Religion reporters: The 0.7 percent

February 24, 2012 By

Last year, we were nearly giddy over a report that showed religion news had doubled … to 2 percent of overall media coverage. Hey, we’ll take it. In 2011, sadly, we did not see the same level of religion coverage in the press.

A new analysis from Pew suggested that the coverage of religion went from 2 percent to .7 percent between 2010 and 2011. I enjoyed former religion beat reporter Eric Gorski’s take: Religion reporters: You are the 0.7 percent.

It’s no surprise that politics, the economy and foreign policy tops the list, but unlike last year, religion was topped by celebrity/entertainment, the environment, crime and other news coverage.

Six of the top 10 religion stories in 2011 focused at least partly on Islam. Naturally, religion and the elections was the most covered religion story. What surprised me was that the second most covered religion story was Rep. Peter King’s congressional hearing on radical Islam in the U.S., accounting for 9.4% of religion coverage. What was it about that story that reporters kept covering it?

The journalistic tendency is to cover conflict, so when religion did make news, it tended to be cover questions about extremism or intolerance. Overall, Islam was subject of 31.3 percent of the religion “newshole,” a higher amount compared to the percentage spent on Protestantism (20.1%), Catholicism (11.3%) and Mormonism (9.6%).

Religion and the 2012 election was 13.1 percent of all religion coverage, but it was down from four years earlier when campaign news made up 23.8 percent of 2007 religion coverage. In a reversal from last year, newspapers were somewhat more likely to cover religion, compared to cable TV, online outlets, radio and network news programs who were least likely to cover religion.

Specific stories trickled over from 2010 to 2011, such as Terry Jones, 9/11 commemorations, Westboro and the Catholic priest abuse scandal. Coverage of sexual abuse by Catholic priests received less coverage in 2011, receiving 3.9 percent of the religion coverage compared to 18.8 percent in 2010.

Pew has studied religion in the media for five years now, concluding that religion generally receives little attention compared to the percentage of the country that practices religion.

In a country that is highly religious, the subject is not a major focus of the news. In the 60 months studied, the percentage of stories on religion in any given month rarely fluctuated above or below 1-2% of the space online, in print, on television and on the radio. Another conclusion is that religion tends to make news when it engenders controversy. Deeper questions of faith and its meaning are not, typically, news. Rather, much of the coverage is event-driven. The two biggest religion stories over the past five years were the intense controversy over plans to build an Islamic center, including a mosque, near the World Trade Center site, and Florida pastor Terry Jones’ announcement that his church would burn a Koran. The third-biggest story during that time was a visit by the pope to the U.S.

So are priorities at media outlets changing? Perhaps there are many topics that have a strong religion element in them that wouldn’t fall in religion coverage per se. For instance, a story on Tim Tebow is not inherently religious, but several reporters covered a religion angle. Or perhaps we are seeing a real decline in religion-focused coverage. Just in the last month, the Chicago Tribune‘s religion blog, Beliefnet’s Belief Beat and the Journal News‘s (New York) religion blog took a bow for reporters to move on to other duties. Perhaps reporter priorities are shifting away from blogs, but we hope that doesn’t mean a shift away from the religion beat overall.

We will most likely continue to see religion and the campaign covered heavily this year, but it’s worth considering whether the rest of religion coverage could suffer because of the attention given to politics.

Images Source: Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Copyright 2012, Pew Research Center. http://pewforum.org/.

Filed Under: Islam, Journalism, Religion

A layered portrait of hate

November 23, 2011 By

In a post last year, I shared my disdain for a Topeka, Kan.-based hate group:

If I never had to read another story about the Westboro Baptist Church and its “staged-for-media hatefests” … I just might make my own sign. “Thank God for small blessings,” it would read. Or something like that.

I stand by that statement.

Yet the best journalists can turn even your least favorite subject into a riveting masterpiece that grips you from beginning to end.

As Exhibit A, I draw your attention to Kansas City Star writer Dugan Arnett’s recent 4,000-word (4,000-WORD!!!) profile of Westboro “heir to hate” Megan Phelps-Roper.

From near the top of the fascinating piece:

She loves her iPhone and the band Mumford & Sons and the Showtime series “Dexter,” which is about a blood-splatter specialist for the Miami Metro Police Department who also happens to be a serial killer — a complex character both good and evil. She went to high school at Topeka West and got straight A’s. She went to college at Washburn University and got straight A’s. She thought about going to law school, sat down to write her admissions essay and decided she wasn’t all that keen on becoming a lawyer. So she joined the family business.

