LGBTQ

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DeSantis' Catholic faith goes under the media microscope before '24 presidential primaries

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DeSantis' Catholic faith goes under the media microscope before '24 presidential primaries

The presidential race is just starting to heat up. While it may still be early, candidates are popping up every few days and announcing their intention to seek the Republican nomination in 2024.

Among those seeking to dislodge the early favorite — polling shows that to be former President Donald Trump — is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. This is the same man who has become something of a conservative darling in recent years for relentlessly going after “woke” ideology. His battle with Disney is an example of a culture war fight DeSantis hasn’t been afraid to address in recent years.

DeSantis has been criticized for many things, from whether his wife Casey is “a problem” to confusion over the pronunciation of his last name.

As the past weeks have shown, DeSantis’ foray into national politics has come shone a brighter media spotlight on him, his family and beliefs.

Yes, Christian beliefs. It’s true that DeSantis is seen as possibly the only candidate in the ever-growing GOP primary field capable of defeating Trump and possibly even President Joe Biden.

This increased scrutiny — both by the mainstream and religious press — has included whether or not DeSantis, a Catholic, is personally devout. I tackled this very topic more than a year ago in a post that ran under the headline “As Florida’s DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn’t news — unless it’s used to attack him.”

Here was the main thrust of my argument:


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200-plus North American Muslim authorities join the sexuality culture wars

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200-plus North American Muslim authorities join the sexuality culture wars

North America’s Christian and Jewish leaders have long been active, politically and legally, in taking differing sides on same-sex and transgender issues. Authorities in Islam are comparatively disengaged. That changes in dramatic fashion with a new declaration of alarm from a broad group of 59 authorities, quickly joined by 150 further endorsers from Muslim organizations and local mosques.

Journalists will want to ponder the May 23 “Navigating Differences” statement, which is publicized on Muslim websites and social media, though The Guy has seen no “mainstream media” coverage. Yet?

The ad hoc grouping upholds the “immutable” teaching on sexuality defined by the Quran and Hadith sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, then “unanimously agreed upon” in Islamic jurisprudence over the succeeding 14 centuries.

The newer news is that these scholars also assert that believers have been unfairly put on the defensive. The signers acknowledge that North American law and culture have moved away from traditional beliefs on marriage, sexual relations and gender identity, and affirm that citizens of a democracy who disagree with Islam have every right “to live in peace and free from abuse.”

However, they say, religious dissenters face “unwarranted accusations of bigotry” and, more troubling, “an increasing push to promote LGBTQ+ beliefs among children through legislation and regulations, disregarding parental consent” and suppressing Muslims’ “conscientious objection.” This is said to “subvert” parents, worsen “intolerance” in society and violate citizens’ religious freedom.

“We call on policymakers to protect our constitutional right to practice our religious beliefs freely, without fear of harassment, and to oppose any legislation seeking to stifle the religious freedoms of faith communities.”

These thinkers also urge public figures who are Muslims to “uphold the sanctity of our faith” and shun “erroneous pronouncements” on “sexual and gender ethics that contravene well-established Islamic teachings” and spurn or misrepresent “the will of God.” They “categorically reject” as indefensible any efforts to reinterpret tenets that are “not subject to revision.”

Journalists need to assess the importance of the declaration, which agrees with other religious conservatives.


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United Methodist news in the Kansas high plains raises, again, some old questions

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United Methodist news in the Kansas high plains raises, again, some old questions

You know the old saying that “diamonds are forever”? In my personal experience, western Kansas is forever.

That isn’t a complaint. I’ve been driving across the Kansas high plains since the early 1980s — with more cause now that I have family in Kansas — and I have grown to love the wide open horizons. This long drive also leads to our family’s old stomping grounds in Colorado, where I’m on vacation this week.

Kansas is a real place. There’s a there, there. I have lots of friends with ties to Kansas and they love its combination of Midwestern values and access to the Wild West.

I bring this up because of a story I read last week in the Topeka Capital-Journal, with this headline: “96 United Methodist churches in Kansas, including one in Topeka, are leaving denomination.” This is another example of newspapers at the local and regional level having to handle developments in a complex, global conflict that has been raging since the early 1980s. That’s when I started covering this story in Colorado — a flashpoint from the start. Here’s the Topeka lede:

The United Methodist Church is seeing the exodus of 96 conservative Kansas congregations over theological matters, including same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy.

The words “theological matters” are, of course, disputes about 2,000 years of Christian doctrines on a host of important, even creedal, subjects. But, as always, the only specific given is LGBTQ+ matters.

Later on, the story notes that a key vote in Kansas:


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News coverage of Los Angeles Dodgers drag-nuns story reveals plenty of bad habits

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News coverage of Los Angeles Dodgers drag-nuns story reveals plenty of bad habits

Sports have always brought people together. That’s a big reason that they have been so popular for decades.

But in our ever-polarized world around political lines, sports have taken a hit. Whether it involved NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem or NBA players supporting Black Lives Matter, sports and sports journalism have become increasingly political the last few years.

