Same-sex Marriage

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Hold on: Wasn't there more to that 'Reagan Democrats' thing than money?

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If you are into politics in the Culture War era, then you may be familiar with the Thomas Frank bestseller called "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America."

It's kind of dangerous to summarize a book in a few words, but here is what I took away from it: For the past decade or two, elite Republicans have been able to use social and moral issues to confuse middle class and working class Americans, convincing them that the GOP understands their "values." Once you understand this nasty trick, you know why ordinary Americans have been going to the polls and voting against their own economic interests. Or something like that.

Really old news consumers will remember that, once upon a time, these voters in middle America were called "Reagan Democrats," which was another way of saying blue-collar and Catholic Democrats who were turned off by some post-1960s elements of Democratic Party life. The crucial point for this post: Social issues and religion played a major role in this political drama.

This brings me to a very interesting, but very strange, political story that ran in The New York Times the other day under this headline: "G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class." Here is the top of the story. See if you can spot The Big Idea:

WASHINGTON -- The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney).

The candidates hoping to be the party’s nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations.


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Icing on the cake: Tasty coverage on bakery fined $135,000 in religious freedom vs. gay rights case

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Surprise!

Wedding cakes — specifically wedding cakes for same-sex couples — are making headlines again.

In the past, we've discussed the "frame game" as it relates to how news organizations characterize these cases pitting religious freedom vs. gay rights:

Here's the journalistic issue, related to framing: Is "deny service" or "refuse service" really the right way to describe what occurs when a baker declines to make a cake for a same-sex wedding?
Or does such wording favor one side of a debate pitting gay rights vs. religious freedom?

So let's consider how the media covered the latest case making news, starting with The Associated Press:

The AP's lede:

PORTLAND, Ore. — An administrative law judge proposed Friday that the owners of a suburban Portland bakery pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple who were refused service more than two years ago.

Sorry, but that lede doesn't cut it.

 


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How does the Washington Post frame its gay-marriage story? Take a guess

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The Washington Post plays a classic Frame Game in its advance story yesterday on the Supreme Court's plans to consider making same-sex marriage a basic right.

Ostensibly, the story is about "High stakes as Supreme Court considers same-sex marriage case," as the headline reads. But it's written almost entirely from the viewpoint of gay marriage and its earnest advocates, who simply want their rights. Proponents of traditional marriage, meanwhile, are reduced to stark cutouts, good for little more than background and foils for the "right" side.

Consider the lede:

When a federal judge declared same-sex marriage legal in Florida earlier this year, it should have changed the way Bruce Stone does his job. The estate-planning attorney had for years helped gay couples patch together legal documents to try to approximate some of the protections enjoyed by heterosexual spouses.
But with the Supreme Court about to decide later this year whether that court decision and others ought to stand, Stone isn’t taking any chances. He is still writing up those power-of-attorney forms and setting up trusts out of state, and he has some stark advice for his gay clients: “Do not get married here in Florida.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over whether gay couples have a constitutional right to get married. But if the court rules against that right, the ability to decide reverts back to the states, and Florida and others might just slam the door.

This article bears several marks of issue framing:

* The American Civil Liberties Union is named without any labeling, but Liberty Counsel "defends conservative Christian values."


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Sign that marriage license? Ancient sacraments vs. battles over civil contracts

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Sign that marriage license? Ancient sacraments vs. battles over civil contracts

This week's Crossroads podcast (click here to listen in) grew out of my latest "On Religion" column, rather than a GetReligion post, so here is a bit of background on the subject -- which is the growing debate about whether clergy in traditional faiths should continue to sign marriage licenses from the state.

If you want to know more, a good place to start is with "The Marriage Pledge," a document posted by the conservative, interfaith journal First Things. The key statement therein: "Therefore, in our roles as Christian ministers, we, the undersigned, commit ourselves to disengaging civil and Christian marriage in the performance of our pastoral duties. We will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage."

At that point, move over and scan some of the short essays included in the journal's forum called "The Church and Civil Marriage," in which eight scholars and popular writers -- Evangelical, Orthodox, Jewish, Catholic -- debate the merits of religious congregations cutting the ties that bind their marriage rites to the current legal debates about marriage and sex.

As you do so, I hope you notice something interesting, which is that some people who are normally stuck under the simplistic "conservative" umbrella do not agree with one another on this issue. I will go further and say that there are progressive reasons, as well as conservative reasons, to separate civil unions and holy matrimony. This is -- no matter that the newspapers say -- not an issue that is simply left vs. right.

To demonstrate, let's play a game. The following quotations are from two Southern Baptist leaders. One is a progressive position and the other conservative. Which is which?


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Traditional marriage champion gets respectful profile in Washington Post

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Champagne glasses might well have been clinking at the Heritage Foundation on April 15. That's when the Washington Post ran a massive, 2,250-word profile on the foundation's rising young star, Ryan T. Anderson -- in largely favorable terms.

Anderson, a research fellow at Heritage, cuts against the stereotype of a white-haired conservative repeating stale arguments. The 33-year-old scholar is making a bright, deep mark in the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage. And the Post is unsparing in its compliments:

His appeal in part owes something to counter-programming. A Princeton graduate with a doctorate in economic policy from Notre Dame, his views are at odds with other elite academics with whom he has so much in common. They are the opposite of those in his demographic. A devout Catholic, he nonetheless believes it a losing argument to oppose the legality of same-sex marriage on religious or moral grounds.
Also in his favor: He’s telegenic, an enthusiastic debater, and he can talk for hours.

Brisk-reading despite its length, the article follows Anderson to a debate at the University of Colorado’s law school. It tells how Piers Morgan and Suze Orman ganged up on him. And it reports how MSNBC's Ed Schultz had Anderson's mike cut off in frustration.

