in the Middle East and in non-Muslim communities in India. Last July, for example, after a number of Hindu girls were killed for dating out of caste, the Indian Prime Minister convened a commission to investigate whether harsher laws are needed to curb the crimes.

The majority of crimes, however, do occur in Muslim communities, and some of the perpetrators seem to believe that killing for honor is their religious duty. Strict attitudes toward sexual behavior in Islam — sexual relations outside marriage are punishable by death in Saudi Arabia and Iran — don’t discourage that mind-set.

I don’t know how helpful it is to say that “Islam does this” or “Islam does that.” I’d like more specifics about how Islam doesn’t sanction honor killings or why most honor crimes occur in Muslim communities. These are very complex issues, and I recognize the difficulty of discussing them, but there has to be a bit more in a nice feature-length piece such as this. I’d love to know more about how religious attitudes can influence not just the practice of honor killing but the treatment of women in general. For instance, one thing that I thought of when reading this story was how a single honor killing can exact a huge cost that extends well beyond the family in question. How many women behave a certain way out of fear of being killed? How does it affect the reporting of rapes?

I thought the story was interesting for how much it tried to explain Faleh’s point of view. I’m not saying that you don’t come out of it thinking of him as a monster. You will. And at times it seems like he and his supporters speak a foreign language where up is down. But I think the reporter did a good job of letting him explain his actions as well as he could.

I thought the ending was the most provocative. When Faleh talks about his motivation, he focuses a lot on tribalism:

“The whores … burned us,” Faleh said in another jailhouse conversation with his wife. He added, “They destroyed me.” Seham responded, “May God seek revenge on them, God willing.”

Seham reassured her husband that “the people are not letting you down. They know you are a good-hearted person and have nothing.” At a later point, Faleh urged her to round up Iraqis from his tribe to protest his imprisonment at the American consulate. “No one hates his daughter, but honor is precious, and nothing is better than honor, and we are a tribal society that we can’t change,” Faleh said. “I didn’t kill someone off the street; I tried to give her a chance.”

Haunting quotes. We learn that Seham, the mother, tried to raise $100,000 in cash for a lawyer. She met with an imam at the al-Rasool Mohammed mosque in Peoria. She stopped going when no money was forthcoming. She also failed to get help from the Iraqi Cultural Association.

But the reporter doesn’t just stop there and write that this is evidence that Faleh had no support for his actions. She takes it a bit further to ask some pointed questions:

It is easy for the community to distance itself from Faleh now that he is a convicted murderer. But who spoke up for Noor when she was reportedly being brutalized at home and forced into an arranged marriage? Did any of Faleh’s contemporaries defend her right to dress herself how she wished? Why is Khalaf’s husband so quick to insist that Noor was a virgin and never involved with his son? Why do the teenage girls at al-Rasool mosque scold Noor for violating the precepts of their religion? …

Asked whether the community has taken away any lessons from Noor’s murder, the owner of an Iraqi grocery store in Peoria nods, explaining, “They don’t want their daughters to become like Noor.”

Saher Alyasry, a mother in her mid-30s praying at al-Rasool mosque, speaks out firmly, in Arabic, while her teenage daughter, rocking a newborn, translates. “I think what he did was right. It’s his daughter, and our religion doesn’t allow us to do what she did,” she says. “A guy who cares about his reputation, he should do that because people will start talking about him if he doesn’t.” When asked if honor is more important than love, she responds, “Yes. What’s the point of loving her if she’s bad?”

Because I have parents who, thank God, love me even when my behavior shames them, these quotes are almost incomprehensible to me. I think the story did a lot to explain how powerful “honor” is in certain cultures, but I sense, in light of that last quote in particular, that a bit more discussion of religious precepts would have taken that understanding much further.

Still, a captivating story about a very sad domestic situation.

Remember Chris Lee, the congressman who resigned after a woman he met on Craigslist sent a suggestive photo to Gawker that he had sent to her? The allegations and the resignation happened so quickly that it fell out of the news cycle fairly quickly.

Two D.C.-area transgender women have contacted Gawker with stories about making connections with the lawmaker through Craigslist. Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Weisman had suggested there was more to the story when he tweeted, “Back story on Chris Lee is gonna be juicy. Lots of reporters were chasing it this fall. None of us could break it.”

Since the resignation, I have held an interesting piece from Steve Kornacki of Salon in my “guilt file,” something I meant to highlight that week but ran out of time. Since new allegations have surfaced, it’s worth looking back at this piece for a look at a section of Gawker’s piece.

