Journalism

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Mennonite husband and wife say they have no hatred toward gays; media say they're 'anti-gay'

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According to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Richard and Betty Odgaard are a small-town Mennonite couple whose faith is central to their lives.

That's why, Becket says, the Odgaards kept religious elements intact when they transformed a century-old Iowa church into an art gallery, bistro and flower/gift shop where they hosted weddings.

But the couple got in trouble when they refused to participate in a same-sex wedding.

Becket says:

Through the years, the Odgaards have gladly hired gay employees and served gay customers at the Gallery’s shops and bistro but they cannot personally participate in a wedding ceremony that violates their own religious beliefs.
Although there were numerous nearby venues that actively advertise to host same-sex weddings, when the Odgaards declined to host the wedding, the couple immediately filed a complaint with the State, triggering an intense media campaign against the Odgaards. They were subjected to hate mail, boycotts, personal attacks, and even death threats. Officials in the Civil Rights Commission showed open disdain for the Odgaards’ religious rights, and even denied them access to state court to defend their religious liberty claims. Shockingly, the State refused to dismiss its case against the Odgaards even after the two men — contrary to their prior sworn statements — admitted they had been married months before asking the Odgaards to host their ceremony.
Facing growing pressure from the State and potentially years of legal proceedings, with the risk of being forced to pay the couple’s legal fees, the Odgaards chose to remain true to their faith. They settled the charges brought against them, paying thousands of dollars to the couple, and agreed to stop hosting all weddings. Without this vital income, the Odgaards were forced to close the Gallery.

Fast-forward to this week: The Odgaards are making headlines for launching a billboard campaign promoting marriage as a God-ordained union between one man and one woman.

Or, to borrow the terminology used by news organizations such as the Des Moines Register,  Religion News Service and the New York Daily News, they are erecting "anti-gay marriage" billboards:


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Hey, enjoy some pretend journalism on 'a fake church in a real church'

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The lede read likes something straight out of a farcical newspaper:

As the chandeliers dim against the vaulted ceiling of the Chapel in the Mission, women wearing Baptist-size hats fan themselves while men balance heaping plates of eggs and biscuits on their chino-clad knees. A soloist emerges from the be-robed gospel choir and sings:
“When you call my name, it’s like a little prayer.”
The Madonna hit rings through the former funeral parlor and current performance venue: “Just like a prayer; you know I’ll take you there.” The choir and crowd join in.
The “there” is Sunday’s Finest, host, organizer and reverend-for-the-day Mustafa Khan’s “nonreligious” church service. Khan, who previously worked for Facebook in operations and marketing, has developed a loyal following among the new Mission scenesters with his events, including April’s Silicon Valley Fashion Week, San Francisco’s Daybreaker dawn dance parties, and the recently launched Midnight Brunch. For $30 to $40, guests at Sunday’s Finest get a comfort-food buffet, seats to the show/church service and a sense of small-town closeness in the big city.
“Brothers and sisters,” Khan, decked out in a black-and-gold brocade faux vestment with shimmering lamé pants, greets the guests, “Welcome to Sunday’s Finest. We’re a fake church in a real church.”

But the source of this story is not The Onion.

Rather, it's a piece from the San Francisco Chronicle.

As a Christian, I take my faith seriously and try to be respectful of other people's sincere beliefs — even if I don't share their beliefs.


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An Islamic Caitlyn Jenner? Look in the Los Angeles Times

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The Los Angeles Times is on quite the campaign to push social change, as of late. I'm sure that is shocking to you.

Recently I critiqued a “great reads” piece in that publication about a drag queen in New Mexico who wore a dress to his grandmother’s Catholic funeral. Not even a month later, here’s a San Francisco-based piece about a transgender Muslim man. 

The general theme of both seems to be that the only truth is that found in human experience, as opposed to religious doctrines and traditions. Journalists simply find a sympathetic character and tell their personal story, which of course runs counter to the beliefs of whatever religion this person holds or used to hold. This person’s life illustrates an evolving, personal truth that is so obvious, dissenting voices are not needed. 

