Religious Liberty

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Alaska media don't get trans United Methodist minister-turned-activist

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While teaching at the University of Alaska two years ago, I picked up a lot of resentment on the part of the residents against what they call Outsiders (with a capital “O”) showing up in the 49th state and telling Alaskans what to do.

Alaska has a large transient population (including a lot of military personnel who transfer in and out), so lots of folks there figure that until you’ve lasted through a few winters, you’re just passing through.

Still, many Alaska residents have come from somewhere else.

One of the folks who arrived there several years ago was a transgendered United Methodist minister. I’ll return in a moment to the history of Drew Phoenix but first, I want to point out how he made the news this week in this story from the Associated Press:

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- The Alaska Legislature on Tuesday rejected the appointment of Drew Phoenix, a transgender man, to serve on the state’s human rights commission.
The vote came near the end of an hours-long joint session called to consider Gov. Bill Walker’s nominees to boards, commissions and administration posts. Phoenix was the only nominee to be voted down.
Leading up to the vote, some conservative groups sought to paint Phoenix, who has advocated for LGBT rights, as too political for the post.

The story then includes some vague quotes from a Republican and a Democrat and then:

In a phone interview Tuesday evening, Phoenix said he was “incredibly upset and disheartened” by the vote.
“I just find it so ironic that somebody like myself, with so much years’ experience personally and professional working on behalf of human rights, that they would not confirm me to the commission on human rights,” he said.
Phoenix said a state Senate committee that held confirmation hearings asked him questions related to his work as a transgender man with the LGBT community and if, given the opportunity, he would work to advance issues of equality for the LGBT community through the commission. He said he replied that, if that’s what the commission seeks to do, he would.
He said one conservative group has framed the advancement of LBGT people as posing a threat to religious freedom. He said he is an ordained Christian minister and values religious freedom.

“He said” he is an ordained Christian minister? That isn't an established fact?


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When the Latter-day Saints dump the Boy Scouts, might there be a back story here?

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Probably one of the more intriguing religion stories last week was that of a decision by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to partially break with the Boy Scouts of America.

The decision didn’t shock a whole lot of people, as Mormons and the Boy Scouts have been on a collision course for some time, as getreligion.org has previously noted.

Nevertheless, the former has long been a major force undergirding the national BSA and its departure is bound to have an effect.

We’ll start with the Associated Press just to get the bare details. As you read this, keep asking yourself this question: Might there be a back story in here somewhere?

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Mormon church, the biggest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the United States, announced Thursday it is pulling as many as 185,000 older youths from the organization as part of an effort to start its own scouting-like program.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said the move wasn’t triggered by the Boy Scouts’ decision in 2015 to allow gay troop leaders, since Mormon-sponsored troops have remained free to exclude such adults on religious grounds.
But at least one leading Mormon scholar said that the Boy Scouts and the church have been diverging on values in recent years and that the policy on gays was probably a contributing factor in the split.
Saying it wants a new, simplified program of its own that is more closely tailored to Mormon teenagers, the church announced that boys ages 14 to 18 will no longer participate in the Boy Scouts starting next year.


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About that Mike Pence speech: Are solid facts available on global persecution of Christians?

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From time to time, your GetReligionistas pause to remind readers that they should not blame reporters for the headlines that appear with their stories.

Sad, but true: There is nothing unusual about seeing a solid news report that gets messed up, for readers, by an inaccurate or misleading headline.

But what should we say when a story has a solid, focused headline, but the story's actual contents leave much to be desired?

Consider the Washington Post report about the speech last week by Vice President Mike Pence at the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians. I have no problems with the simple headline here: "Pence: America will prioritize protecting Christians abroad."

The key word is "abroad." And the top of the story -- obviously the source of the headline -- gets straight to some of the basics.

Vice President Pence sought on Thursday to reassure Christian leaders looking for the White House to focus more on the plight of persecuted Christians abroad.
“Protecting and promoting religious freedom is a foreign policy priority of the Trump administration,” the vice president said during a morning address at the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians being held this week in Washington. Pence spoke to an audience who are grateful for the Trump administration’s statements of support for that cause but who are starting to question when the administration will take more concrete action.
Advocacy on behalf of people persecuted for being Christian is a topic “of enormous importance to this administration,” Pence said. Turning to speakers at the conference who were there to share their personal stories of persecution abroad, he said: “You have the prayers of the president of the United States. The suffering of Christians in the Middle East has stirred Americans to action, and it brings me here today.”