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

That’s Gawker’s justification for running the story, apparently. Salon’s Kornacki responds:

Really? A congressman’s apparent use of Craigslist to seek an extramarital sex partner is only news because he also voted against taxpayer-financed abortions and for continuing DADT? It’s not news because … he’s a member of Congress stupidly using a gmail account in his own name to send shirtless images of himself to complete strangers? Would Gawker have not run this story if it involved, say, Rep. John Tierney, a married Massachusetts Democrat who supports public money for abortions and who opposed DADT? (To be clear: I’m not implying anything about Tierney; I picked his name because, geographically, he’s the closest married male congressman to my hometown who holds both of those issue positions.)

Kornacki notes that ironically, a a New Yorker profile reported that Nick Denton once announced that while he is in favor of gay marriage, he is against abortion: “if you’ve got to draw a line somewhere, it might as well be at conception.”

It’s unclear whether there are any religion angles in former Rep. Lee’s particular case. It seems difficult to find any details on his faith, as his profile listed him as Protestant, Religion does come up in Kornacki’s column when he points out that Gawker uses a similar rationalization when writing about John Travolta’s love life.

There’s nothing wrong with hooking up with guys in bathhouses; we firmly believe that consenting adults should have as much sex as humanly possible. But Travolta’s salacious trips to steam rooms are a little unusual considering the circumstances. Not only has he been married to Kelly Preston since 1991 (and fathered three children with her, including one that died and one that’s about to be born any day now), he’s also a prominent member of the Church of Scientology, which believes in “curing” people of their homosexuality. Critics of the church claim that information culled during “auditing sessions”—a process in which members clear themselves of “negative influences” and occasionally brings up details of sexual liaisons—is used to keep celebrities in the closet and in the church. Scientology’s position on homosexuality, needless to say, is controversial. Indeed the church’s hard-line stance has lost them a number of prominent members in recent years.

It’s interesting see religion become the scapegoat here. So guess what guys: if you are a member of a religious body that takes certain views on sexuality, it gives Gawker an excuse to dig into your own sex life. Kornacki suggests that the site is merely rationalizing its stories for the mega hits. Welcome to a Gawker ethic in religion reporting.

For whatever reason, it’s obvious that the story of the faith-based wrestler Joel Northrup has struck some kind of national chord in the hearts and minds of evangelicals, sports fans and sports fans who are evangelicals. Young Joel’s decision to forfeit rather than to engage in combat against a female opponent — Cassy Herkelman — has really ticked of some people.

Nevertheless, I stand by what I said in my original post: I have been pleasantly surprised by the respectful tone of most of the mainstream news coverage — as opposed to opinion writing — of this story.

Then again, there have been some glaring exceptions.

As a rule, the pros at ESPN seem to be divided on the issue of whether faith issues should be included as relevant material in sports coverage. However, a recent ESPN.com essay — not a news story — by the highly talented and respected Rick Reilly openly raised another issue: Are minority religious beliefs worthy of respect?

Let’s jump in at the pivot point in the piece:

The Herkelmans — and most of the state of Iowa — praised Northrup for being a boy of faith. “It’s his religion and he’s strong in his religion,” says Megan Black, the only other girl who made state. (These were the first two in the state’s history. Black lost both her matches.) “You have to respect him for that.”

Why?

Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don’t we know better? If my God told me to poke the elderly with sharp sticks, would that make it morally acceptable to others? And where does it say in the Bible not to wrestle against girls? Or compete against them? What religion forbids the two-point reversal?

Remember, Northrup didn’t default on sexual grounds. Didn’t say anything about it being wrong to put his hands in awkward places.

Again let me stress that this is opinion writing, which is normally the kind of work that GetReligion scribes avoid mentioning. However, I agree with several readers (and a GetReligionista or two) that this piece offers interesting insights into beliefs and attitudes that have helped shape some, repeat some, of the news coverage.

Meanwhile, some journalists have continued to probe Northrup’s beliefs and motives.

In particular, this blog item at CNN.com contains some interesting follow-up quotations from the controversial Christian student-athlete.

The high school wrestler in Iowa who forfeited a match against a girl in a state tournament last week says he objected both to “compromising” positions that such a match could entail and to the idea of inflicting violence on a girl.

“Wrestling is a combat sport, and at times it gets violent, and you get put in moves and holds that are comprising,” said Joel Northrup, a sophomore. “I just don’t believe it’s right that a boy and a girl should, in this manner, wrestle.”