To see what I mean, read here:

He walked unsteadily across the tattered green carpet inside the mosque. Out of habit, he stepped for a moment toward the women's section. Then he made his way to the front, where the men pray.
In one sense, everything felt familiar after a childhood spent in Islamic Sunday school every week: the smell of strong cologne worn by so many of the men, the low murmur of Koran recitations.
"Can they tell?" Alex Bergeron recalls asking himself as he knelt for prayer.


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Hard-hitting journalism on Baptist church's acceptance of same-sex marriage? Not exactly

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"Hard-hitting religion journalism," said the subject line on an email from a GetReligion reader.

Methinks that reader enjoys the fine art of sarcasm.

The friendly correspondent shared a link to a front-page story in today's Greenville News in South Carolina.

The story concerns a Baptist church — which disassociated itself from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1999 — deciding to embrace same-sex marriage.

At 1,900 words, the Gannett newspaper's report on "One church's journey" is long enough to be considered in-depth. But hard-hitting journalism it most definitely is not.

If newspapers wrote love songs instead of news articles, this is how one might go — complete with the reporter tweeting unabashedly about the church's "amazing transformation."

Here's the first verse:

The conversation at First Baptist Church Greenville took place well before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer to legalize same-sex marriages.
The dialogue was bold — particularly for one of downtown Greenville’s influential legacy churches that in its earliest years served as a birthplace for revered Southern Baptist institutions.
Would the congregation be willing to allow same-sex couples to marry in the church?
To ordain gay ministers?

 


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Correction please: What was the priest doing when Las Cruces bomb exploded during Mass?

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I don't know about you, but I am curious as to what's going on with those two strange church bombings out in New Mexico.

Maybe you are like me and the detail that is nagging you is that someone -- unless the bombings are a coincidence and not the work of one person or group -- decided to hit a Baptist and a Catholic church. That's an interesting pair of targets. Also, the bombs were fairly minor, so this seemed to be a symbolic attack. Strange, strange, strange.

Authorities report that the first bomb went off at about 8:20 a.m. in a mailbox near the door to the Calvary Baptist church office. Services hadn't start yet.

And the timing of the attack at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church? That's the subject of this post, focusing on the Associated Press report on the attacks. You see, there has been some interesting chatter online about whether editors there really thought this one through. Either that, or the Associated Press copy desk doesn't include a single Catholic who frequents an altar. Then again, you could say the same thing about The Las Cruces Sun-News.

So here is the crucial part of the story. Let us attend:

The next blast came from a trash can outside Holy Cross Catholic at about 8:40 a.m. as Monsignor John Anderson was helping pass Communion.
"I was right in the middle of saying the words 'take and eat, this is my body,' and there was a pow! I mean, I knew it had to be more than a gunshot," Anderson told the Las Cruces Sun-News newspaper. "I didn't know if it was a shotgun blast, I didn't know what. But it was very loud, and I just kept on saying the words."


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Classic M.Z. on Planned Parenthood, media bias, religion and Gosnell flashback

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As I noted the other day, the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway has been involved in a very revealing standoff with The New York Times over a very basic issue of fact linked to the undercover Planned Parenthood videos being released by Catholic activist David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress team.

Hang on. In a minute we'll get to to a recent Eric Metaxas Show interview with M.Z. about the mainstream press, abortion, #AnotherBoy, classic GetReligion, Dr. Kermit Gosnell and several other topics of interest to readers of this weblog.

But first, unless something has happened that I have missed, Hemingway is still trying to get a correction from the world's most powerful newspaper, one noted for the excellence -- under normal circumstances -- of its corrections desk.

So, one more time, here is the Times online form that she has filled out to make her complaint. The key to her claim is the basic fact that almost all websites have built-in clocks, so you know when people posted something or made a basic change in a post. Thus:

Article Headline: Planned Parenthood Tells Congress More Videos of Clinics Might Surface

Date Published: Web: July 20, Print: July 21

Web or Print: Both

Phrase in Question: "Mr. Daleiden released what he called the full recording last week after Planned Parenthood complained of selective, misleading editing."