So far, so good. But if you read the rest of this story its pretty apparent that the Post team thinks that the American political angles in this story are way more important than the evidence that lots of Christians are dying around the world.


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Show me the money: Coverage of Texas adoption bill improving, but questions remain

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Good news: Media coverage of a Texas lawmaker's bill that he says is designed to protect the religious freedom of faith-based adoption agencies is improving. 

Bad news: That coverage remains flawed.

I'll delve into specifics in a moment, but first, some important background: Earlier this week, I criticized The Associated Press for a slanted headline — and story — on the Lone Star State legislation.

The biased AP headline that sparked my concern:

Texas adoption agencies could ban Jews, gays, Muslims

The Dallas Morning News and many other news organizations in Texas and across the nation ran with the global wire service's spin. Those pushing the AP storyline included a state politics reporter for the Dallas newspaper.

Today's Dallas Morning News coverage of the bill passing offers a fuller, fairer treatment than the original AP report, starting with the front-page headline:

Religious protections for adoption agencies OK’d

The lede:


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The Atlantic probes dark fears of working-class America (without asking moral questions)

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As a rule, your GetReligionistas appreciate the think pieces that The Atlantic runs focusing on religion topics. This is especially true when these longish features include lots and lots of solid reporting, as opposed to chattering-class people thinking out loud about wonkish things.

See, for example, the cries of hosannah the other day from our own Bobby Ross, Jr., in a post called: "Choose your superlative, but The Atlantic's deep dive on Islamic State radicalization is a must read." That was a classic magazine news feature.

Now we have a think piece from The Atlantic about the 2016 (Cue: Theme From Jaws) campaign that offers some survey data that sheds new light on those stunning Rust Belt wins by Donald Trump, which put him (for now) in the White House. The double-decker headline sets the scene, and then some:

It Was Cultural Anxiety That Drove White, Working-Class Voters to Trump
A new study finds that fear of societal change, not economic pressure, motivated votes for the president among non-salaried workers without college degrees

From my point of view, the key to the story is this: What, precisely, is meant by terms such as "cultural anxiety" and the "fear of societal change"?

Mainstream media orthodoxy would insist that these terms refer to xenophobia, radical nationalism and racism. The big issue, in this case, would be immigration.

Sure enough, this essay includes numbers that certainly point to immigration being a major issue for folks living in white, blue-collar, labor households. But is there something else in there? After all, this piece was written by religion-beat specialist Emma Green.

Thus, it is safe to assume that there may be a religion ghost or two in here somewhere. Let's look for clues in this summary material:


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Hey AP, your slanted headline on Texas adoption story is why so many distrust mainstream press

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This Associated Press headline screams discrimination:

Texas adoption agencies could ban Jews, gays, Muslims

But is anti-Jewish, anti-gay and/or anti-Muslim discrimination really the emphasis of a Texas lawmaker's bill that he says is designed to protect the religious freedom of faith-based adoption agencies?

Or is the idea that, say, a Baptist ministry licensed by the state should be able to adhere to its "sincerely held religious beliefs" and choose only parents in keeping with its beliefs — meaning heterosexual, married, Christian couples?

AP — in a slanted report that illustrates why so many Americans doubt the mainstream press' ability to be fair and accurate — seems uninterested in telling both sides of the story.

From the beginning, the wire service report — which was touted on this morning's daily news email from The Dallas Morning News — seems mainly concerned with the perspective of gay-rights advocates:

Parents seeking to adopt children in Texas could soon be rejected by state-funded or private agencies with religious objections to them being Jewish, Muslim, gay, single, or interfaith couples, under a proposal in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Five other states have passed similar laws protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children with gay parents or other households on religious grounds — but Texas' rule would extend to state-funded agencies. Only South Dakota's is similarly sweepingly.
The bill had been scheduled for debate and approval Saturday in the state House, but lawmakers bogged down with other matters. It now is expected to come up next week.
Republican sponsors of Texas' bill say it is designed to support the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers. Many of the agencies are private and faith-based but receive state funds.
But opponents say it robs children of stable homes while funding discrimination with taxpayer dollars.
"This would allow adoption agencies to turn away qualified, loving parents who are perhaps perfect in every way because the agency has a difference in religious belief," said Catherine Oakley, senior legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign. "This goes against the best interest of the child."


