The other cheek, not turned

July 22, 2005 By

So a man repeatedly beat his three-year-old son and shoved him into a box, which induced shaking, vomiting, and, eventually a coma. The boy died this January. The father is claiming that he beat the hell out of the kid in order to keep his son from becoming a “sissy” or going gay.

All of these facts I learned from this article by a reporter for PlanetOut, a repository of “gay and lesbian news.” The report explains that the father is attempting the “gay panic” defense. A spokesman for Equality Florida also explains that it isn’t likely to work, because “Juries in even the most conservative states reject gay panic as a defense for murder.”

Having read the same report that I did, Andrew Sullivan had the following comment:

“He didn’t want him to be a sissy,” Shelton Bostic, the defendant’s Bible-study friend, testified. Yep: the guy was in Bible study. And this is what he learned.

The urge to resort to invective is nearly overwhelming, but let me make a few points:

1) Interesting that juries in even the most conservative states — on which one would assume conservative Christians have a greater representation than elsewhere — are not likely to cut the father some slack. Why would that be? [Hint: it has to do with millstones -- ed.]

2) Sure, the man’s religous formation may have had something to do with the violence he visited on his son, but it might not have. We don’t have enough information from this report to make a determination one way or the other.

3) The fact that Andrew Sullivan is so prone to make these sorts of leaps — not as occasional lapses or mistakes but as as a matter of course — has led an awful lot of people to take him less seriously.

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Filed Under: Journalism, Social Issues

The Robert Bork hearings were easy

July 19, 2005 By

Here’s a story about the nomination of Judge John Roberts.

And here is the text of Roberts’ smile-for-the-cameras remarks.

Three things:

1) Never let it be said that George W. Bush is one to back down from a fight.

2) There will be a fight.

3) And this nomination goes to show that, in William Goldman’s words, “Nobody knows nothin’.” Who predicted the Roberts pick? I did a fair bit of reading leading up to this nomination and never once ran across his name.

And to all a good night.

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Filed Under: Journalism, People, Politics

Sight and sound with Pete Seeger

July 18, 2005 By

PeteSeeger2Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News offered an amazing package about Pete Seeger on Saturday and Sunday, including a Q&A about his nominal Unitarianism, another Q&A on his standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and his life as a happy lefty; and still another brief feature on his strawberry shortcake recipe.

Better still, a DallasNews.com/extra sidebar offers several MP3s in which Seeger, 86, performs at the Beacon Sloop Club’s Strawberry Shortcake Festival, voices his disapproval of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and offers his advice for reforming the U.N. This package is a good example of how reporters can combine writing and sound without pandering.

Two segments are especially striking. First is the pleasant surprise of Seeger’s respect for two staples of modern evangelical music-making — projecting lyrics onto a wall, and repeating lyrics over and over and over:

Question: Other than performing, what message did you have for the Unitarian Universalist convention in Fort Worth?

Answer: The point I wanted to make to Unitarians is, too often you ask your congregations to sing, and they’re supposed to open the hymnbook and turn to page such-and-such. With their noses buried in their hymnbook, they aren’t really singing. They’re kind of mumbling. I want them to start doing what some evangelical churches do — they project the words on the wall and everybody has their face up and they’re singing out!

Also I’ve tried to persuade them to have songs with more repetition. This is the great thing about spirituals and gospel songs. More repetition.

And in these paragraphs, Seeger reflects on communism and moral equivalence:

Question: How did you become a communist?

Answer: I joined the Young Communist league in 1937 in college — because Hitler was helping Franco take over Spain. And [Maxim] Litvinov stood up in the League of Nations — he was the Soviet representative in the League of Nations — and said all aggressors should be quarantined, that is, boycotted. He was talking about Japan in Manchuria, Italy in Ethiopia and Hitler and Franco and so on. Well, they just laughed.

Question: But didn’t Stalin turn out to be one of the worst despots of the 20th century?