Baseball, and specifically the Los Angeles Dodgers, became the focus of controversy over the last two weeks when the team invited, then un-invited and then issued a welcome once again a group known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco group of queer and trans people dressed as nuns at the team’s annual Pride Night on June 16.

As many noted, there’s no way a sports franchise would have given this kind of salute to a group of traditional Catholics opposed by cultural progressives, a group like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

What took place during this entire saga is a series of predictable news-media coverage twists and turns guided by professionals who, it appears, saw this issue from their own left-right vantage points. Modern journalism is often criticized for building narratives and reading minds rather than reporting facts and interviewing both sides. This story fit that mold.

While the news coverage lacked voices from both sides in this debate, most of the reports also lacked another very important term — anti-Catholic.

Are these “nuns” anti-Catholic? It certainly depends on which side of this debate you are on and many news outlets made that clear and, thus, ignored citizens whose views were found to be heretical, in terms of current newsroom dogmas.

Take, for example, the Los Angeles Times feature that ran on May 25 that included a photo shoot with the “nuns.” Here’s how that piece opened:

Ask the L.A. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence why they decided to join the order of drag nuns, and most of them will tell you it’s because they felt the call.

Sister Tootie Toot (glitter green lips, dark beard, emerald cocktail dress) felt it like a ton of bricks when she walked into a leather bar where several sisters had assembled.


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Once more into the breach: Kind-of-PBS website offers PR for 'independent' Catholic flock

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Once more into the breach: Kind-of-PBS website offers PR for 'independent' Catholic flock

Let’s do something quick this morning, since it is Memorial Day (some readers might be online, pre- or post-cookouts) and I am also getting ready for two weeks of travel.

So let’s do something simple on one of the most complex, controversial and bizarre topics I have ever handled as a journalist. I am referring to the global web of “Old Catholic” churches — which can be everything from conservative Latin rite flocks to far-left modernist movements that really should just join the Episcopal Church and that would be that.

Decades ago, in Denver, I tried to follow the ordination clains of a controversial — but well known — priest and hospital chaplain and, before I knew it, I had about three folders full of conflicting info about sacraments and orders and my head was spinning. The highlight was a chat with a local mailman who had a detailed flow-chart proving that he was an archbishop with orders as valid as those of Pope John Paul II.

This brings me (Once more, into the breach!) to a news report from Flatland, a non-profit news website in Kansas City. The “about” page states: “We’re Kansas City PBS’ nonprofit journalism source, a destination for local and regional storytelling.” The headline proclaims: “Gay Priest Shepherds Nontraditional ‘Catholic’ Church.” Here’s the overture:

The red brick church at 700 West Pennway on Kansas City’s West Side has undergone several religious conversions in its long history. 

This late 19th-century building was home to West Side Christian Church from 1893 until 1986, when property managers Jeff Krum and Adam Jones bought it. 

Then, until 2000, it became secular as the home for the City in Motion dance company. Next, the Buddhist Rime Center made its home there from 2001 until 2020. 

And now, for almost two years, it’s housed the relatively new Christ the King Independent Catholic Church. 

The “Catholic” part of the name takes a bit of explaining. 

At this point, readers really need to know something — at least a few paragraphs — about the world of “independent” and “Old Catholic” rites. After all, the term “independent Catholic” makes about as much sense as “jumbo shrimp,” “military intelligence” and “genuine laminated rosewood.”


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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

In the summer of 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Company, acting in response to some early power mouse gay-rights decisions.

Eight years later, the leaders of America’s largest non-Catholic flock quietly called off the boycott, which was a bit of a dud. The news coverage was, well, joyfully muted.

Why did this boycott fail? Well, for one thing, lots of SBC guys probably found it hard to ditch ESPN and lots of parents who were “conservatives” found it hard to stop using Disney movies as babysitters.

This brings us to the current headlines about Bud Light and Target, which served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Baptists vs. Disney? Kind of a big deal, but not really. Then again, Disney executives may be aware of box-office issues with some of their recent LGBTQ+ themes in big-screen products for children. You think?

Ah, but what about beer drinkers vs. Bud Light? That battle over in-your-face corporate support for trans performance art appears to have legs. See this update from NBC News: “'Nobody imagined it would go on this long': Bud Light sales continue to plummet over Mulvaney backlash.”

Suburban parents (especially in red states) vs. Target? That’s a more complex subject, but there are signs that Tarjey executives have started doing homework on the watered-down beer battles.

This raises a perfectly valid question: Are there religion ghosts in the Bud Light and Target backlash stories? I mean, how many Southern Baptists are Bud Light fans?

The actual question is this: Are there religion ghosts in the neverending wars between Middle America and “woke” corporate support for the ever-changing doctrines of the Sexual Revolution?

I would say, “yes.” But it’s clear that the cultural battles now involve armies larger than people in conservative pews.


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LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

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LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

As a child in inner-city Milwaukee, Father Bryan Massingale's grandmother gave him a leather-bound copy of The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, along with a dream that he might need it someday.

