Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
At my home congregation in Oklahoma, our two Sunday morning assemblies drew 1,256 people on a recent weekend. That same Sunday, just 540 worshipers returned for the evening service. In a fellowship that traditionally has placed a high value on church attendance, that’s a lot of people “forsaking the assembly.”
CNN.com published 10 — count ‘em, 10 — articles or video clips yesterday about Bishop Eddie Long. If you don’t know who Long is, then you’re like the almost all Americans were one week ago, before the media blitz began with revelations that four young men at Long’s Atlanta-area megachurch were filing lawsuits claiming the minister molested them.
This week the U.S. Senate voted against taking up a major military bill that would have allowed the repeal of President Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. That’s the policy that keeps the military from doing anything to find out if members are homosexual while also keeping openly gay or lesbian people from serving in the military.
Forsyth County, Georgia v. Nationalist Movement was a 1992 Supreme Court case dealing with freedom of speech. Forsyth County had this ordinance that mandated permits for private demonstrations. County administrators decided on the fee, which was only up to $1,000. When a group of white nationalists proposed a demonstration against the Martin Luther King, Jr., federal holiday, they were levied a fee of $100. They sued, claiming the ordinance violates their free speech guarantees. The Supreme Court agreed.
All that talk about the possible death of print media? Totally premature. Christine O’Donnell’s big win in Delaware’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate has spilled enough ink to keep the dead-tree news business operating at least through the November election.
On the final day of his United Kingdom trip, Pope Benedict XVI formally beatified English theologian and apologist Cardinal John Henry Newman. Let’s look at some of the stories about Newman. NPR’s excellent religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty had a piece speculating that Newman was gay. I thought it a completely bizarre approach for the main story the news outlet chose to report on the man.
The last time Molly Norris was in the news was July. She’s the Seattle cartoonist who responded to censorship of South Park by declaring April 20 to be “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”
The New York Daily News has a brief story about a man who was just fired for a First Amendment protest.