Answer: Well, when it comes to big ones. But there’s bad ones all over. And, you know, for 50 years, the United States has helped control the politics of Latin America. And they have the School of the Americas, they call it, in Fort Benning, Ga. Training military — Latin American military men — how to torture, how to massacre, how to assassinate.

Question: But the U.S.S.R. really was an enemy of the U.S.A., yes?

Answer: Not necessarily. The communists claimed, I won’t say they all believed it, that they would encourage revolutions all around the world. But the people of each country had to make their own revolution. It wasn’t Soviet soldiers helping Mao Zedong take over China. They could applaud them and perhaps even help them. But they didn’t likewise in Vietnam or Cuba.

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Filed Under: Journalism, Music, People

How about Atheists for Christ?

July 18, 2005 By

The Los Angeles Times today has a flawed but interesting piece on how atheists are coping with an increasingly red America. According to reporter Gina Piccalo, atheists are feeling besieged by the forces of faith and trying to organize politically. So far the results have been lackluster:

The first godless march on Washington drew thousands in fall 2002, and a few months later the Godless Americans Political Action Committee was formed. This year, an Inauguration Summit of 22 like-minded groups was held in Washington to stimulate cooperation days before Bush’s swearing in. And this Veterans Day, so-called foxhole atheists (servicemen and women who are nonbelievers) will be honored in the capital.

If all goes as planned, says Ellen Johnson, longtime president of American Atheists, at least one presidential candidate will be courting their vote in 2008.

“We can’t complain about what the religious do,” she says. “All we have to do is copy their strategy.”

One thing I hold against this report. All claims of “hate mail” are treated uncritically. I know something about protest letters and hate mail, and I think that people who claim that they’ve received a bunch of the latter should have to furnish evidence.

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Filed Under: Journalism, Social Issues

Blowing up children is wrong! Maybe

July 13, 2005 By

suicide2Michael Landauer of the Dallas Morning News editorial pages is underwhelmed by the report in his own newspaper offering muted hosannas about a statement (text here) released by a collection of powerful imams and Islamic scholars. The gathering — organized by Jordan’s King Abdullah II — condemned the use of violence against fellow Muslims and against some infidels.

I wish I could link to Landauer’s post, but the newspaper’s excellent editorial page blog still does not allow outside bloggers a permalink option. Nevertheless, here is a chunk of what Landauer had to say:

Imagine if Thomas Jefferson had been so timid: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that some men are created equal.

Or MLK: When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from some villages and some hamlets, from enlightened northern states and the occasional big city, we will be able to speed up that day when a good number of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, many of us are free at last!”

And forget that it is not very inspiring to condemn “some” violence, it’s also just not very well-grounded from a moral sense. Shouldn’t morality have a ring of universality to it? If not, then let’s embrace a few other strong statements of morality: Thou shalt not steal . . . very much. Thou shalt not commit adultery . . . regularly. . . .

C’mon. Is it that hard to say that killing innocent people in the name of religion is wrong? Every time? Always?

Wait a minute: is he suggesting that there are moral absolutes that apply in all cultures? The Ten Commandments, even?

Anyway, the story itself — by Godbeat veteran Jeffrey Weiss — attempts to navigate a dangerous and even deadly minefield. Clearly, the newspaper’s editors think this document is terribly important and a positive statement about mainstream Islam.

Yet, Weiss also has included key details that let the reader know that some of the clerics involved do not fit smoothly into any of the West’s definitions of “moderate.”

For example, it is clear that Muslim-on-Muslim violence is almost always wrong.

During 14 centuries of Muslim history, dozens of wars and battles have been religiously justified by one side declaring the other excommunicated, or takfir. But the Jordan document says that those who follow any of eight long-standing schools of Islamic jurisprudence cannot be declared outside the faith.

What about the status of innocent infidels?

The document says that only fatwas that are consistent with the traditions in the eight defined schools are valid. That means only fatwas that are consistent with traditional interpretations of the Quran are acceptable. Critics of Mr. bin Laden and other Muslims who use Quranic “proof texts” to justify attacks on Christians and Jews say that many of those texts are being used in ways that violate the traditional understanding of those passages.

