Journalism

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As Chick-fil-A capitulates, should press characterize Salvation Army and FCA as anti-LGBTQ?

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The headlines came fast and furious after Chick-fil-A revealed Monday that it will capitulate to the gay-rights activists who have attacked it for years.

The Babylon Bee declared that the fast-food chain, known for its mouth-watering chicken sandwiches, had traded its adoring Christian fans for an outraged mob that won’t be appeased until its every demand is met. Which is confusing because I thought the Bee was a satire website, not real news.

But seriously, Chick-fil-A’s decision is sure to upset many of its conservative Christian supporters who have appreciated the company’s emphasis on faith and family values, including closing on Sunday to allow employees time for rest and worship. (As far as I know, the chain hasn’t given into any demands that it start opening on the Lord’s Day.)

But the coverage in many mainstream news stories — and this is perhaps no surprise — fail to reflect that side of the story.

Instead, most of the headlines I’ve seen present this as a case of Chick-fil-A finally doing the right thing and distancing itself from “anti-LGBTQ” groups. Those groups are, of course, the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which if I understand correctly have committed the modern-day sin of believing in a traditional biblical view of marriage.

Among the headlines are this one from the Los Angeles Times (“Chick-fil-A says it won’t donate to anti-LGBTQ groups — at least for now”) and this one from CNN (“Chick-fil-A will no longer donate to anti-LGBTQ organizations”).

The question is: Should the press — if it wants to be fair and accurate — characterize the two Christian groups that way?


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Outspoken but quiet, conservative but progressive: Media profile U.S. Catholic bishops' Latino leader

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Here’s a surefire way to make headlines: Do something significant — and this part is crucial — do it for the first time.

Such was the case with this week’s election of Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles as U.S. Catholic bishops’ first Latino leader.

Prominent religion writers — including the New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias, the Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer and Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins — were on the scene for the milestone vote. It helps, of course, that the bishops met in Baltimore, an easy drive or train ride from those journalists’ base in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Other familiar names — The Associated Press’ David Crary, the Wall Street Journal’s Ian Lovett and the Los Angeles Times’ Sarah Parvini — covered the news remotely (Crary from New York and Lovett and Parvini from Los Angeles). The WSJ piece was more of a brief (four short paragraphs), but the financial newspaper at least acknowledged Gomez’s election.

Before analyzing all the coverage, I’ll note that I first became familiar with Gomez when he became archbishop of San Antonio in 2005. Based in Dallas, I covered religion for AP at the time. So I traveled to San Antonio to meet Gomez and do a story on him stepping into a new role as the leading Hispanic cleric in the U.S.

I remember him being friendly but not overly talkative. These were my favorite two paragraphs of the piece that I wrote for AP’s national wire:

Gomez showed that sense of humor as he recalled how he started attending daily Mass as a high school student in Monterrey. A sign of a future archbishop’s deep commitment to the church? Perhaps. But it was also a good way to get the car keys.

“The only way that my dad let me drive was to go to Mass,” Gomez said with a chuckle.

I noticed a few common themes in this week’s stories.


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Russia, the Kurds, Trump and some Syrian Jews: When in doubt stress the political angle

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Russia, the Kurds, Trump and some Syrian Jews: When in doubt stress the political angle

A common complaint from those steeped in religious belief is that the mainstream media generally pay scant attention to religion issues unless there’s a political angle to exploit (or even better, a scandal; the sexier the better).

As a mainstream media member, mark me down as among the often guilty. But unapologetically so. Because to quote a certain White House acting chief of staff (as of this writing, that is), “Get over it.”

That’s just the way it is in our material world and no amount of high-minded whining will change it. So critics: it’s disingenuous to deny that religion and politics are not frequently entwined, for better or (more often) worse.

GetReligion head honcho Terry Mattingly tackled this question in a recent post and podcast devoted to Russia’s self-proclaimed role as chief protector of Middle East Christians — in particular those with Orthodox Christian bona fides. His point was that religion was an essential part of the equation, in addition to the obvious political and economic realities.

Syria, where Russia has taken over as the major outside power broker now that President Donald Trump has relinquished the United State’s role there, is a current case in point.

But Christians are not the only faith group of concern to the Kremlin. Syrian Jews, despite being few in number, have also stirred Russia’s interest. It’s as clear a case of politics overshadowing religious connections as you’ll find.

This recent analysis published by the liberal Israeli English-Hebrew daily Haaretz alerted me to the situation. (Paywall alert.)

The piece was thin on just what Syrian Jews Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated, during a recent trip to Hungary, he is concerned about. Was he referring to the less than two-dozen Mizrahi Jews (Jews long connected to Arab lands) estimated to still reside in Syria?


