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Gag-rule drama: Oregon 'Sweet Cakes' story needs fresher, in-depth treatment

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On the heels of the Supreme Court’s June 26 5-4 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states comes a ruling by Oregon’s state labor commissioner lowering the boom on a couple who refused to bake a wedding cake for two lesbians in early 2013.

This is a really interesting church-state story and numerous readers have email your GetReligionistas asking when we would deal with it. Once again, the goal is to look at the coverage of this issue, not the issue itself. Let's give that a try.

Here is how The Oregonian worded it:

The owners of a shuttered Gresham bakery must pay $135,000 in damages to a lesbian couple for refusing to make them a wedding cake, the state's top labor official said Thursday.
State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein to pay the women for emotional and mental suffering that resulted from the denial of service. The Kleins had cited their Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage in refusing to make the cake.
Avakian's ruling upheld a preliminary finding earlier this year that the Kleins, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, had discriminated against the Portland couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.
The case ignited a long-running skirmish in the nation's culture wars, pitting civil rights advocates against religious freedom proponents who argued business owners should have the right to refuse services for gay and lesbian weddings.

I looked at a previous story by the same reporter on April 24 and here’s how the lead sentence ran there:

The lesbian couple turned away by a Gresham bakery that refused to make them a wedding cake for religious reasons should receive $135,000 in damages for their emotional suffering, a state hearings officer says.

Notice the crucial difference?


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First gay marriage, now two spouses: Government and media react tentatively

Well, that didn't take long. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 26 that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. A mere four days later, a nationally known bigamist applied for a marriage license for his second mate.

He's a familiar face, and so are his women. They were on the TLC cable show Sister Wives. Now Nathan and Victoria Collier want to make their relationship with Christine legal.

Their inspiration? Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court, who predicted this could happen.

The county clerks in Billings, Montana don’t quite know how to react. Neither do some mainstream media. Says the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court's ruling on Friday made gay marriages legal nationwide. Chief Justice John Roberts said in his dissent that people in polygamous relationships could make the same legal argument that not having the opportunity to marry disrespects and subordinates them.
Collier, 46, said that dissent inspired him. He owns a refrigeration business in Billings and married Victoria, 40, in 2000. He and his second wife, Christine, had a religious wedding ceremony in 2007 but did not sign a marriage license to avoid bigamy charges, he said.

Collier didn't shy away from liberal terms. "It's about marriage equality," he told AP. "You can't have this without polygamy." He's also asking Montana's ACLU chapter to step in.

The clerks first denied the application, then said they'd ask the county attorney's office.  If the state doesn't budge, Collier says he'll sue.

AP is less definite. Twice it mentions Collier's "wives," and twice it calls Christine his second wife, as if everyone agrees with those labels.

The story has a few other soft spots. AP quotes Anne Wilde, a co-founder of a pro-polygamy group in Utah. It doesn't spell out why it asked her, although we could guess it's because Collier was excommunicated from the mainline Mormon Church for his two women.

Wilde tells AP that polygamous families in Utah don’t want multiple marriage licenses:


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Getting out of civil marriage biz? Tribune details one side of debate in Chicago

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Several months ago, I heard about an interesting decision made by Father Patrick Henry Reardon, a very outspoken and influential Eastern Orthodox priest up in the Chicago area. After the state of Illinois approved the redefinition of marriage -- including same-sex unions -- Reardon decided that he would get out of the civil marriage business and stop signing secular marriage licenses.

This was, for Reardon, an intensely theological subject and he was most comfortable discussing the topic in those terms. It was a challenge to quote him in ways that were accurate, yet could be included in a column for readers in mainstream newspapers. This was pretty complex territory.

The priest knew, of course, that a U.S. Supreme Court on this subject loomed in the near future and he assumed that it would complicate matters even further, especially in terms of the First Amendment and religious liberty. But the key, for him, was that he was discussing a sacrament of the church and doctrines on which he could not compromise. Thus, I ended my Universal syndicate column on this topic like this:

At his altar, said Reardon, this means, "I cannot represent the State of Illinois anymore. … I'm not making a political statement. I'm making a theological statement."

I also quoted the American leader of the branch of Orthodoxy in which Reardon serves, who, while not directly addressing the issue of civil marriage licenses, made it clear that his church would not be taking part in a major reshaping of marriage.

The upcoming Supreme Court decision could "mark a powerful affirmation of marriage between one man and one woman … or it can initiate a direction which the Holy Orthodox Church can never embrace," stated Metropolitan Joseph, of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. "Throughout the history of our faith our Holy Fathers have led the Orthodox laity" to unite to "preserve the faith against heresy from within, and against major threats from societies from without."

For me, as an Orthodox layman, the most interesting part of that statement were the words focusing on the church and the theological tensions that are ahead, the part when the metropolitan mentions the struggles to "preserve the faith against heresy from within."

Heresy is not a word that bishops toss around without careful thought.

