Mollie Hemingway

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The Washington Post‘s coverage of the recent change in marriage law here has been, unsurprisingly, of the partisan cheerleading variety. I’ve read a few reports and pondered if they would have been written terribly differently if they’d been issued as press releases from the communications shops of organizations advocating for same-sex marriage. “Gay marriages to boost sagging economy!” “Mexico City shows that gay marriage is awesome!” You get the idea.


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Listening to ex-Scientologists

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Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church 30 years ago and they are still occasionally contacted by members who encourage them to be careful with what they say. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have many positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.


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Got news? Got news! PCUSA and Israel

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I was all set to make this a “Got news?” post. I had been reading rumblings about an upcoming Presbyterian Church (USA) report in the religious and conservative press, but nothing in the mainstream media. Here’s a sample religious media report and here’s a bit from the conservative Weekly Standard:


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Where's the Catholic rebuttal?

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Okay, so we’ve already looked at some other coverage of DC’s new law permitting same-sex marriage. A few readers sent an early version of the following story, which has been improved with an update later in the day. It’s about how the former chief operating officer of DC Catholic Charities vehemently disagrees with Archbishop Donald Wuerl’s decision to cancel new spousal benefits for employees of Catholic Charities. The move was made so that the church could comply with both DC law and church doctrine. We discussed previous coverage here and here.


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Gay marriage and unintended consequences

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So yesterday we talked a bit about some of the tensions between religious freedom and gay rights. The Washington Post has a nice follow-up on the matter of Catholic Charities changing its health coverage benefits to comply with both church law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and new D.C. laws legalizing same-sex marriage.


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Getting right with God and government

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It was only four years ago that Catholic Charities of Boston announced that it was getting out of the adoption business in order to comply with new state laws dealing with sexual orientation discrimination and same-sex marriage. Last month the District of Columbia, where I live, voted to legalize same-sex marriage.


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About that Jesus' tomb story . . .

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Almost exactly three years ago, we were looking at some of the breathless media coverage of a documentary that claimed to have found the tomb of Jesus. Daniel Pulliam covered the saga at the time and here’s a snippet from one of his posts (headlined “James Cameron to Christians: It’s over“):


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Family values and the NCAA

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If you’re part of an organization trying to get your message out, you usually have to spend money to place ads where people can see them. Communications shops usually prefer getting stories written about them. Not only is it free but you can communicate more thoroughly with your audience. So while Focus on the Family seems to have been running more advertisements as of late, they have to be taking note of all the earned media they’re getting.


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Closing the God gap abroad

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Earlier in the week I linked to the Washington Post story headlined “‘God gap’ impedes U.S. foreign policy, task force says.” Some readers will be delighted to see that it’s bylined by Godbeat fave David Waters. Here’s the lede:


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