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News coverage of Los Angeles Dodgers drag-nuns story reveals plenty of bad habits

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News coverage of Los Angeles Dodgers drag-nuns story reveals plenty of bad habits

Sports have always brought people together. That’s a big reason that they have been so popular for decades.

But in our ever-polarized world around political lines, sports have taken a hit. Whether it involved NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem or NBA players supporting Black Lives Matter, sports and sports journalism have become increasingly political the last few years.

Baseball, and specifically the Los Angeles Dodgers, became the focus of controversy over the last two weeks when the team invited, then un-invited and then issued a welcome once again a group known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco group of queer and trans people dressed as nuns at the team’s annual Pride Night on June 16.

As many noted, there’s no way a sports franchise would have given this kind of salute to a group of traditional Catholics opposed by cultural progressives, a group like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

What took place during this entire saga is a series of predictable news-media coverage twists and turns guided by professionals who, it appears, saw this issue from their own left-right vantage points. Modern journalism is often criticized for building narratives and reading minds rather than reporting facts and interviewing both sides. This story fit that mold.

While the news coverage lacked voices from both sides in this debate, most of the reports also lacked another very important term — anti-Catholic.

Are these “nuns” anti-Catholic? It certainly depends on which side of this debate you are on and many news outlets made that clear and, thus, ignored citizens whose views were found to be heretical, in terms of current newsroom dogmas.

Take, for example, the Los Angeles Times feature that ran on May 25 that included a photo shoot with the “nuns.” Here’s how that piece opened:

Ask the L.A. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence why they decided to join the order of drag nuns, and most of them will tell you it’s because they felt the call.

Sister Tootie Toot (glitter green lips, dark beard, emerald cocktail dress) felt it like a ton of bricks when she walked into a leather bar where several sisters had assembled.


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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

In the summer of 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Company, acting in response to some early power mouse gay-rights decisions.

Eight years later, the leaders of America’s largest non-Catholic flock quietly called off the boycott, which was a bit of a dud. The news coverage was, well, joyfully muted.

Why did this boycott fail? Well, for one thing, lots of SBC guys probably found it hard to ditch ESPN and lots of parents who were “conservatives” found it hard to stop using Disney movies as babysitters.

This brings us to the current headlines about Bud Light and Target, which served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Baptists vs. Disney? Kind of a big deal, but not really. Then again, Disney executives may be aware of box-office issues with some of their recent LGBTQ+ themes in big-screen products for children. You think?

Ah, but what about beer drinkers vs. Bud Light? That battle over in-your-face corporate support for trans performance art appears to have legs. See this update from NBC News: “'Nobody imagined it would go on this long': Bud Light sales continue to plummet over Mulvaney backlash.”

Suburban parents (especially in red states) vs. Target? That’s a more complex subject, but there are signs that Tarjey executives have started doing homework on the watered-down beer battles.

This raises a perfectly valid question: Are there religion ghosts in the Bud Light and Target backlash stories? I mean, how many Southern Baptists are Bud Light fans?

The actual question is this: Are there religion ghosts in the neverending wars between Middle America and “woke” corporate support for the ever-changing doctrines of the Sexual Revolution?

I would say, “yes.” But it’s clear that the cultural battles now involve armies larger than people in conservative pews.


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LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

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LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

As a child in inner-city Milwaukee, Father Bryan Massingale's grandmother gave him a leather-bound copy of The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, along with a dream that he might need it someday.

"My grandmother was not delusional. She did not live in denial of reality," said Massingale, a Jesuit priest who holds an endowed chair in ethics at Fordham University, in New York City. "Her gift was a vision, an act of hope. It was a dream, a hope, a reminder that the neighborhood, with its drugs, violence and rodent-infested corner store with overpriced goods, did not define or limit who I could be."

That's important to know, he declared, since he was speaking as "a Black, gay priest and theologian" at Fordham's recent Ignatian Q Conference for LGBTQ students from Jesuit campuses. This event was a "space for our dreaming, for queer dreams" of hope for "despised and disdained and stigmatized peoples," he added.

"I dream of a church where gay priests and lesbian sisters are acknowledged as the holy and faithful leaders they already are," he said, in a published version of his address. "I dream of a church where LGBTQ employees and schoolteachers can teach our children, serve God's people and have their vocations, sexuality and committed loves affirmed. …

"I dream of a church that enthusiastically celebrates same-sex loves as incarnations of God's love among us."

Theological visions of this kind inspire hope for some Catholics and concern for others.

Thus, the North American phase of the Vatican's global Synod on Synodality found "strong tensions within the Church," while participants in the virtual assemblies also "felt hope and encouragement and a desire for the synodal process to continue," according to the 36-page report (.pdf here) released on April 12 by U.S. and Canadian Catholic leaders.