She is peppy, goofy and, by all accounts, happy.

Oh, and one other thing about Megan: She wants to make it perfectly clear that you and the rest of this filthy, perverted nation will be spending a long, fiery eternity burning in hell.

If you’ve ever wondered how the Phelpses spend their time when they’re not waving “God Hates Fags” signs, the Star takes you behind the scenes:

One of the most reviled families in America is gathered in the backyard, enjoying an afternoon picnic. There are kids scurrying past in every direction and adults sitting on patio chairs, holding cold drinks and talking about work and the weather and upcoming vacations. A half dozen or so little girls cluster around Megan, clamoring for braids.

Megan loves braiding hair. On occasions when she is not picketing the funerals of dead U.S. soldiers or mocking the victims of natural disasters, she can often be found stationed behind one of her sisters or cousins, hair in hand, twisting away.

The remarkable thing about this story is the nuanced, layered picture of the main character (Megan) that it provides. At points, the full story of this young woman’s life almost makes you feel sorry for her.

There’s this:

Megan has little problem handling the vitriol that pours in on a daily basis. Not long ago, she brushed off a Facebook message in which someone told her he planned to travel to Topeka and rape her. But when asked whether she has considered the possibility that the countless people who consider her deranged, insane, nuts and “bat-s— crazy” might be on to something, she smiles and says, “You can’t listen to the whole world tell you you’re crazy, without wondering, ‘Am I crazy?’?”

And this:

She has no real friends. Few acquaintances. The majority of her outside interactions comes with the people — journalists, mostly — who stop by to profile the family. Two years ago, after a group of student filmmakers from Holland spent a week in Topeka documenting the church, Megan cried when they finally had to go. She still keeps a voice recording of one of them, a handsome, 20-something guy named Pepijn, saved in her phone.

Into the account of Megan’s life, the reporter weaves expert analysis from sources such as a Southern Poverty Law Center official who calls Westboro “the country’s most obnoxious hate group” and a Massachusetts-based counselor who has written extensively about cults and religious fundamentalist groups.

The piece also provides exceptional insight on the family’s inner workings from a cousin and former best friend of Megan’s who escaped Westboro.

Now, generally, when your friendly neighborhood GetReligionistas write about Westboro, we implore the mainstream press to make it clear that this group is totally independent and has no ties to other Baptist churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention. This piece comes close, describing the group as the “family-run Westboro Baptist Church.” Still, a clearer statement that this church is totally on its own would have been helpful.

At another point in the story, readers learn of Megan’s baptism at age 13 in a backyard pool. I would love to have seen Megan explain her beliefs and reasons for the baptism at that point.

But all in all, there’s a tremendous amount to like about this story. Even for those, like me, who hate seeing reports about this hate group.

By all means, read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Journalism, People, Religion, Social Issues

When political reporters discover religion

October 10, 2011 By

I attended the Values Voters Summit to do some reporting for Christianity Today, and I feel like I attended a different event than some of the reporters there.

Why’s that? Most publications sent their political reporters instead of their religion reporters, which shaped the coverage in particularly interesting ways. For instance, one of the major storylines out of the summit was Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress’ endorsement of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Jeffress then called Mormonism “a cult” and reporters found their story for the day.

If you have been paying attention to religion and politics for at least the last four years, you know that Jeffress’ belief that Mormonism is a cult isn’t terribly newsworthy to religion reporters. I tweeted about the endorsement because I thought it was something to note but not something to write a story about. Jeffress has been saying these things for quite a while now and political reporters are just now taking notice.

In fact, Jeffress debated publicist Jay Sekulow on this point in front of religion reporters at the 2008 Religion Newswriters Association conference, and even by then, it was starting to feel like older news with Romney out of the race. For instance, you’ll see the Religion News Service story by Daniel Burke notes Jeffress’ endorsement but doesn’t lead with it.

One ironic part about the whole coverage is, if you asked an evangelical voter in South Carolina or Iowa before the coverage of this conference whether they knew who Robert Jeffress or Bryan Fischer (who suggests similar ideas) is, they probably couldn’t tell you who they are. When the media covers them, they give them a platform.

