Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the “Twilight” explosion in pop culture knows that author Stephenie Meyer is a somewhat unorthodox Mormon believer who isn’t exactly shy about letting symbols and themes from her faith, uh, bleed over into her vampire kingdom.
TMatt has been looking at some of the larger issues of framing in coverage of Maine’s vote to overturn a law legalizing same-sex marriage. But I’m also curious about some of the nitty gritty. I’ve been meaning to look at some of the coverage for days so let’s begin with this pre-election story by the Washington Post‘s Karl Vick. The story explains the situation — the legislature passed and the governor signed a bill to permit same-sex couples to marry and gets his perspective that the “libertarian” Maine will note vote to overturn that law. The campaign against same-sex marriage, we learn, is drawing heavily on its communications strategy from their successful fight over the same issue in California last year. And then this:
Here’s the thought for the day, as you ponder the headlines out of Maine. This famous quote is taken from “The Press and Foreign Policy” by Bernard C. Cohen:
Do you believe in God? Do you promise to follow him and forsake sin? And do you endorse God’s one-and-only approved stance on this latest piece of legislation? Then (and only then) may you be counted among the elect!
Slate has an awesome annual feature called 80 over 80. It ranks the country’s most powerful politicians, businessmen, and cultural leaders who are in their ninth decade. Ranked according to their power and importance, look who comes in at #1:
When I first saw the painting here by Jon McNaughton, I thought it was one of the best distillations of civil religion I’d seen. While most American civil religion focuses on generic Jewish and Christian themes, I wondered if this painting didn’t reference some particularly Mormon doctrine.
One thing everyone can agree on is that Glenn Beck–the conservative star of TV, radio publishing and occasional live events–is hot. He’s also controversial, as a Beck-friendly columnist recently acknowledged in USA Today:
I don’t exactly know how I ended up on the Arizona Republic‘s celebrity page but check out this important update on Jennifer Aniston:
President Barack Obama will be speaking to both houses of Congress tonight about his efforts at reforming health care. It is news to no one that the five pieces of legislation currently under consideration aren’t being cheered by all Americans. In fact, while many people might agree that health care could use some reforming, they’re not agreeing about many of the particulars about how to do that.