Now, in the wake of the 5-4 Obergefell decision by Justice Anthony Kennedy and the U.S. Supreme Court, the Chicago Tribune has followed up with a news report about Reardon that does a good job of describing his decision, yet does very little to dig into the thoughts and beliefs of those who either oppose or dismiss his strategy. Consider, for example, this passage in which an Orthodox bishop seems to echo, in reverse, some of Reardon's thinking:


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Weekend think piece: Probing post-Obergefell fault lines in Christian higher education

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The vast majority of the time, GetReligion features critiques -- positive and negative -- of mainstream press coverage of religion news. However, in recent years we have started adding some other features by veteran religion-beat specialists Richard Ostling and Ira Rifkin that address Godbeat work in short features that we think will be of interest to people who care about domestic and international trends in religion -- period -- or who are professionals on the beat.

In the "Religion Guy Memo," for example, I have asked Ostling to serve as kind of Metro desk sage, a veteran editor talking about issues related to the beat the way an editor might chat with a religion-beat scribe over a cup of coffee. As any reporter knows, a good editor helps you discern what stories "have legs" and what stories may be just over the horizon.

That is what Rifkin is doing in "Global Wire," as well, focusing on questions raised by recent events around the world or, on occasion, trying to spot slow developing stories that may be on the rise, or those that are about to pop into the open.

On weekends, I also like to share what I call "think pieces" -- links to pieces about developments on the beat or essays by religion insiders who are clearly trying to discern what will happen in the news in the near or distant future. All reporters have writers and thinkers that they follow online, seeking clues about future stories. Think Pew Forum folks. Think John C. Green of the University of Akron. For decades, Martin Marty of the University of Chicago was THE go-to brain for religion-beat pros. I mean, the man answered his own telephone!

You don't have to agree with this kind of insider in order to draw information from them. The key is that they have some unique insight into developments within specific religious communities. They can read the spiritual weather forecasts, in other words. It also helps if they speak common English, instead of inside-baseball jargon.

So with that in mind, please consider this new essay about a topic that -- for obvious reasons -- is of great interest to me as a writer and as a teacher. That would be trends in Christian higher education in the wake of the recent 5-4 Obergefell decision on gay marriage at the U.S. Supreme Court.


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What’s ahead for Americans who believe in traditional marriage?

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What’s ahead for Americans who believe in traditional marriage?

THE RELIGION GUY ASKS:

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, what’s ahead for religious believers in traditional man-and-woman marriage alone? (The Guy poses this timely topic now in place of the usual question posted by an online reader.)

THE ANSWER:

The historic June 26 legalization, by a one-vote majority of a deeply divided Supreme Court, demonstrates with stark clarity religion’s declining influence and stature in American culture.

The one aspect is obvious. Traditional marriage belief is firmly taught, with no immediate prospect of change, by the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, most other evangelical Protestants, many “historically black” Protestant churches, conservatives within “mainline” Protestant denominations, Eastern Orthodoxy, Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Judaism, Islam and others.

A massive 2014 Pew Research survey indicates those groups encompass the majority of Americans, something like 140 million adults.

Of course, not all parishioners agree with official doctrine or practice their faith. In a May poll by Pew, the 57 percent of all Americans supporting gay and lesbian marriages tracked closely with the 56 percent among those identifying as Catholic. That contrasted with only 41 percent of black Americans and 27 percent in the nation’s biggest religious bloc, white evangelicals.

The less-noticed aspect is the weakness of religions on the triumphant side, which generally followed the LGBT movement rather than exercising decisive leadership, unlike past church crusades that helped win independence from Britain, abolition of slavery, labor rights, child welfare, social safety nets, women’s vote, alcohol prohibition, civil rights laws, or withdrawal from Vietnam.


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#LoveWins #JournalismFails — Some old media-bias battles (think Kellerism) go public

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#LoveWins #JournalismFails — Some old media-bias battles (think Kellerism) go public

This was the rare week that my column for the Universal Syndicate grew directly out of what was happening online here at GetReligion. It doesn't take a doctorate in journalism history to figure out the topic for all of the chatter. Correct?

That discussion led to this week's "Crossroads" podcast with the team at Issues, etc. Click here to tune that in.

The whole thing felt kind of hall-of-mirrors meta, with host Todd Wilken and I discussing figures in the mainstream media discussing whether many mainstream journalists had proven their critics right by waving all of those cyber rainbow flags in the heady hours after the 5-4 Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

That decision, no surprise, led to a blitz of posts and debates all over cyberspace, including here, here, here, here, here and, especially, here at GetReligion. But the key to podcast was this post -- "From old Kellerism to new BuzzFeed: The accuracy and fairness debate rolls on" -- in which I noted that this new debate about the new news was actual linked to old debates that have been going on for some time.

