Movies

Has the Associated Press hierarchy officially changed its style for references to 'God'?

Flash back with me, if you will, to my recent GetReligion "guilt file" post on the religious-liberty showdown between an Assemblies of God chaplain, Lt. Cmdr. Wesley Modder, and the principalities and powers at the modern U.S. Navy.

There was a reference in the Military Times account to a Navy document listing the chaplain's offenses, one of which was that he:

Told a female that she was "shaming herself in the eyes of god" for having premarital sex.

I raised a style question about that claim, asking if the lower-case "g" on the reference to "god" represented a change in news style for Gannett or if the modern Navy has now changed to using lower-case references to the Deity.

After posting that, I had a kind of nagging sensation that I was forgetting something. Perhaps there was another news item related to this Godtalk issue buried even deeper in my massive folder of GetReligion guilt material?

Sure enough, there was, one dating back to the Academy Awards coverage. A film critic friend of mine sent me this note:


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The Daily Beast tells of ex-gay Michael Glatze's conversion -- but to what?

Michael Glatze was gay. Really, really gay. The Daily Beast wants to settle that firmly before looking at a film on his life.

At least before dropping the bomb on Glatze's conversion to Christianity:

He was serving as the managing editor of XY magazine, a popular gay San Francisco-based publication that dispensed invaluable advice to men on how to survive young and gay. He was fascinated by queer theory and disturbed by Christian fundamentalism. He was in a loving relationship with fellow XY editor, Benjie Nycum. On the weekends, the two would go out to raves and enjoyed being gay and liberated. They even shared a home with a third man they’d picked up during a brief stay in Nova Scotia. Glatze and Nycum eventually left XY and started the non-profit Young Gay America, aimed at shaping the lives of gay youths for the better, before launching the magazine Young Gay America (YGA), which was awarded the National Role Model Award from the gay organization Equality Forum. The two lovers toured the country filming Jim In Bold, billed as the first major documentary to tackle the suicide epidemic among gay teens.
And then—out of the blue—Glatze became a born again Christian and renounced his homosexuality.

If only the Beast showed as much interest in Glatze's new life as a Christian -- a pastor, no less, as numerous websites report.

"Gay No More: The Story of Michael Glatze" is pegged on the premiere of the biopic I Am Michael, at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The Beast gets interview time with director Justin Kelly and actor James Franco, who plays the title role. And it digs rather deep into clips.


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