The frame game continues, with a coalition of conservative religious groups — the traditionalist wings of most major religious groups — insisting that their battle with the Obama White House is not essentially about birth control, but about religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of course, says the battle is about birth control and quality health care.
Jeremy Lin, the Knicks' Tim Tebow?
This morning I asked my sports reporter husband if he knew who Jeremy Lin was. He laughed and responded: “Do you know who Billy Graham is?” Feeling a little silly, I started reading up on the couch-surfing basketball star who is apparently taking the world by storm, or at least the NBA. “Forget Tebowing,” the Associated Press says. “Linsanity is the new sports sensation.”
Not a pretty kind of truck stop
A story is not the same thing as a report. A report might give you all the facts you need to know (the five W’s and H). But a story tells a tale. A story has characters, details, insight. There’s a beginning, a middle, an end.
Newsweek covers "The War on Christians"?
For several years now (click here for an early post) I have been asking a rather basic journalistic question: “What is Newsweek?”
Americans really are ignorant boobs
Rick Santorum is not a Protestant. He has not called for public schools to teach creationism. Notwithstanding claims made by the Telegraph that the former Senator from Pennsylvania is an evangelical and a creationist — Mr. Santorum remains not guilty of these charges.
Frame game: Birth control vs. religious liberty, again
At this point, the media storm about Health and Human Services story is growing and becoming more complex.
That missing church-state angle in NYC
The clock is ticking in New York City for the many churches that face eviction under the court ruling that states that churches — unlike other non-profits — cannot rent space in public schools. Why? Because worship in a government space fundamentally and, one must assume, supernaturally, changes the nature of that space. Click here and here to revisit that situation.
Race, religion, Maryland and gay marriage
Time for a quick flashback into the tmatt GetReligion folder of guilt. That’s the cyber-folder of mainstream news stories that I really want to dissect, but then other big stories come along that demand immediate attention and then, well, you know, the folder gets thicker and thicker. Sigh.
Josh Hamilton's Christian rehab
Baseball star Josh Hamilton’s ongoing battle with alcohol and drug addiction made headlines again this week when the Texas Rangers slugger acknowledged drinking at a Dallas bar.
