Social Issues

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Free exercise or state intrusion? Houston Chronicle's report on new Texas law is ... well, you know

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In breaking news, two political supporters of a new Texas law protecting sermons from government subpoena reportedly used a public event to tout their approval of the measure.

As they used to say in tee-vee land, "Film at 11." (Well, video at least: see clip above.)

Texas' State Bill 24, officially signed into law May 19 by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, bars governments from forcing a cleric to turn over sermons in a civil or administrative proceeding or to compel a clergyman's testimony.

Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also a Republican, took to the platform at Grace Church Woodlands, in a Houston suburb, to praise the new measure, with Abbott ceremonially signing a copy of the new law.

This sent the Houston Chronicle into action, ramping up the Kellerism beginning in the first sentence. Read this admittedly chunky excerpt to get a sense of the reporting:

The state's top two elected officials took to the pulpit Sunday, preaching the righteousness of conservative gender norms – and hitting on several other red meat Republican issues – before the governor signed a copy of a new law protecting sermons at a Woodlands church. ...
To mark the occasion at Grace Community Church in the Woodlands, Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott joined pastor Steve Riggle and three of the four others whose sermons were subpoenaed in 2014 by the city of Houston, igniting a political fire storm [sic] for then-mayor Annise Parker.
Riggle and the so-called "Houston Five" were fighting a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance, mostly over objections to the rights it would have extended to gay and transgender people. Parker and the city sought the sermons amid a legal battle over a petition drive led by the pastors.
The move sparked outrage nationwide from people who saw it as intimidation of the church and infringement on religious liberties. Parker said the city only wanted evidence related to any instructions the pastors may have given on how to conduct the petition drive. But she acknowledged the subpoena was overly broad and withdrew the request for sermons.


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Hey USA Today: What did Mike Pence have to say about Notre Dame and free speech?

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One of the most basic story assignments in all of journalism is covering a speech, especially one delivered in ordinary language to a general audience (as opposed to, say, a scientist speaking in science lingo to a room full of science pros).

First of all, you have to get the words of the speech right. Then you need to understand them, figure out the contents that might be newsworthy and then, if relevant, get reactions from people the room, from experts or from the wider public.

But it's sort of important to cover the speech. Right?

Take, for example, the appearance by Vice President Mike Pence at the University of Notre Dame. As you would expect, liberal Catholics were not amused by his presence at commencement, even though he was raised Catholic and is Indiana's former governor. Everyone knew there would be protests, since there are plenty of students and faculty on campus who would have protested even if a conservative Catholic bishop, archbishop or cardinal showed it. #DUH

USA Today, via Religion News Service, did a great, great, great job of covering the protests. First rate. But what did Pence have to say? Was it worth a word, a phrase or even a sentence?

Hold that thought.

Clearly what mattered here was the LGBTQ protesters and others who have perfectly obvious disagreements with Pence (and Donald Trump, of course). Here is the overture:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (USA Today) When Mike Pence took the stage at Notre Dame’s commencement on Sunday, more than 100 students quietly got up from their seats and left. There were a few cheers. Some boos.
This was not a surprise, but rather a staged protest some students had been planning for weeks. When Notre Dame announced that the vice president and former governor of Indiana would be the university’s 2017 graduation speaker in March, the student organization WeStaNDFor began brainstorming ways to take a stand.


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The Economist explains 2016: Evangelicals sure love money and Donald Trump

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It's certainly one of the iconic images from the early 2016 rallies that, to the shock of the all-wise politicos everywhere, helped push Citizen Donald Trump into the White House.

I am referring to the viral image at the top of this post, a picture -- with mocking variations -- that can be found all over the place in cyberspace.

What made this image so perfect? Perhaps it was something about the combination of reality-TV ecstasy on certain faces and that "Thank You Lord Jesus for President Trump" sign.

For many journalists it perfectly captured what they wanted to believe, which was that Trump was the official candidate of white evangelical Protestants. The most deplorable of the deplorables.

After the election, this simplistic view of the primaries evolved into a similar verdict on election 2016, which was that if you wanted to know who to blame (yes, yes, yes) for President Trump that would be angry white men in blue collars and/or white evangelicals. From a true-blue cultural perspective, what's the difference?

Actually, there are lots of differences. As one pollster told me, there's a big difference between Saturday night conservatives and Sunday morning conservatives. There are bar conservatives and church conservatives. In the primaries, the church crowd was really divided and highly conflicted, in terms of backing (to one degree or another) Trump. He had some key old-right religious backers, in the primaries, but there was zero evangelical unity.

This brings me to a stunningly simplistic essay in a source where you aren't supposed to find simplistic journalism -- The Economist. The headline: "Why evangelicals love Donald Trump."

So right there you have trouble. You know that this really means white evangelicals. Or how about Latino evangelicals, who may have given Trump Florida?

Never mind. Here's the overture:


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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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How Britain's Telegraph twisted itself into pretzel over yoga-rejecting Christian parish

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Sometimes, I feel as if I'm visiting here from an alternative journalistic universe.

It seems the notion of a Christian church acting like, well, a traditional Christian church is something as foreign to some of us journalist types as this planet would seem if one had just arrived from Mars.