But the communiqué did not outlaw all violence by Muslims, even by implication. Some leaders whose authority is recognized by the Jordan document, such as Sheik Al Qaradawi, have offered religious support for attacks on Israel, which they regard as self-defense.

The document is notable in what it does not say. It doesn’t mention Mr. bin Laden or any “fake” fatwa by name. The words “violence” or “terrorism” don’t even appear.

So the anti-terrorism statement does not mention terrorism.

The News blog shows (go quick and scroll down) that this story inspired strong debate in the newspaper’s editorial meeting today. Good. At what point will that debate begin to influence the hard news coverage in this newspaper, a frequent religion-beat award winner? What do Muslim leaders in Dallas have to say about this statement? How do both progressive, mainstream and Islamist leaders in the Dallas area answer some of the questions raised by the Abdullah document? I hope more coverage is forthcoming.

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Filed Under: Islam, Journalism

This house is crumbling / who’ll say the last amen?

July 12, 2005 By

The New York Times‘ conservative primatologist David Kirkpatrick makes two questionable assertions in the first paragraph of his report on religious conservatives’ reaction to that abomination known as the Kelo decision. See if you can spot them:

Conservative Christian groups seeking to galvanize support for a battle over a Supreme Court nomination are rallying around the unlikely symbol of a mega-church in Los Alamitos, Calif., one of a handful of houses of worship that have tangled with towns over the use of eminent domain to take their properties.

Give up? Here’s the graph again, with added emphases:

Conservative Christian groups seeking to galvanize support for a battle over a Supreme Court nomination are rallying around the unlikely symbol of a mega-church in Los Alamitos, Calif., one of a handful of houses of worship that have tangled with towns over the use of eminent domain to take their properties.

Kirkpatrick grants that Cottonwood Christian Center has tangled with Los Alamitos pols over eminent domain issues in the past, but he plays up the fact that the church managed to beat back the taking. He refers to the ubiquitous “many legal experts” saying that people shouldn’t have a cow.

After all, Kirkpatrick writes, “a federal appeals court ultimately blocked the condemnation of Cottonwood’s property.” Further, he refers again to “experts” who “note that a federal law, many state laws and the First Amendment make it virtually impossible to focus on religious institutions for condemnation, to say nothing of political resistance to tearing down church buildings.”

So there. The fears are unfounded and the symbol is really an empty, “unlikely” one.

Hey, The New York Times says it. It must be true.

[Cue rim shot -- ed.]

For the real scoop on what happened to Cottonwood, we turn not to the paper of record but to the website of the Beckett Fund, a group that litigates on behalf of religious liberties. The story goes:

Several years ago, [the overcrowded members of Cottonwood] raised funds to purchase property to build a much larger facility. They spent more than a year buying up parcels from multiple landowners, finally sewing up a 17.9 acre property in a redevelopment area near the Los Alamitos Race Course at a cost of $13 million. The property purchased by the church had been largely vacant for decades.

They drew up plans for a 300,000 square foot worship center with seating for more than 4,700, a youth center, daycare center, gymnasium, and other facilities to serve the congregation.

In October 2000, Cottonwood filed an extensive application for a Conditional Use Permit (“CUP”), that went well beyond the city’s requirements. But a few weeks later, the city rejected it, citing omission of a Preliminary Design Review, despite the fact that the application itself states that such a review is optional. The following day (a Friday), the city sent the church a letter — by ordinary mail — informing them of a City Council meeting on Monday, at which it would adopt a moratorium on any new permit applications in the redevelopment area.

The moratorium lasted more than a year, during which the city sought interest from potential commercial developers. Finally, having secured interest from Costco Corporation, the big warehouse retail store chain, in February 2002 the City Council conceded that it had improperly rejected Cottonwood’s CUP application. But at the very same time, the Council approved an “Exclusive Negotiation Agreement” with Costco, and in April, the Redevelopment Agency selected a development proposal from Costco despite the fact that it doesn’t own the land, and that a retail outlet is not a permitted use under current zoning for the property.