Someone asked me why Jeffress was being described by some outlets as the Southern Baptist Convention leader. Perhaps they went with that line because the press release headline was “Southern Baptist Convention Leader to Endorse Perry at Values Voter Summit.” As someone in the SBC told me, “he is a local church pastor, no denominational office (like Rick Warren, or Joe Blow from Arkansas). Influential, but not an ‘official.’”

I overheard a reporter from a prominent newspaper say, “Thank God for Rev. Jeffress. Otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to write about.” I can understand the pressures reporters have to produce interesting stories quickly, but sometimes it takes a little more creativity than the staged events to find compelling stories. The idea that Jeffress considers Mormonism a “theological cult” isn’t a new fact.

What makes all of this even more interesting is how Internet readers think this is a new idea and it starts to trend on various sites. Then the media pack follows with just about every angle they can think of, so everyone is often following the same story. There’s a chicken and egg question: which comes first, the media’s coverage or the Internet’s interest in the story? In other words, it seems like media-generated news more than anything.

Web analytics suggest to us that people love to talk about religion on the Internet. You would think that would tell editors something new, like how you might need more religion reporters to cover all the spicy theological debates. Unfortunately, analytics also sometimes suggest particular stories often do pretty well. Westboro, anyone? The media’s job is to help us sort through what’s news and what’s expected.

With a brave new web world, reporters are facing pressures to produce a lot of content and many are encouraged to meet certain quotas or metrics, which create implications for how we cover news. When you need to meet specific numbers, of course you will pursue the easier story.

Sure, Romney’s Mormonism may still be an issue for many GOP primary voters, and we still need to explore those implications. If Romney is the GOP candidate, it will be pretty interesting to see what that means for religion reporters. Will editors begin to perk up and realize they need people on staff who understand the intricacies of religion? Or will we watch political reporters stumble along with their copy of Mormonism for Dummies?

Filed Under: Evangelicals, People, Politics, Religion, Social Issues

Resigned to partial coverage

July 28, 2011 By

As I read The New York Times’ somewhat celebratory coverage about the first legal same-sex marriages in the Empire State, I sensed that everyone was happy, save those predictable few cranks from the Westboro church.

Among the happy were judges and clerks who came in on their day off to officiate at these history-making unions, which led me to imagine that had I been the editor in charge, I would have asked the scribes in the trenches: Were there any clerks who weren’t happy about their broader duties?

A few taps of the keys took me to a July 13 story by the Times‘ Thomas Kaplan, who answered the question.

Laura L. Fotusky, the town clerk in Barker, N.Y., a small community north of Binghamton, looked at the calendar, looked at her Bible and knew what she had to do.

She drafted a letter to the Town Board and said she would resign on July 21, three days before same-sex marriage becomes legal, because she could not in good conscience issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

“I believe that there is a higher law than the law of the land,” she wrote. “It is the law of God in the Bible.”

Ms. Fotusky’s resignation is the starkest illustration yet that the same-sex marriage debate, although settled in Albany, is continuing to roil New York.

In his well-reported piece, Kaplan included a discussion about the potential effect of the law on people like businessman “Clifton S. McLaughlin, 45, the president of Christian DJ Enterprises in the Bronx, who said in an interview that while no same-sex couples had inquired yet about his services, he would decline their business if any did.”

“I would just let them know that I love them as God’s creation,” Mr. McLaughlin said, “but based on my Christian faith and my belief in God and what the Bible teaches, I cannot and I don’t support gay lifestyles.”

At least two other clerks found the new law at odds with their faith-based conscience. In the July 19 edition of the Post Standard in Syracuse, Paul Riede wrote about one of them:

Ruth Sheldon was knee deep in work Monday. As town clerk in Granby, she was busy with the census of the town’s dogs.

… “I’m getting so many distractions from these reporters and so forth that are calling, and I have an enormous amount of work to do,” she said.

The reporters weren’t interested in the dog census. They were calling about her decision to resign her post rather than honor the state’s same-sex marriage law. Her last day is Saturday — the day before the law goes into effect.

Every time the phone rang, Sheldon, 65, had to shift gears from counting dogs to discussing matters of law and faith. Like the other 931 town clerks across the state, she is suddenly on the front lines of an issue that is drawing international attention.

So we know some were out there, and we know what they were thinking before July 24. But I couldn’t find either of their names in the Times‘ coverage of the day. How about vignettes about how each of the women spent her day?