WaPo also scans Anderson's arguments for traditional marriage: some of them garden-variety conservative, such as "sexual complementarity" and the state's interest in caring for children; some of them more novel, such as the assertion that "my definition of marriage is allowed in the Constitution":


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New York Times visits zoo and reports on strange Southern animals who oppose same-sex marriage

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It's Homer Simpson vs. The Professor as The New York Times this week pretends to provide a balanced report on opponents of same-sex marriage in North Carolina.

The online headline of the Times story that appeared on the newspaper's front page Thursday proclaims:

Opponents of Gay Marriage Ponder Strategy as Issue Reaches Supreme Court

But don't let the headline fool you. 

Supporters of a traditional biblical view of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman actually play only bit parts in this slanted report (Kellerism, anyone?) in which backwoods simpletons square off against sophisticated experts from elite universities. (Too bad there aren't any smart people to interview on the traditional marriage side.)

No, the top quote isn't a hick declaring that "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," but it's close:

EDEN, N.C. — John G. Kallam Jr., 67, carries a worn black Bible and another copy on his iPad, and believes Scripture is unequivocal.

“Sodom and Gomorrah, that story alone tells you what God thinks of same-sex marriage,” he said. “God said that homosexual behavior is a sin and that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Like three-quarters of the voters in rural Rockingham County, he checked “yes” in the 2012 plebiscite when North Carolina joined some 30 other states in adopting constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. “I breathed a sigh of relief,” he recalled.

But last October, Mr. Kallam was stunned when a federal judge overturned the ban.

An appointed county magistrate, Mr. Kallam was obligated to perform civil marriages. So he resigned, one of six in the state who stepped down to avoid violating their faith.

Keep reading, and opponents of same-sex marriage — including Kallam — are presented as angry and resentful, although the newspaper provides no quotes or evidence to back up its usage of those terms.


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'Sordid' quotes by Charles Stanley? RNS doesn't get it sordid out

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No award for Charles Stanley from the Jewish National Fund tomorrow. Not because he doesn't want it, or because they changed their minds. But because a gay Jewish group pressured them to rescind it.

That's one thing. It's another when a news outfit favors the accuser.

At issue is the Jewish National Fund's Atlanta chapter, which had announced that it would present Baptist pastor Stanley with its Tree of Life Award for his longtime support for Israel. Says the Religion News Service this week:

Amid a heated debate over his vocal opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley will decline an award he planned to accept from the Jewish National Fund in Atlanta on Thursday (April 23.)
News that the longtime pastor of First Baptist Atlanta and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention would be honored by the JNF angered many Jews who pointed to his history of vitriolic anti-gay comments.
Stanley said the award was causing too much strife within the Jewish community, and for the sake of his love for Israel, he would not accept it, according to the JNF, a nonprofit that sponsors environmental and educational programs in the Jewish state.

About a third of the story is copied fairly closely from the breaking story on April 7. In that one RNS reported that another Atlanta-based group -- the Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender and Sexual Diversity (SOJOURN) -- had drawn up a letter condemning Stanley for opposing same-sex marriage and such.

Between the articles, RNS allows SOJOURN to let fly with punch after punch. The group's letter says Stanley “has publicly called AIDS God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality and called homosexuality ‘destructive behavior.’ ” The group also cites Stanley "saying that 'God does not agree with the lifestyle of the homosexual' and that accepting gay people is 'an act of disobedience to God.' " Oh, and let's not forget Stanley’s "sordid history of virulent homophobic statements and actions."  


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Kellerism on right? Dialogue with atheist reader about coverage of military chaplains

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Your GetReligionistas get quite a few emails from readers that you never hear about "out front" here on the blog. Many are from professionals on the Godbeat and others come from journalists on copy desks and on other beats. All are read carefully and appreciated.

We also have critics, of course, and we pay close attention to them, too, especially the constructive folks who are actually talking about journalism issues, rather than their own pet political or cultural issues. One long-time reader I have always appreciated is atheist Ray Ingles, who makes regular appearances in our comments pages.

The other day he sent me a Washington Times URL for a story on another military-chaplain dispute, with the simple question in the email subject line: "Do you think this was balanced?" The story opened like this:

Soon there may only be atheists in the foxholes.
Christians are leaving the U.S. military or are discouraged from joining in the first place because of a “hostile work environment” that doesn’t let them express their beliefs openly, religious freedom advocates say.


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Why does Washington Post label one religious freedom law 'controversial' and another 'historic?'

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In the media storm over a religious freedom law passed in Indiana, the Washington Post repeatedly used the term "controversial" to describe the measure (examples here, here and here).

However, the Post prefers other words to characterize a gay rights bill passed in Utah, including "landmark" and "historic."

In a story this week, the Post goes behind the scenes of the legislative compromise in Mormon-dominated Utah.

The lede:

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s historic compromise aiming to balance gay and religious rights had yet to be unveiled, but on that fateful night last month, it was already unraveling.
A handful of legislators and other negotiators were seated around a squat wooden table in the blue-and-gold Senate lounge, struggling to resolve the remaining — and seemingly irreconcilable — differences between gay rights activists and the influential Mormon Church. Tempers were flaring.
“The tornado and hurricane and typhoon arrived in that room that night and the wind was blowing, and the tree of our whole effort was down at 45 degrees,” recalled Sen. Jim Dabakis (D), the state’s only openly gay legislator.
But the two sides, drawing on an unlikely trust nurtured during years of quiet rapprochement, were able that night to reach a breakthrough.
Within days, they sent a bill to the state legislature — and a message to a politically riven nation that compromise was possible, even on one of the most divisive social issues, even in one of its most conservative states.


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