To shorten a much longer story, Cottonwood filed suit and the city retaliated by starting eminent domain proceedings. A federal court ultimately forced a settlement in which the city had to buy land near the area of the planned church and swap it out for the land that Cottonwood had purchased.

But all of this occurred under a much different legal regime than the one that exists after Kelo. Now, it is very likely that Cottonwood would be forced to give up the land and be lucky to get its money back in the deal.

Kirkpatrick accidentally gives away the game when he admits that the justice who warned that, under Kelo, churches are likely to be bulldozed to make way for retail outlets, was not rightwing firebrands Scalia or Thomas, or even that old horse Rehnquist, but Sandra Day O’Connor.

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Journalism, Politics, Religion

What’s really the matter with Kansas?

July 12, 2005 By

WizardAndCurtainThere may be no news whatsoever from this bizarre tip. But can you afford to take that chance?

Are you editors demanding a new, creative religion angle on the Sixth Coming of Harry Potter? Are you tired of chasing evangelicals who are still worried about the occult and elitists who have tired of this family friendly, populist entertainment fad?

What if the real story of the moral decline in Western Civilization could be found elsewhere?

Yes, Catholic uber-blogger Amy Welborn at Open Book is on the case. The shattering question on her mind: “Can we talk about The Wizard of Oz?” Pay no attention to that not-so-powerful man behind the curtain.

I’m sure you’ve thought about this too — no all-powerful Wizard, just a little man behind the curtain, tricking everyone. No need to really have anything real within — just believe that you have a brain, a heart and courage, and take on the external signs, and you’re there, baby.

Does Focus on the Family know about this?

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Filed Under: Books, Film, Journalism

Progress via a Muslim Spong?

July 8, 2005 By

Driving back from the North Carolina mountains tonight, I heard an amazing commentary on NPR that fits into our discussion of the MSM’s heated search for a “moderate” version of Islam that it can hold up as some kind of majority viewpoint. This is part of the whole template that there are “fundamentalists” in all faiths who are equally dangerous in their often violent quest for the illusion of certainty and moral absolutes and then there are “moderates” who, if they all had their way, would all get along as they search for the Eternal Other.

Here is the NPR link for those who want to hear the commentary and the brief summary:

July 8, 2005 — Commentator Irshad Manji, who is a practicing Muslim, would like Muslims around the world to publicly reject some of the violent messages that she says are inherent in the Koran.

There’s a lot of valid content in this piece, and let me stress that I am not suggesting, for a moment, that moderate Islamic voices are unimportant or that they should be marginalized. No way. I am saying that the press, at the moment, needs to be covering the who, what, when, where, why and how of how most Muslims are responding to the events in London.

Manji is, in a way, calling for the same thing. In particular she urges mainstream Muslims to take a tough look at the actual contents of the Koran and, in particular, how it is being parsed and preached by those who approve of violence against Jews, Christians, moderate Muslims, etc.

So far, so good. Then she suggests it is time for all religious leaders to be equally honest in dealing with their own scriptures and histories. So far, so good. Then she holds up, as the model for these exchanges, the work of retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark. This is where the train comes off the tracks.

The last thing in the world we need right now is for Western leaders — religious or political — to find and promote the views of some Islamic version of Spong, someone who is no longer even a theist. You want a clash of civilizations? Let the mainstream Muslim world see America praising the work of those who do to Islam what Spong does to Christian faith. Heaven forbid. Here, for example, is a link to Spong’s 12 Theses for the new reformation of Christianity. Here’s the first half of the list.

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

Come to think of it, mainstream Muslims have a higher view of Christianity than Spong.

I realize this was a commentary, not an NPR news piece. But I still think its contents reflect the worldview of many in the MSM. Check it out.

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Filed Under: Anglicanism, Islam, Journalism