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Defying stereotypes: The Atlantic's Emma Green paints a nuanced portrait of Trump voters in Iowa

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You’ve heard the same stat over and over: 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

That is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Yet in the three years since Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, many in the mainstream press have pushed the idea that all white evangelicals — well, 81 percent of them anyway — love Trump and everything about him.

In typical stories along those lines, there’s no room for nuance and no room for white evangelicals to have complicated feelings about Trump. It’s as if the reporters conveniently forget that there was another candidate on the ballot. A candidate who, like Trump, was one of the most unpopular major party nominees in history. And who, unlike Trump, clashed with many white evangelicals on issues such as abortion.

Given the preponderance of the aforementioned narrative, it’s especially nice when an award-winning Godbeat pro like The Atlantic’s Emma Green produces a piece — as she is so apt to do — that defies the worn-out stereotypes and digs deeper on the familiar stat so often repeated.

I’m talking about Green’s report out of Iowa this week titled “They Support Trump. They Want Him Impeached.”

The headline is partly clickbait and partly a mostly accurate assessment of Green’s report, which opens with this compelling scene:

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — The small towns that run across Iowa’s northwest corner form a district that is as politically red as it gets in America. There are vast stretches of farmland; public-school football teams pray together after games; Christian music regularly plays over the loudspeakers in shopping centers. Voters here in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District have sent Representative Steve King back to Washington every year since 2003, and 81 percent of those in Sioux County, near the district’s northwest corner, chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a higher pro-Trump percentage than anywhere else in the state.

Still, even some of these hard-core Republicans wouldn’t mind if Trump were impeached before Election Day 2020.

Polling suggests the president’s base nationwide is firmly opposed to impeachment, and that people’s opinions on the inquiry are split neatly along partisan lines. But at least in Sioux Center, where Republican presidential candidates regularly make pit stops during the primary season, some conservatives still feel ambivalent about Trump’s policies and character. In my conversations around town, people were skeptical that the impeachment inquiry would go anywhere, but they smiled ruefully at the fantasy of a President Mike Pence and a clean slate of Republican candidates in 2020. While voters in this area clearly preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016 and told me they have appreciated some of his work over the past two and a half years, there’s a difference between defending Trump and supporting him. However skeptical people here may be of Democrats’ motives and the likelihood of success, impeachment offers a distant dream of a return to Republican “politics as usual.”


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A reader asks: Is there a religion ghost in story of man arrested for popping 'Baby Trump' balloon?

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“Baby Trump” met his demise in Alabama over the weekend. Not for the first time, though.

Who, some might ask, is Baby Trump?

According to Heavy.com, he’s an “iconic” balloon that is “widely known as a symbol to protest the President.” Evidently, not everybody is a fan of Baby Trump. And perhaps, just perhaps, a holy ghost haunts the latest news involving the big balloon. More on that in a moment.

First, though, let’s meet Hoyt Hutchinson. ABC News reports:

A few dozen people were gathered in Monnish Park protesting the president's visit to the Alabama-LSU football game a half-mile away and holding various anti-Trump signs when a disapproving man approached the helium-balloon with a knife and slashed an 8-foot-long gash in its back. There were still two hours to kickoff in the college town when "Baby Trump" quickly deflated out and the balloon-stabbing suspect attempted to flee the scene, organizers said.

Tuscaloosa police said in a statement that officers witnessed the incident which led them to arrest Hoyt Deau Hutchinson, 32, and charge him with felony first degree criminal mischief. He was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail and held on a $2,500 bond. The slashing appears to have been premeditated as Hutchinson posted a Facebook Live video just hours before the incident saying he was "going down [there] to make a scene ... I'm shaking I'm so mad right now," he said. "I'm fixin’ to pop this balloon, without a doubt."

The Alabama Media Group adds more details to the story today, noting that the Baby Trump stabber gave a radio interview in which he cast his action as a case of “good vs. evil.”

“Seems like a ghost or two here,” said a reader who shared that link with GetReligion. “What church does he go to? What do they think?”


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Los Angeles Times writes nice story about jail chaplains, with a few eyebrow-raising word choices

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There’s a lot to like about a recent Los Angeles Times feature on jail chaplains.

But there also are strong hints of holy ghosts as well as a few eyebrow-raising word choices. I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

Let’s start, though, with the positive: This is an in-depth piece that offers a helpful primer on the state of jail chaplaincy in Los Angeles and even quotes experts such as Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The specific Times angle is that some religious groups have enough chaplains — all volunteers — while others, including Jewish and Muslim groups, have a shortage.

The narrative-style lede sets the scene:

There are days when Rabbi Avivah Erlick sits in her car outside Men’s Central Jail, too afraid to go in. She’s counseled hundreds of inmates, but sometimes she arrives downtown only to drive back home, not ready to face the sudden lockdowns, the stale air and the stories about violence and loneliness.

