Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
While tmatt has his guilt folder, as the child of a Catholic and a Jew I simply have guilt. And I’ve felt an unbearable weight for more than a month now to write this post about news coverage of those de-baptism ceremonies.
Let me begin by expressing my deepest and most sincere sympathies for reporter Ron Cassie of The Frederick News-Post.
Bacchanals at his residence, liaisons with prostititutes, an ambiguous relationship with a teenage girl — allegations against the Italian Prime Minister have been roiling the country for months.
During a recent post about the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, I used the term “cafeteria Catholic” and then — with great haste — emphasized that this condition exists on the right side of the political fence, as well.
Sometimes the most interesting religion stories are about some small angle in daily life. And the Washington Post‘s William Wan has found a great one. He looks at how folks have filled out the “religious views” box on Facebook. Mine says “Confessional Lutheran,” for instance.
In terms of political content, the unofficial state funeral (video here) of Sen. Edward Kennedy was pretty normal, with pews full of presidents and prose full of allusions to legislation that helped the masses, with President Barack Obama in full civil-religion flight.
The mainstream media really hasn’t done a very good job covering the heated debate over whether to extend the institution of marriage to same-sex couples. It’s been a problem for years and the coverage has been so amazingly one-sided that it’s surprising that all 30 states that have asked voters to define marriage as a heterosexual institution have done so. Part of it is that the mainstream media has long been an elite institution with views on homosexuality somewhat out-of-step with the general populace.
Have you ever considered branding an eighth-grader’s arm in the shape of a cross with a high voltage device?
We’ve been complaining a bit about the meager inclusion of religion angles in some of the political coverage of the various legislative efforts to reform health care and health insurance. So David Kirkpatrick’s piece in the New York Times this week was welcome. Headlined “Some Catholic Bishops Assail Health Plan,” here’s how it began:
