Sex

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Celebrations and confusion: Reporters should ask obvious BYU questions about sex and doctrine

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I have been reading some of the news coverage of Brigham Young University’s changes in Honor Code language affecting LGBTQ students. The coverage is — #SURPRISE — both celebratory and confusing.

I think there’s a pretty logical reason for the confusion: The school’s officials are being rather vague about the changes and what they mean, in terms of day-to-day campus life and their attempts to defend the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This leads to a blunt question reporters need to ask: Since the Latter-day Saints believe they are led by a “Prophet, Seer and Revelator,” and a few church doctrines have evolved following new revelations, is anyone saying that the faith’s teachings on marriage and sexual behavior have changed?

Along with that, it really would help if reporters clearly stated whether (here we go again) students who attend BYU campuses sign — when they enroll or even at the start of each school year — a copy of a covenant in which they vow to follow (or at least not oppose) the current teachings of the LDS church? The word “vows” is highly relevant, in the history of this faith.

To sense the celebratory nature of the press coverage, read the overture of the original Salt Lake Tribune report (“BYU students celebrate as school removes ‘Homosexual Behavior’ section from its online Honor Code”).

Standing in the shadow of the iconic campus statue of Brigham Young, Franchesca Lopez leaned forward, grabbed her friend, Kate Foster, and kissed her.

The seconds-long embrace was meant to be a celebration. To them, though, it was also historic.

The two women, students at Brigham Young University, ran to that special spot on campus Wednesday as soon as they heard that the conservative Utah school had quietly removed from its Honor Code the section titled “Homosexual Behavior.” That part of the strict campus rules had long banned students from “all forms of physical intimacy” between members of the same sex.


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Orson Bean and Hollywood: His wild life had a final chapter worthy of some ink

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Orson Bean answered the same question many times during his crazy ride from Broadway to doing every conceivable kind of work during his decades in Hollywood.

What was this funny guy trying to do, while embracing drugs, edgy politics, sexual healing, hippie communes, experimental forms of therapy and other diversions involving his body, mind and soul?

On one occasion, Bean said he was trying to become the "happiest son of a bitch alive." In another Los Angeles Times interview he added: "I did all this stuff, the drugs, getting my kisser on the tube, because I thought it would make me happy. But it didn't work. I didn't find happiness until I learned to surrender, to give up the crazy pursuit."

Surrender to what? The answer to that question didn't make it into the media tributes after the 91-year-old Bean's death on Feb. 7, when he was hit by two cars while walking in his Venice, Calif., neighborhood. However, the answer has hiding in plain sight in several cable TV interviews, his one-man stage show and an online testimony he wrote entitled "How Orson Bean Found God."

"For most of my life I didn't believe in God," noted Bean. "Who had time? I was too busy with things of this world: getting ahead, getting laid, becoming famous.

"For most of my adult life I've been at least somewhat famous. Not so famous that I had to wear dark glasses to walk down the street, but famous enough that head waiters would give me a good table. I didn't want to be famous for its own sake. I wanted to be famous so as to be happy."

What finally turned Bean's life around was a religious conversion. He went looking for the "Higher Power" in his 12-step program and eventually found peace.

Many Hollywood people who knew Bean were amazed that the final act in his wild life -- from Communist sympathizer to father-in-law of the late conservative raconteur Andrew Breitbart -- didn't make it into news reports.

This was a lot of territory to cover. Bean's work was known by multiple generations -- from "What's My Line" to "Desperate Housewives," from his many appearances on "The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson" to the surrealist classic "Being John Malkovich." Bean was pre-hip, then hip and finally a kind of ironic post-hip.

In the obituaries, journalists "got the blacklist thing in there, of course, because that's still a major sign of status in Hollywood," said Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, a former Catholic nun who became a screenwriter and film-studies professor.


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Think piece: Are pastors ready to handle polyamory among evangelicals?

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This is not your normal headline for a Christianity Today think piece: “Polyamory: Pastors’ Next Sexual Frontier.”

Then again, while teaching at Denver Seminary in the early 1990s, I kept seeing studies suggesting that there was little or no difference — in terms of mass-media patterns — between ordinary American consumers and people living in “conservative” or even evangelical households. Did anyone expect this to slow down in the Internet era with its omnipresent screens?

The question that has emerged: Are evangelicals attempting to evangelize their culture or is the culture, via media, slowly but surely evangelizing them? Here’s another newsworthy angle to chase: Are media habits linked to emerging fault lines inside evangelicalism today?

But back to this provocative, to say the least, CT thinker from Preston Sprinkle, leader of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, and Kuyper College theology professor Branson Parler.

The context for this? Many pastors today are still struggling to know how to handle the marriage requests of evangelical couples who are “shacking up,” to use the old school language. Now this:

A pastor recently told me (Preston) about Tyler and Amanda (names changed), high-school sweethearts raised in Christian homes, living in the Bible belt. After getting married, they seemed to be living the American dream with a house, good jobs, and two kids. Then Jon, a friend of Tyler’s, began living with their family. Amanda developed a close relationship with him, but their flirtation soon developed into something more, and Jon and Amanda proposed to Tyler that they begin exploring polyamory, with Amanda adding Jon as a significant other. They also encouraged Tyler to develop a relationship with another woman he’d met at the gym. He agreed.

When Tyler and Amanda came out as polyamorous, their parents were shocked. What seemed like a fringe practice of the sexual revolution had settled into the heartland of Middle America.

Making the situation even more complex, Tyler and Amanda sought counseling from a Christian counselor who advocated polyamory.


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Orson Bean's wild life: Why did Los Angeles Times obit skip God's role in final chapters?

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No doubt about it, actor Orson Bean lived a wild life — even by Hollywood standards.

As you would expect, the lengthy Los Angeles Times obituary for Bean — who died at age 91 when hit by two cars — was packed with colorful details. I mean, this is a man whose early life included a run-in with the Hollywood blacklist, yet he ended up as a conservative who helped inspire the career of his son-in-law Andrew Breitbart.

But here is the GetReligion question for this day: Why would the newspaper of record in La La Land avoid one of the key elements of the final chapter of this man’s life, as in his conversion to Christianity?

Surely there was room for a phrase or two about that development in lines such as these?

Bean’s onstage antics included stand-up comedy and magic tricks as he made the rounds on game shows and late-night television. He was fondly remembered by baby boomers for bringing his wit and sophistication to “What’s My Line?,” “I’ve Got a Secret” and “To Tell the Truth” and guest-starring in variety series and talk shows, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” and “The Mike Douglas Show.” Later in his career, he starred in “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Being John Malkovich” and “Desperate Housewives” while racking up dozens of guest appearance credits, with “Two and a Half Men,” “The Closer,” “Modern Family” and “How I Met Your Mother” among them.

Bean, who wrote several memoirs and a cookbook for cats, was briefly blacklisted, became a hippie, a peddler of a self-help method and a beloved Venice resident as he bolstered the local theater scene with wife Alley Mills. All along, his true passion was the stage, though he acquiesced to television, films and even commercials just to pay his bills.

The story gets wilder and wilder, which only points to the irony of journalists (the Times was not alone in missing the faith angle here) avoiding any discussion of Bean’s faith — which he made no attempt to hide, as one can see in the videos accompanying this post.

You can see a hint of what is missing in this colorful passage:


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HBO's 'The New Pope' serves up lots of sinful sizzle, but no substance worth discussing

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There is often a Hollywood fascination with all that’s morbid about religion. This has traditionally included a profane approach when it comes to the Catholic church — dramatizing reality into what can sometimes be an ugly trope.

This is exactly what we get with HBO’s new TV mini-series The New Pope. As is often the case, it’s also easy to see this entertainment as a form of semi-journalistic commentary about the state of the church.

As always, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights spoke up: “We have been tracking what The New York Times and The Washington Post have been saying about the Catholic Church for decades, and it will shock no one to learn that they are not exactly our biggest fans. More proof was offered today with the reviews of the first episode of ‘The New Pope.’ What they said tells us as much about them as it does HBO, another media outlet that likes to stick it to the Church.”

This new series picks up from “The Young Pope,” starring Jude Law as the fictional (and very conservative) Pius XIII, that ran in 2016. That series ended with the young fictional pontiff deep in a coma. The second series, which premiered on January 13, gets even crazier — and more sacrilegious — with the introduction of a new pope, played in over-the-top form by John Malkovich as John Paul III.

The biggest issue with this new mini-series — coming on the heels of the fictionalized Netflix movie “The Two Popes” — is the total lack of respect there is for the church and faith. The Vatican and the men who run it appear to be more into power and greed than saving souls.

The first episode did pack plenty of drama and intrigue, but that ultimately isn’t enough in this case to sustain a meaningful series.


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What is 'religion news'? The Washington Post asked for feedback on that tricky question

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I am sure every journalist who has ever worked on the religion beat for multiple years — let alone decades — has taken part in this exchange.

Q: So what do you do?

A: I’m a journalist who covers religion.

Q: So you’re a religious reporter. What kinds of things do you cover?

Yes, lots of people automatically turn “religion” into “religious,” but that’s a topic for another day.

But there’s the question for today: What kinds of things do we cover on the religion beat?

If you look, year after year, at the Religion News Association’s list of the Top 10 stories of the year, it’s pretty obvious that most of the big stories tend to fall into predictable patterns. Such as:

(1) Stories in which religion plays a role in partisan politics.

(2) Stories in which religious groups act like political parties and fight it out over hot-button doctrinal issues (often about sexuality) that most journalists define in political terms.

(3) Scandals that involve religious leaders (think sex and money) that play out like political dramas.

(4) Big, unavoidable events like terrorist acts, cathedrals burning, etc.