Your Concern (please limit to 300 words): –- This is completely in error. The full recording was released 21 seconds after the edited version, according to YouTube records, many hours before Planned Parenthood tried the public relations spin accepted by some reporters. ...


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Ghostbusters: Solving faith mystery of CEO who cut his $1 million salary to pay employees more

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Back in April, we spotted a holy ghost in the coverage of a Seattle CEO.

As you may recall, Gravity Payments founder Dan Price cut his own $1 million salary to pay all his employees at least $70,000 a year.

That post asked:

Could Price's weirdness have something to do with his Christian faith, if, as I am assuming, he is a Christian? A blurb on Seattle Pacific's website says one of the books that influenced him was"Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger."
My quick Googling didn't turn up any news reports that mention Price's religion. Nonetheless, I can't help but think a holy ghost might be haunting this story.

Three-plus months later, a GetReligion reader points us to an update from the New York Times.

Thank you for the tip, Christopher!

I must agree: This in-depth piece does a nice job of solving the faith mystery.


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People moving around less; Baptist News Global asks what that means for today's churches

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People moving around less; Baptist News Global asks what that means for today's churches

"Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?" Carole King asked musically. 

Well, researchers at the Barna Group have the answer: More and more Americans are doing so. And Jeff Brumley of the Baptist News Global operation looks at whether people staying put is a good thing or a bad thing for congregations.

First let me say that Jeff is a longtime friend and a veteran religion reporter. Still, what we have here is what GetReligion folks call a "Got news?" story. It's a trend in a religious publication that is certainly worthy of coverage by folks in mainstream newsrooms. 

Pulling from the Barna survey, Brumley says most people nowadays -- 59 percent -- are certain or fairly sure they’ll never move again.

Normally, that would be good news for churches, which thrive on stable communities. But not necessarily this time, Brumley says, quoting Baptist minister Kevin Collison:

"The church has to realize we are now in competition with other community forces," he said. "CrossFit may be their community, more maybe the microbrewery is their community."
Ditto for coffee shops and farmers’ markets, Collison added. In other words, people staying put may present as many challenges for congregations as it does opportunities, he said.

The Baptist Press story quotes a good variety of sources. Besides Pastor Collison, there's David Hull of the Center for Healthy Churches and Roxanne Stone of Barna.  (However, Stone is only quoted via the organization's website.)

Hull spells out another ramification of people's reluctance to move -- a reluctance of clergy to change venues:


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Indianapolis Star tries to listen, but misses BIG question: What was the florist really saying?

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So the First Amendment battles in Indiana roll on.

Apparently, someone at the Indianapolis Star decided that it was time to listen to one or two people on the pro-religious liberty side of this debate, allowing them to tell their stories in their own words. The symbolic hook for this news story was the town of Goshen, a small community containing a number of plot lines.

However, before we get to one of the key voices in this piece -- florist Sally Stutsman -- let's look at one or two crucial pieces of framing material. As always, it is crucial who gets to define the terms of the debate and who, well, gets to use the scare quotes. Another key player is a conservative activist named Eric Miller of Advance America, who at a crucial point in the story declined to be interviewed. Now, read the following carefully:

Advocates are gearing up to push for statewide inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes -- what they see as a next step in the LGBT rights fight -- to ensure those characteristics cannot be reasons for firing people from their jobs, denying housing or education opportunities, or refusing services.
Others, including Miller, contend that would give LGBT Hoosiers “special rights” at the expense of the devoutly religious who oppose same-sex marriages.

Ah, "special rights." What might that term mean? Truth be told, we don't know what the term means in this case because the Star team did not ask anyone on the moral and cultural right to define it. We just know, because of the scare quotes, that this is a bad thing.

In my experience, the term "special rights" is usually used by conservatives to say that they do not believe that homosexuality is the same as race, gender, age, disability or religion, defining characteristics that have always defined protected, or "special," classes of citizens.


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