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After Trump's religious liberty show: Press hears groans on right, as well as that ACLU snicker

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After Trump's religious liberty show: Press hears groans on right, as well as that ACLU snicker

So what was that big show in the Rose Garden all about, the one with the smiling President Donald Trump serving up waves of Godtalk to a large assembly of religious leaders from various religious traditions?

This was supposed to be an important moment for those working to protect the First Amendment rights of believers whose commitment to ancient doctrines on marriage and sex have clashed with new laws, and court decisions, crafted to defend the Sexual Revolution, in all of its myriad forms.

However, even before the ceremony began, there were signs that a big dose of fake news was ahead. That was the subject of my Thursday morning post, "Big question in Rose Garden today: A victory, or Trump white flag, on religious liberty issues?"

By the time "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I talked, a few hours after that political rite (click here for the podcast), it was clear that most mainstream journalists had tuned into a crucial fact: The only people who were celebrating this executive order were people who are on the president's payroll or who may as well be (hello Jerry Falwell, Jr.). Their fundraising letters will come later.

But anyone who listened to the church-state voices that mattered knew what was going on.

On the religious and cultural right, Robert P. George of Princeton University issued a devastating tweet that said:

The religious liberty executive order is meaningless. No substantive protections for conscience. A betrayal. Ivanka and Jared won. We lost.

What about the left?

If that George blast wasn't enough to blow the fog away, this press release from the American Civil Liberties Union clarified matters nicely. Yes, there were voices elsewhere on the church-state left that released familiar statements of outrage. Their fundraising letters will come later.


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How to cover religious liberty: Quote both sides — and skip the scare quotes

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Pssssst.

Hey you, guess what? I'm going to do a positive post. Another one.

Surprised? You shouldn't be.

Yesterday, I highlighted Emma Green's magnificent Atlantic piece on the Islamic radicalization of two Mississippi college students.

Our friends at The Media Project shared that post on Twitter and described it as "rare and high praise from GetReligion."

That prompted our editor, Terry Mattingly, to note that "we praise quite a bit of stuff."

The dirty little secret is that our positive posts typically generate far fewer clicks than the negative ones in which we point out problems with mainstream media coverage of religion. Still, we are committed both to identifying holy ghosts and offering kudos when news organizations get it right in terms of fair, balanced journalism.

To that end, I wanted to draw your attention to a story by the Alabama Media Group, which includes the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times and the Press-Register of Mobile. The story concerns a bill protecting the religious liberty of faith-based adoption agencies:


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Big question in Rose Garden today: A victory, or Trump white flag, on religious liberty issues?

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First Amendment pros on both the left and the right are bracing themselves to find out what is in new, revised executive order on religious liberty that will be signed by President Donald Trump today, which is the National Day of Prayer.

So are reporters. So are millions of religious believers and unbelievers who care about First Amendment rights.

If you fit into one of those categories, then you are probably reading the advance reports on the rumors about this executive order.

Let me provide a piece of advice: Skip the report in USA Today. It is totally predictable and one-sided.

Instead, read the advance report in The New York Times and note, in particular, that the Times allowed its veteran religion-beat reporter to take part in the coverage. I wish the Times team had made one or two more telephone calls -- or followed some rather prophetic folks on Twitter -- to include the views of Trump critics who (a) are on the cultural right and (b) have solid credentials on religious liberty issues.

We will come back to the Times. Let's take a hard look at the USA Today piece. Here is the overture:

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to appeal to social conservatives who backed him in heavy numbers, President Trump will issue an executive order Thursday designed to "protect and vigorously promote religious liberty" and "alleviate the burden" of a law designed to prohibit religious leaders from speaking out about politics, according to senior administration officials.
The order aims to make it easier for employers with religious objections not to include contraception coverage in workers' health care plans, although it would be up to federal agencies to determine how that would happen.
It would also ease IRS enforcement of the so-called Johnson Amendment, which says tax-exempt religious organizations cannot participate in political activity. While only Congress can formally do away with the law, this will pave the way for churches and other religious leaders to speak about politics and endorse candidates without worrying about losing their tax-exempt status.

First of all, note the meaningless language that the Johnson Amendment says that "tax-exempt religious organizations cannot participate in political activity." That does little or nothing to help readers understand what is actually at stake.


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