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What's missing from that 'conservatives pounce' New York Times sermon on trans fights?

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What's missing from that 'conservatives pounce' New York Times sermon on trans fights?

At this point in journalism history, does anyone expect to read New York Times coverage of events and trends on the Religious Right and find a single sentence that presents interesting, provocative information — drawn from interviews with cultural conservatives — that supports that point of view?

OK, #TriggerWarning. This post assumes that, when dealing with hot-button issues, journalists should present information that accurately represents the views of people on both sides of those debates. Here is another way of stating that: Stories about controversial, divisive issues should contain information that make people on each sides uncomfortable.

This brings us to that recent Times piece with this headline: “How a Campaign Against Transgender Rights Mobilized Conservatives.” This is a classic case of the “conservatives pounce” trend in which news stories are defined in terms of conservative responses to a national trend, with next to zero discussions of the origins and nature of the trend itself.

Before we get to the Times sermon on this topic, let’s back up a bit and consider some background information. Here is a byte from a Reuters report:

In 2021, about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data Komodo compiled for Reuters. Gender dysphoria is defined as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the one assigned to them at birth.

Overall, the analysis found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021.

Here’s another look at the general trend, which includes a few hints at the wider debates:

The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report that captures a stark generational shift and emerging societal embrace of a diversity of gender identities.

The analysis, relying on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, estimated that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5 percent of all adults. Those figures illustrated a significant rise since the researchers’ previous report in 2017, though the analyses used different methods.


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Will someone please tell editors at the Washington Post how to cover protests fairly?

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Will someone please tell editors at the Washington Post how to cover protests fairly?

Recently I saw that the Washington Post was running a story about drag queens, so I began reading it until I realized it was sheer puffery on behalf of the author and undisguised bigotry against some unnamed religious protestors.

Then I looked up the name of the reporter who’d written this piece and I saw she was the same one who wrote a lyrical ode to a woman who was organizing demonstrations outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavannaugh.

We typically don’t criticize reporters by name here at GetReligion unless the offense is truly bad and there are consistent patterns. We focus on the stilted point of view; the things left unsaid; the side that got ignored. But when the reporter does the same thing over and over again, it’s time to say enough.

I’ve reached that point with Post reporter Ellie Silverman, who covers protests and activism.  Both these topics involve conflict; both sides of a conflict have real live people in their midst and these people deserve a hearing, no matter how much the reporter may personally feel about a matter.

Silverman doesn’t appear to get that concept.

We all have covered movements and public events that require us to interview participants with which we disagree. The mark of a professional is be adept enough at covering the matter, neither side knows how you feel about the topic.

This isn’t the case with Silverman’s stories. In her latest, she focuses on drag queens and, obviously, her inability to understand why religious folks have a problem with drag-queen performances for children:

Lily Pastor knew who she was and wanted to celebrate it. So, last month, she joined about 50 other volunteers to turn a Capitol Hill sidewalk into a rainbow-filled dance party outside Crazy Aunt Helen’s, a restaurant that was hosting a story time event with a drag queen.

Anti-trans protesters had gathered across the street and were deriding hormone therapy, a treatment that provided Pastor a way to feel more like herself. But Pastor said standing alongside the people she met — a trans man, a queer teacher, straight allies — was empowering.


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Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

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Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

The Bible's shortest verse -- "Jesus wept" -- is also one of its most important.

That was the message delivered by the Rev. Chad Scruggs in a March 5 sermon -- "Death's Conqueror" -- as the faithful at Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian Church continued their Lenten journey toward Holy Week and Easter's promise of new life after death.

"How do we face death in our world," he asked, "especially untimely deaths, without the pain and confusion of death leading us to despair?"

That was three weeks before a gunman crashed through the glass doors of his church's Covenant School and killed three staff members and three 9-year-old students -- including the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs. Police fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former Covenant student who had taken the name "Aiden" and male pronouns online. 

Police confirmed that Covenant had been targeted. But Nashville officials and the FBI have declined to release a "manifesto" referenced in Hale's final social-media warning: "One day this will make more sense. I've left more than enough evidence behind."

The families of those killed have mourned in private, even as solemn Holy Week rites flowed toward Easter (April 9) -- surrounded by a whirlwind of familiar arguments about gun control and a mental-health crisis that has shattered so many lives.

In his sermon before the attack, Scruggs had already plunged into deeper, ancient, mysteries -- stressing that believers can trust that God understands the grief, anger and confusion caused by violence and death.

When meeting the grieving family of his friend Lazarus, Jesus responded with anger, as well as compassion. Thus, the importance of the Gospel of John's blunt words: "Jesus wept."


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Podcast: Do readers need to know the 'why' factor in the Covenant School shootings?

