Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
In the wake of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a few mainstream journalists are still trying to get a handle on what happens next with issues of religious liberty in the U.S. military.
The other day my three-year-old daughter told me she missed her cemetery. (Until a few weeks ago, we lived near a beautiful, historic cemetery in Washington, D.C. We’d take walks in it most days and read tombstones as we played and ran around.) I loved hearing her say that because I always loved the cemeteries I grew up around, too. As a pastor’s kid, I wasn’t shielded from death and dying. I love Lutheran funerals so much that I’ve been known to attend ones for members of my congregation I wasn’t close to. And while I never planned out my wedding, I have written down what hymns I want sung at my funeral. And I’ve told my husband I want as simple a box as possible and no embalming. I do want a nice tombstone and I want my family to come visit me often.
This was the year when the media took a keen interest in what they termed “Islamophobia.” This was all the craze for a while, with Time running a cover story headlined “Is America Islamophobic?” The actual text of the story acknowledged no evidence to substantiate the charge, but had paragraphs like this:
Each day brings forth new revelations from the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables. As I’m writing this, I can read about tension between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Or about how Al-Jazeera, it turns out, isn’t independent from Qatar‘s government. And everyone is weighing in on whether WikiLeaks is the greatest thing to ever happen to transparent governance, or the worst. Even Umberto Eco.
Religion writer and reporter Mark Oppenheimer mentioned GetReligion on his worthwhile blog. He highlighted our critiques of two recent pieces — the Arizona gay Mormon suicide story and the Amish forgiveness story.
Last week I mentioned that I’d been the unlucky recipient of an intimate encounter with a TSA agent. As many more Americans have undergone the “how’s your father” with the agents, stories have been getting out about Americans wondering how much of this is security versus security theater. Here’s one mom’s story. Here’s Penn Jillette’s account.
It seems like every few months I read about another celebrity who has suddenly discovered they’re Jewish or that they at least might like to be.
The other day we looked at the excellent Washington Post profile of Zachary Chesser, the American Muslim who threatened violence against South Park creators for not depicting Muhammad. And now we have another intriguing profile of another American Muslim terrorist. This time the report is in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The paper received seven handwritten letters from Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native who shot two men outside an Army recruiting office, killing one. That man, Pvt. William A. Long, is pictured here.