I referred to the Times‘ coverage as celebratory, a conclusion that I’m not alone in drawing. In a 2004 piece, Daniel Okrent, former (and first) Times ombudsman, concluded that the Times reported about the same-sex marriage issue “in a tone that approaches cheerleading.”

A slice from the lives of the civil servants who stood their ground on conscience would not have been rain on the parade and might have blunted the perception that the Times was the head cheerleader for the event. Once again, the goal is more voices, more points of view. In other words, diversity. In other words, journalism.

Filed Under: Marriage & family, Religion, Same-sex marriage, Social Issues

Pod people: Repent! If God will listen, saith Phelps

March 25, 2011 By

This is the last that you will hear from me for some time, I hope and pray, about the Westboro Baptist Church crew. Dear God in heaven, make it so.

Nevertheless, my most recent Westboro post and the new Scripps Howard column on the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., provided the base for this week’s Crossroads podcast. Click here to listen to it, or you can download it at the same link or over at iTunes. The emphasis, once again, is on the legal and theological issues behind the U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of this truly radical independent congregation.

However, thinking back on this podcast chat, I realize that we didn’t dig any deeper into one of the questions that people kept asking me in response to my Scripps column this week. People wanted to know what I THOUGHT about this bunch, on the emotional level, the spiritual level, a personal level.

How to respond? Well, much of what they have to say is outright heresy, from the point of view of orthodox Christian and Orthodox Christian theology. I could call it “smoke from the pit of hell” and that would be accurate. But that would also be accurate, in terms of describing my own sins.

So here is a serious answer. In an earlier Scripps Howard News Service column I tried to do a bit of reporting on a key plank in the Phelps doctrinal platform, which is why the church has such a harsh view both of gays and, well, Southern Baptists. Hang tight.

The words of the fifth Psalm are not for the faint of heart.

“Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness. … The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity,” warned the psalmist.

Obviously, says the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church, this passage teaches that God hates the evil liberals who run the Southern Baptist Convention, along with legions of other Americans. Phelps also believes that God hates the pope and plenty of other religious leaders who are called “conservatives,” “traditionalists” and even “fundamentalists” in public debates about faith, morality and culture.

And at the end of the column, there’s more:

According to his reading of Psalm 5 and many other scripture passages, Phelps believes that God hates what he calls “kissy-pooh” sermons that refuse to proclaim that God never, ever forgives homosexuals and many other sinners.

The Westboro website once warned preachers who claim that God will forgive those who repent, no matter what: “You are going to Hell! Period! End of discussion! God’s decree sending you to Hell is irreversible! Hypocrites!”

“That’s Bible preaching,” Phelps told Baptist Press, in a 2003 interview about his beliefs. “You tell [people] that God loves everybody? You’re lying on God.”

Has anyone ever seen this information in a mainstream NEWS report about the Westboro troops? It seems crucial, to me. They literally worship a God who does not love all repentant sinners. They shout “Repent!” but do not believe that all sinners can repent. That is, I believe, a big part of the Westboro story.

Filed Under: Creeping Fundamentalism, First Person, People, Podcasts

This Westboro voice sounds strangely familiar

March 23, 2011 By

The Westboro Baptist Church saga has always intrigued and appalled me, in large part because of my background in church-state studies and First Amendment rights. I am also intrigued with people who are so radical that they defy easy description. As the old saying goes, sometimes people go so far to the right that they end up on the left (and vice versa).

Thus, I have always wondered what would happen if mainstream reporters actually listened to the Westboro Baptist folks and tried to describe, for example, why they think that Southern Baptists and ordinary evangelicals are raving liberals. Dig deep into this search file and you can see traces of that, as well as in this Scripps Howard News Service column from last fall. Note, in particular, the links to a 2003 Baptist Press piece about the radical theological beliefs of the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., and his flock.

Anyway, last week something unusual happened during the spring ’11 College Media Convention in New York City. One of the legal minds in the Phelps family — which is full of lawyers — sat down and took questions from a room packed with young journalists, no holds barred. Before the Q&A session, attorney Margie Phelps was interviewed by a top-flight journalist and researcher, Gene Policinski, the executive director of the First Amendment Center operated by the Freedom Forum. Both of them took the encounter very seriously (click here for a rough, but helpful, video).