When she does go in, Erlick feels overwhelmingly behind. She used to be a part-time jail chaplain supported by a grant from the Jewish Federation, but it wasn’t renewed. Now she volunteers whenever she can. She spends hours updating her list of inmates to visit, which includes dozens more than she has time to see.

The work is too important to stay away.

“I listen — I’m the only person who does,” she said. “I went into chaplaincy because I feel so drawn to help people in crisis.”

Then comes this generalization:

The chaplains in the Los Angeles County jails, some of whom were once behind bars themselves, are united by a simple mission: remind inmates of their humanity. It’s a job they often do in one-on-one visits. They’ll tell jokes, share a prayer, teach a religious text, or simply listen.

I’m torn on that description of the simple mission: “remind inmates of their humanity.” I suspect a number of the chaplains — particularly the evangelical Christian ones — would be more specific and say their goal is to save the inmates’ souls.


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It's time for journalists to ask: What has happened to the Vatican press office?

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Let’s start with a loaded question. But it’s a questions that journalists really need to ask, because of trends during recent events in Catholic life.

So here goes: Is the Vatican’s press office helping to push a progressive agenda that could forever change the Catholic church?

Here’s the background: The Pan-Amazonian Synod that ended over a week ago wasn’t without controversy, to say the least. The recommendations put forth regarding bestowing Holy Orders to women in the form of making them deacons is something Pope Francis has to make a decision on by the end of the year. Toss in the theological debate over the Pachamama statues present at the Vatican and at a nearby Rome church and there was no shortage of fodder for reporters and columnists.

That takes us to the Vatican’s press office, the people on the front lines of getting out the pope’s message to the world’s media.

Like the White House in the age of Trump, so too does the Holy See’s messaging need some further examination. Former White House Press Secretaries Sean Spicer, followed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, were all placed under the news media’s microscope for their statements and actions — and rightly so. The PR men and women behind Francis also deserve similar examination by the press.

Long gone are the days of Joaquin Navarro Valls. A “suave, silver-haired Spaniard,” as the Los Angeles Times described him in their 2017 obituary, Valls was both a close confidant of Pope John Paul II and served for more than two decades as chief Vatican spokesman. He defined what it was to be the pope’s press man. And he defended church teachings while doing it.

Navarro-Valls, a lay member of the conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei, had worked as a foreign correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC when the Polish pope offered him the job as director of the Vatican press office. He was the first journalist to hold the post. He was the right man at the right time for a globe-trotting pope at a time when mass media was growing.

Fast-forward to the present. The backlash to Francis by traditionalists is based on convictions that he has politicized the church, wanting to transform it into a social service agency.


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Bible study during school time? Tennessee paper explores pros and cons — and what Satanists think

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is back in the news.

But this time the story is actually pretty good.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports on a pilot program in a local school district that allows elementary-age children to leave their public school — with parental permission — to study the Bible at a church.

The newspaper’s lede covers the high points before the story delves into more specific details:

Once a month, some 70 students from Sterchi Elementary miss an hour of school to go to a nearby evangelistic church for a Bible lesson.

Third- through fifth-graders miss music, art or library. Second-graders miss language arts.

If parents sign a release, state law allows this — as long as the school district’s Board of Education has approved a policy.

Knox County's school board hasn’t approved a policy. Sterchi’s Bible Release Time program, approved earlier this year, is intended to be a “pilot” that board members could observe to determine if they want a countywide policy.

The Sterchi program has raised a lot of questions — and heated voices — in Knox County about the separation of church and government. That includes a slew of letters from parents to school board members, and one social media post from a Satanic organization.

That description up high of the church as “evangelistic” made me wonder if perhaps the reporter meant “evangelical.” At the same time, a church teaching the Bible to public school students no doubt would fall under the heading of “evangelistic.”

Later, the News Sentinel notes that the church didn’t return its calls, so maybe it’s not surprising that the information provided about the church seems rather sketchy. A few references are made to Christian parents complaining that the church doesn’t share their brand of beliefs.


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Trump, same-sex parents and religious charities: News coverage mostly predictable and left-leaning

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It’s the same old, same old, so I promise I won’t take up much of your time with this.

But I did want to acknowledge — for those still paying attention to such things — the news late last week that the Trump administration will allow faith-based foster and adoption ministries to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Of course, that’s not the way you saw the story presented if you read it in a typical major media outlet.

Yes, as always, most mainstream news outlets treated this as a case of #discrimination — and not against the aforementioned religious charities.

Instead, this was the headline and subhead at the New York Times:

Adoption Groups Could Turn Away L.G.B.T. Families Under Proposed Rule

The Trump administration seeks to roll back an Obama-era rule that classified sexual orientation and gender identity as classes protected from discrimination.

The Washington Post put it like this:


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