Methodists

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Wait! Which religious schools teach what about the moral status of gay sex?

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In recent years, I have been amazed -- when reading mainstream religion-news coverage -- to see basic moral and cultural beliefs that have been around in traditional forms of for millennia described as convictions that belong to "evangelical" Protestants, alone.

I understand what is going on when this happens. It's easier to bash away at televangelists for saying that sex outside of marriage is sin, as opposed to noting that these same beliefs have been articulated by popes, Orthodox rabbis, traditional Muslim leaders and others. Evangelical Protestants are popular enemies. The problem is that this presentation skews the facts of history.

Thus, I flinched the other day when I read a Salt Lake City Tribune report, picked up by Religion News service, about a Princeton Review ranking of campuses of higher learning that are opposed to recent trends in gay rights. Here is the top of the story. If you are holding a beverage, please set it aside to protect your screen and keyboard.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Brigham Young University remains one of the most hostile campuses in the country for gay and transgender students, according to an annual college ranking list.
But the private university does not top the list of LGBT-unfriendly schools. In fact, it came in sixth in a list of 10, mostly religious, schools. Grove City College (Grove City, Pa.) a Christian liberal arts school of 2,500 students. and Hampden-Sydney College, an all-male liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in Hampden Sydney Va., came in first and second.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that same-sex attraction is not a sin, but that acting on it is.

And? And? Isn't that an accurate description of the beliefs of millions and millions of other believers in a host of different traditions? 


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Indianapolis Star tries to listen, but misses BIG question: What was the florist really saying?

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So the First Amendment battles in Indiana roll on.

Apparently, someone at the Indianapolis Star decided that it was time to listen to one or two people on the pro-religious liberty side of this debate, allowing them to tell their stories in their own words. The symbolic hook for this news story was the town of Goshen, a small community containing a number of plot lines.

However, before we get to one of the key voices in this piece -- florist Sally Stutsman -- let's look at one or two crucial pieces of framing material. As always, it is crucial who gets to define the terms of the debate and who, well, gets to use the scare quotes. Another key player is a conservative activist named Eric Miller of Advance America, who at a crucial point in the story declined to be interviewed. Now, read the following carefully:

Advocates are gearing up to push for statewide inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes -- what they see as a next step in the LGBT rights fight -- to ensure those characteristics cannot be reasons for firing people from their jobs, denying housing or education opportunities, or refusing services.
Others, including Miller, contend that would give LGBT Hoosiers “special rights” at the expense of the devoutly religious who oppose same-sex marriages.

Ah, "special rights." What might that term mean? Truth be told, we don't know what the term means in this case because the Star team did not ask anyone on the moral and cultural right to define it. We just know, because of the scare quotes, that this is a bad thing.

In my experience, the term "special rights" is usually used by conservatives to say that they do not believe that homosexuality is the same as race, gender, age, disability or religion, defining characteristics that have always defined protected, or "special," classes of citizens.


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Mormons, Southern Baptists and the new math facing the Boy Scouts of America

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When I was growing up as a Southern Baptist kid in Texas, it was almost unheard of for a healthy Southern Baptist congregation not to have a Boy Scouts troop for boys in its neighborhood. At the same time, almost all of these churches had a Royal Ambassadors program, a Southern Baptist-sponsored project built completely on biblical themes and promoting national and international missions work.

In other words, while the RAs were covering openly Christian material, the Boy Scouts were viewed as a semi-secular, but faith-friendly, organization that would not conflict with what the church was teaching.

That was a long, long time ago. I was shocked -- as the gay Boy Scouts coverage began to rise two or three years ago -- to discover that only 4,000 or so Southern Baptist Churches in America still had Boy Scout troops.

I thought of those numbers when reading a very interesting comment, by a long-time reader who is a Mormon, on Bobby's recent survey of coverage of the Boy Scouts vote to allow noncelibate gays to hold leadership roles in local troops, while also allowing religious groups to opt out of that change. John Lambert wrote:

In this article we learn that one of the LDS Church's issues is that outside of the US there are very few places it has managed to set up a working relationship with the boy scouts.
On the other hand, journalists have to bear in mind that the LDS relationship to the boy scouts is different than some groups. The LDs Church uses the boy scouts as the activity arm for the Aaronic priesthood. It is intertwined with the religious mission of the Church very deeply.


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AP poll: Downtick on support for same-sex marriage. Mainstream media: (shrug)

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To the surprise of few, the American public hasn't flocked to the gay marriage side just because the Supreme Court made it the law of the land. It may surprise some that public approval of same-sex marriage has actually retreated a bit, according to a new Associated Press poll.

A bigger surprise to me: Mainstream media show little curiosity about it.

Sure, they're reposting and reprinting the report, in varying lengths. But are they localizing reactions? Seeking explanations? Not as of this writing.

The poll results are attention-getting enough:

The Supreme Court’s ruling last month legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide has left Americans sharply divided, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that suggests support for gay unions may be down slightly from earlier this year.
The poll also found a near-even split over whether local officials with religious objections should be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, with 47 percent saying that should be the case and 49 percent say they should be exempt.
Overall, if there’s a conflict, a majority of those questioned think religious liberties should win out over gay rights, according to the poll. While 39 percent said it’s more important for the government to protect gay rights, 56 percent said protection of religious liberties should take precedence.

We'll note in passing the "frame game" phrasing, as tmatt calls it: religious "liberties" versus gay "rights." It's an unfortunately common pair of terms in mainstream media, although religious rights are spelled out in the U.S. Constitution and gay rights are not.

But in this story, the numbers are more interesting:


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Orlando Sentinel on lesbian couple: Fair reporting, but is it fair enough?

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We at GetReligion talk a lot about fairness and balance, for reporting the pros and cons in a controversy. Yes, that's vital; but as in a story on a lesbian couple in Orlando, you need equivalent pros and cons. You also need to furnish background where needed.

And with the Orlando Sentinel's story on Jaclyn Pfeiffer and Kelly Bardier versus Aloma United Methodist Church, it was needed.

Basically, they were forced out from the church's daycare center. The couple said they were fired because they're gay. The church said they left voluntarily, and that they broke its rule for employees to be celibate outside marriage.

Bishop Ken Carter of the UMC Florida Conference sided with the couple, agreeing to pay $28,476 to them and their attorneys. Carter scolded the church and said he would remind the state's other Methodist pastors "reminding them of the church policy against violating a person's civil rights based on sexual orientation," the Sentinel says.

Some of the story is a "they said - they said" matter, and the Sentinel scrupulously logs the argument without trying to settle it:

Govatos also said the issue was not whether they were gay, but whether they were sexually intimate while unmarried — a violation of church employment policy that applied to straight as well as gay individuals.
"The [day-care] director asked them if they were involved in a sexual relationship. Each one on their own admitted that they were," Govatos said.
Meeks said they were never asked about whether they were sexually intimate — only whether they were in a relationship.
"My clients were never asked and never discussed that they were in a sexual relationship. They were never asked that question," Meeks said.

The newpsper quotes Pastor Jim Govatos of Aloma, as well as the couples' attorney. It also quotes a letter from the conference superintendent, the Rev. Annette Stiles Pendergrass. But I would have preferred a direct quote from Stiles or the bishop.


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