I learned all kinds of things from taking notes while biting my lip and listening carefully to this event. But here is the key. For the Westboro Baptist believers, the “you” in all of those “God Hates You” signs they carry is not primarily the family of the dead soldier whose funeral is the location of their media-friendly picketing. No, they insist that the “you” is America, especially America as symbolized by what Phelps & Co. call the pro-America “pep rally” that surrounds them wherever they go.

As Margie Phelps told the young journalists: “We’re not picketing the funeral. We’re picketing the pep rally.”

So why am I sharing this with GetReligion readers? Here’s why.

For almost 23 years, I have kept my Scripps column rooted in a kind of news analysis style, as opposed to a full-on, first-person opinion style. However, it is a column and my point of view is in there and I know that. Still, I rarely take big leaps of logic and ask readers to jump with me.

Maybe I should have done that this week. As I worked with pages of Margie Phelps quotations, I kept hearing another specific voice inside my head. To tune in that voice, please read the end of the column:

To understand Westboro and its beliefs, stressed Margie Phelps, it helps to know that the church’s tactics have evolved during the past two decades and the 45,000 protests it claims to have staged at a variety of public events, including about 800 funerals. For a decade, the central message was that America needed to repent and turn away from sin. But as the death toll kept rising in Iraq, she said Westboro’s leaders concluded that, “It’s too late now. … This nation is doomed.” Above all, they were infuriated when many of the funerals for the fallen turned into patriotic rallies.

“We watched as the politicians, the media, the military, the citizenry and the veterans used the occasion of these soldiers’ deaths to publish a viewpoint,” said Phelps, describing the First Amendment arguments she used before the Supreme Court. “And we said, ‘We don’t agree with your viewpoint. God is not blessing America. It is a curse that that young soldier, the fruit of your nation, is lying in there in that coffin.’ …

“That is not a blessing of God. … The soldiers are dying for your sins.”

The bottom line, concluded Margie Phelps, is that Westboro Baptist simply “joined that public debate” on public sidewalks, while following all existing laws that govern public protests. Now, national outrage about the court decision has strengthened the convictions of the Phelps family.

“These are desperate times, calling for desperate measures and we are going to get these words into your ears,” she said. By focusing on military funerals, the leaders of Westboro Baptist “know that we are hitting three of your biggest idols — the flag, the uniform and the dead bodies. … We are going to finish this work. The Lord God Jehovah has our back.”

Do you hear another voice? Yes, it could be one of these guys — because the theological approach is similar. The formula goes something like this: America takes a certain set of actions, refuses to repent and, thus, calls down the wrath of God.

However, I also heard the voice of someone else who made big headlines three or so years ago by using the same basic theological point, only with a different sin as his theological starting point and framing device. Can you say, “God damn America!”

So, here is my question: How big a leap would it have been to have included the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in this column? After all, this would have meant explaining what he said and why he said it, as well as what I mean when I say that he is using essentially the same theological approach as the Phelps crew. This would have required a big leap by the readers, to follow the thread of that analysis.

Yes, I know that. But does anyone else hear that voice?

Filed Under: Baptists, Creeping Fundamentalism, Journalism, Mainline, Politics, Religion

Phelps: ‘We’re thanking our god’

March 4, 2011 By

By definition, Supreme Court decisions are national stories. However, the Westboro Baptist Church case remains a local story here in Maryland because this is where this particular case started — with the tiny independent church’s hateful media fest near the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster.

Thus, it is no surprise that the Baltimore Sun devoted more ink to the story than other newspapers. All news is local.

The story is quite conventional in its coverage of the court’s decision.

The ruling, issued a day before the anniversary of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder’s death, was a bitter disappointment for the Marine’s father, Albert Snyder, who sued the Topeka, Kan., church for picketing his son’s funeral in 2006, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress. But the ruling was expected by free-speech advocates, who found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to align with a group that protests against gays, Roman Catholics, Jews and others.

“It’s an opinion that supports very fundamental First Amendment principles,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Va. … “A lot of people react to the church itself and its message … not focusing on larger issues of public speech and free speech,” Zick said.

In a telephone interview, Margie Phelps, a lawyer and the daughter of Westboro’s founder, called the opinion “a victory by God” that was “10 times better than I ever imagined.”

That’s the tough message of this First Amendment case. However, what hit me in this report was some strangeness of a religious nature later in the story.

Yes, I realize that the Westboro take on religion is strange in the first place. After all, these are people who literally believe that there are sins that God refuses to forgive, even after repentance (check it out). For these folks, the Southern Baptist Convention is on the religious left.

