Peter Beinart and the powerful, but voiceless, Jews of Atlanta

Last updated on: November 14, 2012 at 1:19 pm By mollie

The New York Times published an interesting story about the Atlanta Jewish Book Festival (“Jewish Book Event in Atlanta Cancels Author’s Talk on Zionism, and Uproar Follows“). It’s a great piece with the weirdest missing element. Here’s the top: ATLANTA — The Jewish community in the metropolitan Atlanta area, by most definitions, is small, vibrant and close-knit. There are perhaps 120,000 people who identify themselves as Jewish. For as long as most people can remember, relations among the various subgroups... Read more

Red-state American in her natural habitat

Last updated on: November 13, 2012 at 7:33 pm By Bobby Ross Jr.

I gotta admit: Just a few sentences into this Washington Post feature on post-election Red America and I was already worried. I just knew that this was going to be one of those sarcastic, elite-reporter-gets-to-know-ignorant-people-in-the-sticks kind of stories (i.e., see the pretty zoo animals with “Mitt Romney” campaign buttons): HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. — She arrived early to take apart the campaign office piece by piece, just as she felt so many other things about her life were being dismantled. Beth Cox wore a... Read more

Sun’s celebration of brave, pro-gay marriage pastors

Last updated on: November 13, 2012 at 12:36 pm By tmatt

One of the big election-day stories in deep-blue, liberal Maryland was the narrow victory for same-sex marriage — especially since the polls were so close going into the final hours. The key to the election, of course, was the African-American vote. GetReligion readers will be stunned to know that the newspaper that lands in my front yard covered this angle of this crucial event with a news story that celebrated the actions of courageous black pastors who provided the crucial... Read more

Are Salafis the most orthodox among Muslims?

Last updated on: November 13, 2012 at 12:08 pm By mollie

The New York Times published a riveting piece about Salafism in Tunisia. From the beginning, the reader is transported to Kairouan: On the Friday after Tunisia’s president fell, Mohamed al-Khelif mounted the pulpit of this city’s historic Grand Mosque to deliver a full-throttle attack on the country’s corrupt culture, to condemn its close ties with the West and to demand that a new constitution implement Shariah, or Islamic law. “They’ve slaughtered Islam!” thundered Dr. Khelif, whom the ousted government had... Read more

What should be tweeted via @ThroneOfPeter?

Last updated on: November 12, 2012 at 7:17 pm By tmatt

Let’s drop the media criticism for a moment and have a bit of fun (about a topic that is actually pretty serious). What was your first reaction if and when you saw this short news story? I’ll link to The Los Angeles Times take on it: Digital white smoke signals may soon be rising on Twitter. The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI will begin tweeting from a personal Twitter account, possibly before year’s end. This clearly won’t rival Pope Benedict... Read more

Is “marriage equality” our term, their’s and everyone else’s?

Last updated on: November 12, 2012 at 3:07 pm By mollie

Back in May, I noticed a curious decision by some media outlets to scare quote the term “religious liberty.” Religion News Service defended the use of the scare quotes. Contributor Mark Silk had one defense and editor Kevin Eckstrom had another, writing: Mark makes a good point here. And I’m troubled by Mollie’s not-so-subtle implications. Mollie’s implying that we’re using scare quotes as a way of signaling our disagreement with the religious liberty cause. Not so. We put “religious liberty”... Read more

The decline and fall of King David Petraeus

Last updated on: November 11, 2012 at 12:21 am By mollie

Even by Friday night news dumps, this one was a doozie. David Petraeus resigned on Friday afternoon for reasons related to adultery. Which led Joyce Carol Oates to tweet: Don’t understand why “adultery” is quasi-illlegal in a nation in which church & state are separate…. …..the ugly word “bastard” has been phased out of usage & next should come “adultery” with its Biblical rectitude & cruelty. How we treat our spouses and how honest we are about our liaisons are... Read more

When Bible Belt atheists go to church

Last updated on: November 10, 2012 at 1:22 pm By Bobby Ross Jr.

A church service for atheists? Really!? Here in my home own state of Oklahoma, that’s the basis for a religion story in today’s Tulsa World. The headline grabs readers’ attention this way: All souls welcome at church’s morning service for atheists OK, I’m curious. The top of the story: Why would atheists go to church? Wouldn’t that be like someone going to a movie theater, staring at a blank screen for an hour, and then going home? Not at all, says... Read more

Reporting on gay marriage in Spain

Last updated on: November 10, 2012 at 12:30 am By geoconger

Laying out the front page of the November 7 issue presented a few problems for the Madrid daily El País. Journalists at Spain’s largest circulation newspaper (345,000) began a walk out this week after management announced that it was cutting 139 of the paper’s 460 posts. Those who still had jobs would see their pay cut by 13 per cent. Management has had to fill in to keep the paper going and Wednesday presented them with two major stories: the... Read more

Man prays in airplane aisle, for no particular reason

Last updated on: November 9, 2012 at 4:31 pm By tmatt

Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. That was my first reaction when I saw several versions of this bizarre little story from the tense world of airline travel, especially in the skies around Washington, D.C. This is one of those cases in which I really need to ask GetReligion readers to look at the whole story. Trust me, this will not take long. This is all of the CBS News item. DENVER — A United Airlines flight... Read more