"My grandmother was not delusional. She did not live in denial of reality," said Massingale, a Jesuit priest who holds an endowed chair in ethics at Fordham University, in New York City. "Her gift was a vision, an act of hope. It was a dream, a hope, a reminder that the neighborhood, with its drugs, violence and rodent-infested corner store with overpriced goods, did not define or limit who I could be."

That's important to know, he declared, since he was speaking as "a Black, gay priest and theologian" at Fordham's recent Ignatian Q Conference for LGBTQ students from Jesuit campuses. This event was a "space for our dreaming, for queer dreams" of hope for "despised and disdained and stigmatized peoples," he added.

"I dream of a church where gay priests and lesbian sisters are acknowledged as the holy and faithful leaders they already are," he said, in a published version of his address. "I dream of a church where LGBTQ employees and schoolteachers can teach our children, serve God's people and have their vocations, sexuality and committed loves affirmed. …

"I dream of a church that enthusiastically celebrates same-sex loves as incarnations of God's love among us."

Theological visions of this kind inspire hope for some Catholics and concern for others.

Thus, the North American phase of the Vatican's global Synod on Synodality found "strong tensions within the Church," while participants in the virtual assemblies also "felt hope and encouragement and a desire for the synodal process to continue," according to the 36-page report (.pdf here) released on April 12 by U.S. and Canadian Catholic leaders.


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Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

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Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

Were there tears in Anderson Cooper’s eyes? Did you hear a tremor in his voice?

A clip featuring the CNN superstar (that’s a relative term, these days) went viral after he wore his elite heart on his finely tailored sleeve when responding to woke social-media meltdowns after The. Most. Trusted. Name. In. News. dared to air a ratings-chasing “town hall” with former President Donald Trump.

By all means, watch the YouTube video featured at the top of this post, because it was featured in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which focused on another set of bleak, hellish poll numbers about Americans doubting the mainstream-news industrial complex. I argued — no surprise if you read my recent Religion & Liberty essay (“The Evolving Religion of Journalism”) — that niche-press coverage of moral, cultural and religious issues has played a big role in this disaster.

Cooper’s dramatic soliloquy included some strong language aimed directly at CNN’s shrinking choir of loyal viewers on what used to be called the “left.” In a way, it’s a kind of niche-news Rorschach test. What do you see and hear?

Meanwhile, here are some of the key quotes, drawn from a rather snarky piece at The Hollywood Reporter (I have added bold text for emphasis):

Echoing some of the points that network CEO Chris Licht had made to CNN staff … (Cooper) attempted to pivot and spin why CNN felt it was important to cover Trump. “The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night, that man … may be president of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you, that’s a sampling of about half the country.”

He added, “If last night showed anything, it showed [Trump winning] can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn’t changed and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and angry, and never watch this network again.”

Cooper then rather bizarrely put the onus back on the audience to not remain ignorant of people on the other side of the political divide and incredibly implied that some people were ignorant of Trump. “Do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away? If we all only listen to those we agree with, it may actually do the opposite.”

Yes, the crucial word “silo” was used, in an emotional dermon aimed directly at CNN viewers. At some point, we can expect someone on Fox News to offer some variation of this litany when talking to its post-Tucker Carlson audience.

This is the media dynamic at the heart of trends in the Divided States of America.


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Global South Anglicans are convinced that it's time to look forward (Part II)

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Global South Anglicans are convinced that it's time to look forward (Part II)

Want to know how to cause a church split?

The deepest fault lines -- sex, money and pride -- have been obvious for centuries, said Archbishop Kanishka Raffel of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia.

"We use nationality or age or gender or wealth or clothing or accent or profession or politics -- to show off and communicate who we are and what sort of person we will or will not engage with," said Raffel, who was born in London, of Sri Lankan descent, and raised Buddhist.

"God's people are frail and very human. We bear the marks of weakness and humiliation. We can be loveless, faithless, tolerant of the intolerable and wretchedly self-satisfied. … God is angry about the abuse of people that comes through sexual immorality, greed and hateful, deceitful and cruel speech. We are not surprised."

For decades, he acknowledged, the 42 churches in the Anglican Communion have been rocked by divisions over biblical authority and colonial-era ecclesiastical structures -- with LGBTQ disputes grabbing headlines.

During the recent Global Anglican Future Conference, held in Kigali, Rwanda, Raffel was one of several bishops -- 315 attended, from 52 nations -- who stressed that traditionalists now need to look forward. It's time to focus on life in their rapidly growing churches, while dedicating less time and energy to clashes with declining churches in England, America, Canada and elsewhere.

This will, Raffel stressed, require looking in the mirror.

"We have been engaged in decades long conversation about sexual immorality. But we have often focused on one form of sexual sin, to the neglect of sexual sins which perhaps are more common among us and just as displeasing to God," he said. "How many women ... have shed rivers of tears over the way their sexuality has been misused by others? I suppose it would be millions. There is a self-serving blind spot of which we must repent, a log in our own eyes with which we are yet to deal. Lord, have mercy."


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