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Podcast: Do readers need to know the 'why' factor in the Covenant School shootings?

Before returning to mainstream news coverage of the attack on Covenant Presbyterian Church and its school, let’s look at a story that raises similar issues — in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Consider this new information linked to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

The headline on a KRDO report: “Manifesto details former student’s plans to carry out multiple Colorado Springs school shootings.” Yes, note the word “manifesto.”

In this case, police are dealing with threats, not actions. However, journalists covering this story face some familiar questions about content and emphasis. Let’s pick this up at the second paragraph.

According to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, 19-year-old William Whitworth - who identifies as “Lilly”- was charged after an investigation into "threats involving schools in Colorado Springs Academy District 20."

The context for this story is Colorado Springs. What do we know about that “conservative” city, in terms of its media profile? Here is an interesting headline from The Guardian: “Colorado Springs: a playground for pro-life, pro-gun evangelical Christians.”

Back to the very low-key Colorado news report:

Once inside [the home], deputies noted in the affidavit two holes that appeared to be punch marks in the wall. The door to a bedroom was off its hinges and lying beside the opening. … The sister identified herself as Lilly, but further investigation determined her birth name is William Whitworth.

Once again, readers face that familiar, but suddenly controversial, question from the old-school journalism equation “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how.”

A dozen or so paragraphs and news-you-can-use bullet lists into the story, readers finally learn:

When asked if she was going to shoot up a school, the affidavit states Whitworth "visibly shook her head and down indicating yes." When asked why she'd do that, Whitworth stated, "Why does anyone do it." …

While waiting for the fire department, Whitworth was asked how much she had been planning the school shooting. She stated she was "about a third of the way from doing it," verifying again that Timberview Middle School was one of the "main targets" currently and other targets were churches.

There’s some (#triggerwarning) anti-Donald Trump material in this troubled young person’s writings, as well. But it would be interesting — since Colorado Springs is internationally known as a haven for evangelical ministries — to know just a bit more (as in anything) about the targeted “churches.”


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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

Was the attack on the elementary school at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church a religion-news story?

Of course it was, for at least four reasons that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

(1) It was an attack on a conservative Christian school at a conservative Presbyterian church in a city that is often called the buckle fn the Bible Belt (although locals know that the Nashville establishment, especially in media, is left of center).

(2) Religious groups have played a major role in Tennessee debates about parental rights, education and LGBTQ issues. What does that have to do with the shooting? Hold that thought.

(3) Religious groups have played a major role in discussions of gun-control legislation in Tennessee and, in this case, it is important to avoid political labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” in that discussion.

(4) The young adult who attacked the Covenant School was a former student there. Audrey Hale had recently identified as Aiden Hale in social media, with male pronouns. Hale was still living in a conservative Christian home, with a mother who both was a strong advocate of gun control and on the staff of Village Chapel in Nashville.

What else do news readers know about the shooter? That depends — in this new age of partisan, advocacy media — on which news organizations a reader follows. In most mainstream coverage, even in Nashville, questions about the life and beliefs of the shooter have all but vanished.

Consider this short paragraph late, late in a Religion News Service follow-up report: “Grief, fear haunt Nashville as residents gather to mourn in wake of Covenant shooting.”

Very little is known about the shooter, a former student at Covenant who was killed by police. The shooter reportedly left a manifesto that has not been made public. 

Really? “Very” little?


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Heeding the Nashville shooter's own voice: Do journalists want the 'manifesto' released?

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Heeding the Nashville shooter's own voice: Do journalists want the 'manifesto' released?

Once again, we return to that mantra from old-school journalism — “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how.”

When covering the murders at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church private school, journalists already know that the shooter wanted the public to know the answer to the “why” question.

Moments before shooting open the school’s doors, the person previously known as Audrey Hale, who chose the name “Aiden” in social media, sent a haunting and strategic message to a friend. Some timelines suggest that the shooter sent this message while parked in the church’s parking lot.

The contents of the message are highly relevant to news coverage of the shootings. Readers: Have you seen these words quoted in your local, regional and national news sources? Hale wrote:

“This is my last goodbye.

“I love you (heart) See you again in another life Audrey (Aiden)”

Later, Hale added:

“My family doesn’t know what I’m about to do

“One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind

“But something bad is about to happen.”

Public officials have made it clear that the shooter left behind a “manifesto,” as well as highly detailed plans for the attack on the school (school leaders have said Hale attended 4th and 5th grade there). The manifesto text is almost certainly what Hale was describing with the words, “One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind.”

Under normal circumstances, journalists would be doing everything that they can to answer the “why” question in this case, including calling for the release of Hale’s manifesto text and other materials linked to the attack. But these are not normal circumstances.


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