Now, in that earlier chunk of the story, notice that in the “victory by God” quote from Margie Phelps, the reference to the deity begins with an uppercase “G.” That’s normal under the Associated Press Stylebook.

However, something strange is going on in another quote from Ms. Phelps, hear the end of this lengthy report. Check this out.

Even Margie Phelps, who argued the case on Westboro’s behalf before the Supreme Court, acknowledged that the opinion wasn’t likely to be popular.

“The whole country’s going to rise up in rage against this,” Phelps said, “But we’re thanking our god. We’re going to have a special thanksgiving prayer service this very evening, and our pastor is recording a video news release as we speak. It will get tweeted and blogged all over the universe. … This case put a megaphone, an international megaphone to the mouth of this little church.”

What’s up with the lowercase “g” in the “we’re thanking our god” quote?

The stylebook instructs reporters and editors: “Capitalize God in references to the deity of all monotheistic religions.” However, it also notes that journalists should “Lowercase god, gods and goddesses in references to false gods: He made money his god.”

Trust me: I would be the first to wonder, as an Orthodox Christian, whether the Phelps family creed doesn’t focus more on court fees and hate that it does on the Holy Trinity. However, can there really be any doubt about whether this “thanking our god” reference isn’t to the God of the Bible? That’s painful, but that is clearly what Margie Phelps meant in this case.

I just checked and this Sun reference has not been corrected. Like it or not, it should be.

Filed Under: Baptists, Creeping Fundamentalism, Journalism, People, Politics, Religion

Define ‘anti-Semitism;’ give one example

March 3, 2011 By

It’s newspaper-style puzzler time.

As a journalist, I know why we are supposed to use the word “alleged” over and over in crime stories. The accused is not guilty until his or her trial has been completed.

Now, this drumbeat use of “alleged” may drive readers crazy — as in the “pilots who allegedly flew the planes into the two towers” — but it is a linguistic device that represents an important legal reality.

However, I have to admit that a twist in the language that frames the following Los Angeles Times report drives me a bit nuts, as in, more nutty than usual. Yes, it’s about THAT STORY from the world of allegedly high fashion. Here’s the top of the report:

As Paris Fashion Week began … there was only one thing anyone could talk about.

The venerable French haute couture house of Christian Dior, credited with putting Paris fashion back on the map after World War II, was rocked in scandal. John Galliano, the flamboyant fashion designer at the helm of the luxury label, and a man known for his over-the-top runway collections, romanticism and love of the bias cut, was being fired. Not because of a collection of clothes but because of a collection of words.

The fast-moving chain of events began … when Galliano was arrested in the Paris bar La Perle, accused of hurling anti-Semitic insults at a nearby couple in an alleged violation of French laws designed to curb anti-Semitism. Dior, where he’s worked for nearly 15 years, suspended him Friday pending investigation. … (A)nother woman came forward with a similar complaint. And … video began surfacing on the Internet apparently showing an earlier incident involving Galliano, who appears to be drunk, taunting two off-screen women, saying he “loved Hitler” and that their ancestors should be “gassed … and dead.”

Now, I understand why the word “alleged” is used in the sentence that raises the question of whether Galliano has violated French laws, in effect, on hate speech. In France it is much easier to go on trial for offensive words than in the United States of America (thus the Westboro Baptist Church crew).

However, here is what has me confused.

Please recall that the famous designer’s remarks are on tape. There are few, if any, questions about what he said or did not say.

Thus, here is the question that we face: Is there any question whether it is anti-Semitism to tell Jews that their loved ones should have been “gassed … and dead” during the Holocaust? What if Mel Gibson had made this remark, on tape? (The remark about loving Hitler is a bit harder to nail down.)

Thus, what irked me was the headline on the story:

Galliano’s alleged anti-Semitic remarks unleash a storm

Once again, I know that it is “alleged” that he broke the French law. Got it.

But is it “alleged” that he made anti-Semitic remarks, in light of the fact that the words are on tape? I am questioning the headline.

In effect, I am asking if it can be stated as fact that the words that journalists know that he spoke can be accurately described as anti-Semitic. Or, has relativism made this term impossible to define and defend? Is it now impossible to make a factual statement that a person has uttered words that are anti-Semitic?

Just asking.

Filed Under: Judaism, People, Pop Culture, Race, World, World Religions