So have we seen a historic change in American journalism? I still need some help from GetReligion readers trying to parse the following quote from BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith, as he defended (click here for transcript) his news site's open celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court decision during a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt:

BS: I don’t really think there, I mean, I guess I don’t really think there was much of a controversy, or at least I didn’t see. There were like, I’ve been tweeting with three people today -- Tim Carney and a guy named, just, I mean, but I’m not sure like three or four people make a controversy. But I think we have, we drafted and published a Standards Guide and an Ethics Guide several months ago, and I think we’ve been wrestling with something I’m sure you think about a lot, which is, although I think I probably come down somewhere a bit differently from you, which is you know, is it possible to, look, what is the tradition that used to be called kind of objective journalism, mainstream media journalism, the tradition the New York Times and the Washington Post come out of, which is the tradition I come out of?


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Food for thought: Diners prefer Chick-fil-A over the competition, or gay rights protesters

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Boycotts typically fail. CNN reconfirmed that maxim this week with the news that Chick-fil-A -- hit hard with gay-rights protests a few years ago -- ranked first in customer satisfaction among fast-food restaurants.

"Not everyone likes Chick-fil-A's politics, but they sure seem to like the food," CNN Money says, in its article on the American Customer Satisfaction Index Restaurant Report 2015.

The CNN Money article didn't reheat those issues, focusing instead on the numbers. It said the once-embattled chain drew an 86 rating, higher than 17 other companies -- including well-known brands like Panera Bread, Pizza Hut and Dunkin Donuts.

The story adds:

The chicken restaurant was the subject of controversy and protests a few years ago after its CEO made remarks that offended the LGBT community.
But that hasn't stopped fans from flocking to its restaurants, and giving it high marks for customer experience.
"It is laser focused on a particular product," said Forrest Morgeson, director of research at ACSI. "It focuses on one thing and does it exceptionally well ... and that is chicken sandwiches."
This is Chick-fil-A's debut on the list and its score is the highest ever achieved in the category.

The restaurant chain was targeted in 2012 by gay protestors who took umbrage at CEO Dan Cathy's quotes about traditional families and biblical values: "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."


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Huffington Post digs up a solid story on abuse in Baltimore archdiocese

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Well now. I recently chanced on a Huffington Post story that came out in mid May but which was so gripping, it thought that it deserves comment even six weeks later. Consider this a kind of a GetReligion "file of guilt" post.

If the headline: "Buried in Baltimore: The Mysterious Murder of a Nun Who Knew Too Much" doesn’t get you reading the nearly 7,500-word story, nothing can.

Yes, it’s about clergy sex abuse and no, we shouldn’t ever be tired of reading about these stories. Because in this case, a nun found out  about the abuse and paid for it with her life. Start here:

On a frigid day in November 1969, Father Joseph Maskell, the chaplain of Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, called a student into his office and suggested they go for a drive. When the final bell rang at 2:40 p.m., Jean Hargadon Wehner, a 16-year-old junior at the all-girls Catholic school, followed the priest to the parking lot and climbed into the passenger seat of his light blue Buick Roadmaster.
It was not unusual for Maskell to give students rides home or take them to doctor's appointments during the school day. The burly, charismatic priest, then 30 years old, had been the chief spiritual and psychological counselor at Keough for two years and was well-known in the community...This time, though, Maskell didn't bring Wehner home. He navigated his car past the Catholic hospital and industrial buildings that surrounded Keough’s campus and drove toward the outskirts of the city. Eventually, he stopped at a garbage dump, far from any homes or businesses. Maskell stepped out of the car, and the blonde, freckled teenager followed him across a vast expanse of dirt toward a dark green dumpster.
It was then that she saw the body crumpled on the ground.

The body was that of a nun who had found out that Maskell was raping and abusing teenaged girls at the school.


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Religion vs. history? Something's missing in coverage of that banned Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma

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Here in my home state of Oklahoma, the Ten Commandments made headlines this week.

More precisely, a monument to the "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots" sparked a 7-2 decision by the state Supreme Court.

The lede from The Oklahoman:

The Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the grounds of the state Capitol, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
Justices ruled 7-2 the monument must go because the state constitution prohibits the use of public property to directly or indirectly benefit a “church denomination or system of religion.”
The decision touched off a furor at the Capitol with several lawmakers calling for impeachment of the seven justices who voted in the majority.
Attorney General Scott Pruitt said he believes the court "got it wrong" and filed a petition for rehearing — a move that will at least delay removal of the monument.
If that fails, Pruitt called for changing the state constitution.
Not everyone was unhappy, however.
Brady Henderson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, which filed the lawsuit, said he was "very pleased with the decision."
"I think it's the right decision and affirms the plain meaning of the state Constitution which has always stood for the idea that it isn't the government's business to tell us what are right or wrong choices when it comes to faith,” he said.

In a sidebar, Oklahoman Religion Editor Carla Hinton got reactions from Oklahoma religious leaders as well as the spokesman for a Satanic group. The Satanic Temple of New York had unveiled designs for a Capitol "statue of Satan as Baphomet — a goat-headed demon with horns, wings and a long beard":


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