Consider this article from The Daily Telegraph, one of Britain's more conservative newspapers (it once had the nickname of "The Daily Torygraph"). Apparently, some folks in Wales are upset because while part of a local Anglican church will be used as a community center, classes in yoga won't be permitted.

So Pilates, si, yoga, no. Seriously. Residents are not happy with the church council's -- wait for it -- position on this twisted issue. From the Telegraph 's account:

Parishioners have threatened to boycott a church that banned yoga from its premises because it is "non-Christian".

Church bosses said the discipline that originated in ancient India "might be seen to be in conflict with Christian values and belief".

Part of St David's Church, in Ceredigion, Wales, is being converted into a community centre after complaints that the village of Blaenporth lacked facilities. However, some locals were shocked after the Parochial Church Council (PCC) ruled that, while pilates would be allowed in the planned centre, yoga would not be -- along with other "non-Christian activities".

Those who say that yoga is non-Christian often claim to hold the viewpoint because it "teaches participants to focus on oneself, instead of on the one true God".

The first journalistic problem, as careful readers might recognize off the bat, is the use of the word "parishioners" in the first sentence. By the fourth paragraph, we're informed that it is, instead "some locals" who are upset over the yoga ban. Are we talking about active church members or people who simply live inside the borders of some "parish" region?

This is a distinction with a difference.


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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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Trump returns to Liberty University, a safe zone -- it appears -- for all kinds of speakers

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In the midst of all the latest craziness in Washington, D.C., it appears that President Donald Trump is going to return to one of his favorite safe zones.

That would be Liberty University, of course, home of uber-Trumpster Jerry Falwell, Jr.

The Donald has, of course, spoken during campus convocations at Liberty, including a rather ahead-of-its-time appearance in 2012. Now he has been asked to speak at the most symbolic campus event of all -- commencement. The key here is that this is a safe trip for Trump (hint, hint).

The Washington Post is all over this with an education-beat feature under this headline: "Excitement and caution as Liberty University awaits Trump’s commencement speech."

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- It’s exam week at Liberty University and everywhere are signs of last-minute cramming. Study groups are bunched around tables inside the student union. The Jerry Falwell Library is unusually packed. And the weekly campus worship service has been postponed to allow more time to study.
But final exams aren’t the only tests facing the outwardly placid campus this week.
Students at the nation’s largest Christian university are also preparing for the arrival of President Trump, who is to deliver the commencement address for the Class of 2017 on May 13. He will be the first incumbent president to speak at the school’s commencement since George H.W. Bush in 1990.
If Trump needed a safe space to deliver his first commencement address, he would be hard-pressed to find a more accommodating school.

Right, right. As this story noted, it's hard to imagine what kind of protests would have been staged if Trump had tried to speak at commencement at the University of Notre Dame (as opposed to walking in the footsteps of pro-abortion-rights President Barack Obama and [a] speaking there and [b] picking up an honorary doctor of laws degree).


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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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Weekend think piece: The New York Times offers R.R. Reno's take on America's new cold war

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If you have been paying attention to gossip about the news industry lately, you may have heard that many New York Times readers were not amused when the leaders of the great Gray Lady's editorial pages decided to add another conservative voice to the mix

Ever since the first column by one Bret Stephens -- a piece criticizing how the cultural left pushes climate change (but he does not reject the reality of climate change) -- large numbers of Times nation citizens have been voicing their wrath about this invasion of a beloved safe space, primarily by canceling their subscriptions.

I have not heard of a similar reaction to the recent Times opinion essay by the Catholic scribe R.R. Reno, who is editor of the conservative interfaith journal First Things. The title: "Republicans Are Now the ‘America First’ Party."

Now, let me stress that this Reno think piece does not contain large chunks of theology or commentary about religion. Instead, it's about how one Donald Trump has moved the ground under the feet of Republicans who had, for a long time, assumed that the GOP orthodoxy of Ronald Reagan would last 1,000 years or so.

The central theme: The new GOP enemy is globalism, not big government.

As I read this Reno piece, I kept waiting for religious material, for cultural and moral material, to show up. After all, I read newspapers through the lens of the great historian Martin Marty, as described in an "On Religion" column I wrote a year after 9/11 (at an event that started the dominoes falling that led to the birth of GetReligion). Here is the top of that 2002 column (this is long, but essential):

It is Martin Marty's custom to rise at 4:44 a.m. for coffee and prayer, while awaiting the familiar thump of four newspapers on his porch. ... America's most famous church historian prepared for a lecture in Nebraska by ripping up enough newsprint to bury his table in headlines and copy slashed with a yellow pen.
A former WorldCom CEO kept teaching his Sunday school class. A researcher sought the lost tribe of Israel. Believers clashed in Sudan. Mormon and evangelical statistics were up – again. A Zambian bishop said he got married to shock the Vatican. U.S. bishops kept wrestling with clergy sexual abuse. Pakistani police continued to study the death of journalist Daniel Pearl.
Marty tore out more pages, connecting the dots. Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey feared an Anglican schism. Public-school students prayed at flagpoles. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explored the border between church and state. And there were dozens of stories linked to Sept. 11, 2001.


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