Northrup’s dad, Jamie, said that the decision to forfeit was his son’s alone but that it reflected the family’s Christian convictions.

“Even though there’s no specific Scripture that addresses wrestling with girls, there is the biblical Christian principle of treating women with respect and dignity,” Jamie Northrup said, “and not looking at them as objects to be defeated on the wrestling mat to be, in some cases, groped or slammed.”

Is this story over? I would think so at this point.

Then again, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Maureen Dowd-Frank Rich camp took another run at it. Would they dissect the same case in the same way if the male dissenter was an Orthodox Jew or a Muslim? I think that’s a valid question and one that might show up, sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, for GetReligion purposes, please help us keep looking for constructive coverage of this story that focuses on news content. You know, things like new quotes and facts.

ILLUSTRATION: An early AP video report on the case.

Just a few days ago, a jury convicted an Arizona man of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and leaving the scene of an accident. Faleh Hassan Almaleki’s main victim was his daughter. This crime was an “honor killing.” No one disputes that the daughter was targeted for becoming too “Westernized.” In fact, the phrase “honor killing” is everywhere in the media coverage.

Earlier this month, a New York jury took only an hour to find Muzzamil “Mo” Hassan, the founder of a Muslim television station, guilty of beheading his wife, Aasiya. But from the beginning, media reports have taken pains to emphasize that this was “only” domestic violence, not an “honor killing.” Murder of spouses happens, sadly, all the time all over the world. My previous congregation lost a beloved couple in an absolutely horrific murder-suicide. The thing that was interesting about this Hassan murder was that the perpetrator had launched — to much favorable media coverage — a TV network designed to improve the image of Muslims and the victim was beheaded after she was stabbed 40, 50 or 60 times.

Beheading is uncommon in America. History is replete with stories of beheadings, of course. But in recent years, most beheadings are associated with Islamic terror. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl, telecommunications consultant Nick Berg, and many other foreigners have met that gruesome fate from Muslim terrorists. Perhaps it’s just a fad but perhaps it’s more common in some cultures and perhaps there are reasons for this.

Anyway, NPR’s All Things Considered attempted a bit of media analysis about the murder in the piece “Buffalo’s Muslims Battle Stereotype After Murder.” Considering it was written two years after the Associated Press’ “Gruesome Killing Poses Another Test For Us Muslims,” it didn’t really advance the story very much. If anything, the previous story was much better. Both talk about how the killing became a crucible for Muslims and how some responded by working to raise awareness about domestic violence.

What neither story does is explain anything about beheading. Maybe I’m the only one who is super curious about this particular facet of the killing, but I’d just like more information about the practice. My father is a pastor and I have enough friends who are pastors or counselors that I know that cultural norms do come into play in domestic abuse scenarios. That is, in moments of rage, culture frequently informs the actions of the perpetrators and victims. It just seems odd not to discuss that in a high-profile killing such as this.

The story’s main aim seems to be about dispelling the idea that so-called honor killing played any role. Right up top we’re told:

When Aasiya Hassan was murdered in 2009, some journalists immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was an honor killing — but it wasn’t.

Now, I reviewed coverage of Hassan’s murder a couple of years ago and I’m not sure this is true. You can read what I wrote here (and what tmatt wrote here) but the situation was such that the National Organization of Women in New York complained about the wholesale lack of coverage. While that group did raise the possibility it was an “honor killing,” mainstream media reports didn’t. Or, if they did, they dismissed it. I was surprised that the coverage was so shallow and slight, considering how high profile the killer and victim were and, again, the beheading aspect.

Later in the NPR piece we’re told:

Some journalists assumed that the killing was sanctioned by Islamic law — that Aasiya had dishonored her family by filing for divorce and paid for that with her life.

That story line, said Qazi*, was everywhere.

“There was this constant reminder of this monster who we all tried to project and help to establish a lifestyle television channel to show who we are and what we stand for — and then we get this,” he said.

*Previously a Dr. Khalid Qasi, a leader in the Buffalo Muslim community, is introduced. I assume this is the same person. Again, I’m not entirely sure this passive construction and reference to “some journalists” is accurate. I think that many, many, many people probably wondered whether this was an honor killing. It’s just that my review of the journalism itself indicates that journalists weren’t in that group. They were behaving more like the journalists behind this NPR piece, raising the issue in order to dispel it.

Also, I think this appeal to Islamic law is a bit clumsy. While it’s silly to pretend that honor killings aren’t a problem in some Muslim communities, it’s not accurate to characterize it as Islamic law. Instead, I think it’s important to note how certain cultures combine with certain readings of Koranic verses to create the acceptance or embrace of honor killings.

Anyway, let’s get to the dispelling part:

Remla Parthasarathy, an instructor at the Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic at University at Buffalo Law School, says the Hassan murder was a clear-cut case of domestic abuse.

“Honor killings are something that is sanctioned and approved by the extended family, that wasn’t the case here,” she said. “Religious leaders in the Muslim community came out and denounced it and they said it wasn’t an honor killing and I respect that.”

In fact, no one could recall ever seeing Mo Hassan at the mosque.

It is interesting to compare that last line with some of the dramatically favorable coverage Hassan received — including from NPR — when he started his Muslim network. But what I found interesting about this honor killing definition is that other than this Buffalo Law School clinic instructor’s assertion, we don’t know anything about the extended family or whether they knew about the situation at all. I’m happy to accept this definition, based on what we’ve seen in many other honor killing situations, but I just think more information would be helpful.

In fact, if the whole point of the story is about how people thought this was an honor killing but it is “just” domestic violence, it seems a fuller discussion of honor killing would serve the story well.

Instead the story reads as shallow and promoting a particular view. What’s more, the “honor killing” emphasis means that we don’t get a good discussion of whether there is anything in Islam that is used by its followers to subjugate women — something Eric Gorski discussed well in his piece two years ago. Many paragraphs are devoted to discussion of domestic violence, but none discuss religion. We’re told that the community discusses domestic violence but only as a function of being an “immigrant” community, not as a function of any particular religious views. As such, the piece reads more like public relations and less like a thoughtful look at the particulars of domestic violence in a given religious community.

As I mentioned Tuesday night, I had been waiting 12 months for the Los Angeles Times to write the postscript on Cardinal Roger Mahony’s troubled 25-year tenure atop the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the country.

Here it is, appearing during Mahony’s last week on the job. And it’s pretty good.

Opening with the great detail that Mahony was once the leading American candidate to replace Pope John Paul II (a darkhorse, but still on Vatican watchers’ radars), it then delivers this most-apt nut:

A lot had happened in the intervening decade.

Mahony, who retires in the coming week as head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, leaves a legacy that church historians will puzzle over for years. Once a shining star — perhaps the shining star — of the American church, his reputation suffered from his handling of a devastating sexual abuse scandal that shattered the lives and trust of many Catholics and led to the largest civil settlement by any archdiocese, a staggering $660million.

Yet such were Mahony’s strengths that he remains respected, even beloved, by many in his flock who see him as fiercely devoted to social justice, willing to fight for progressive reforms in the church and motivated by a lifelong passion for easing the burdens faced by Latino immigrants. He also kept the archdiocese from financial collapse after the sex abuse settlement, an achievement that required tough and sometimes unpopular decisions.

This set the tone for a fair, although maybe a bit reserved, article exploring Mahony’s legacy, which the Times’ characterized as “mixed.”

That’s a bit oversimplified. More accurate, I think, would be to say his legacy was overwhelmed by his handling of pedophile priests. Though I take exception to saying Mahony may have been a victim of circumstances — “Whether through bad luck, bad timing or bad judgment” — LAT religion reporter Mitchell Landsberg generally strikes the right note here.

That’s no small acknowledgement.

Landsberg’s story is broken into three primary sections, which happen to be the three major issues that determine Mahony’s legacy: working for social justice, building the gorgeous Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and his failings at protecting his flock from pedophiles priests.

These sections are informative, but they’re a bit underdeveloped. That’s likely a result of the fact that this story is only 1,800 words. Nowadays, that’s actually a pretty long story for the Times; five years ago this article would have been about twice as long.

Landsberg concludes what may very well be the last story a Times religion reporter writes about Mahony — let’s hope the clergy abuse revelations are exhausted — with a very poignant quote from former Angeleno leader who still commands a lot of respect:

“He inherited a situation that nobody had predicted,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a confidant throughout Mahony’s tenure.

“He did as good a job as you can do … but obviously people are going to remember him more for that, which is sad.”

Great quote. It doesn’t underplay Mahony’s failings but it puts them in context of repeated mistakes made by Catholic bishops before the turn of the century. And it ends on an appropriately melancholy and mixed sentiment.