Am I being too cynical? Take a look at the 2019 list and see how many items fit into these kinds of patterns.

Long ago, I interviewed for religion-beat jobs at two major newspapers. At one, the editor admitted that he basically wanted news about scandals and politics. At the other, the editor (active in a mainline Protestant church) offered a broad approach to the beat that included culture, the arts, medical ethics, educational institutions, etc. I took that second job.

All of this brings me to a fascinating little memo that religion-beat veteran Michelle Boorstein circulated the other day in the “Acts of Faith” digital newsletter from The Washington Post. What was her goal?

In our extra-polarized times, I wanted to reach out to our most committed religion (spirituality/faith/ethics/meaning-making) readers and get a sense -- In your view, what are the most important topics in our realm for Washington Post journalists to cover?


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In the news? How Kobe Bryant's Catholic faith saved his marriage and turned his life around

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Kobe Bryant means a lot of different things to many people. To most, the 41-year-old was the Los Angeles Lakers star and a five-time NBA champion who spent two decades wowing us on the basketball court. He may even be one of the best players to ever dunk a ball.

To others, he’ll forever be the cheating spouse, on trial in 2003 for allegedly raping a woman inside a Colorado hotel room, an encounter he claimed had been consensual. It should be noted that Bryant was married at the time. The case never made it to trial after the woman refused to testify, but she did filed a civil lawsuit against the basketball icon that was settled outside of court. Bryant later issued a public apology, saying he was ashamed for having committed adultery.

Was there more to that story, in terms of Bryant’s apology and his efforts to save his marriage? We will come back to that.

After his retirement, Bryant became known primarily as a doting father, largely shunning the chance to coach or work for the Lakers in some official capacity. It’s no surprise then that he died Sunday with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, a budding basketball talent herself, on their way to one of her games.

All but forgotten — as well as underreported by the news media since Sunday’s tragic helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., that killed Bryant, his daughter and seven others — was his active Catholic faith and how his efforts to practice that faith made him a better man, husband and father.

Bryant had spent a chunk of his childhood in Italy, a majority Catholic country, and was raised in the faith. How devout was Bryant? He attended Mass regularly, including just two hours before he died.


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Big news decades in the making: Why are United Methodists finally going to divorce?

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THE QUESTION:

Why is the large United Methodist Church preparing to split in May?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

One of 2020’s major news events occurs May 5-15 when delegates in Minneapolis decide whether and how to break up the large United Methodist Church (UMC). The simple answer to why is that long-running conservative-vs.-liberal differences proved irreconcilable when it comes to sexual morality in general, and homosexuality in particular.  But there’s much more to be said.

The stakes are high, since the UMC is America’s second-largest Protestant denomination and biggest of the so-called “mainline” groups, which are long-established, predominantly white, active in ecumenical organizations, and allow more flexibility on belief than conservative “evangelicals.” The UMC has dealt with the gay issue for 48 years, during which membership slid from 10.3 million to 7 million. Continual and enervating haggles doubtless contributed to membership shrinkage in all of “mainline” Protestantism, even as U.S. culture and politics shifted toward gay toleration following the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

The UMC’s debate began soon after it was founded in a 1968 merger between the Methodist Church and the smaller Evangelical United Brethren Church. An official commission was appointed to collate the uniting groups’ teachings on a range of topics and report to the new denomination’s first General Conference in 1972. (The Guy covered this Atlanta event for Time magazine).

The commission proposed approval of the statement that “homosexuals no less than heterosexuals are persons of sacred worth, who need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship which enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self. Further, we insist that all persons are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured.”

Conservatives did not dispute those concepts but were wary, and seemed befuddled during floor debate. Then Texas lawyer Donald Hand jotted down wording, ran it past a state Supreme Court justice, and offered this amendment: “we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian doctrine.” The spur-of-the-moment insert passed, and remains on the books to this day.


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Tim Tebow marries Miss Universe: It's tabloid heaven, but there's a deeper story there

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Let’s face it. A New York City tabloid is going to do what a New York City tabloid is going to do.

So, if you had to make a prediction, what do you think would be in the lede of a New York Daily News report about Tim Tebow marring a woman who had been named Miss Universe?

Think it through. What aspect of Tebow’s life have more than a few journalists (and activists with lower motives) probed ever since That Press Conference during his playing days at the University of Florida?

So here we go:

Tim Tebow has scored.

The former NFL quarterback and current Mets minor leaguer, who has said he planned to remain a virgin until he gets hitched, is now a married man.

Tebow wed 2017 Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters in Cape Town, South Africa, about a year after getting engaged, People reported.

Believe it or not, the Page Six team at The New York Post stayed quite tame, with: “Tim Tebow marries former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters.” I don’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t the Post headline I thought that we would see.

So what was the story here?

On one level, of course, this was a celebrity wedding. Thus, the stories had all the details about the bride’s gown, the groom’s tux, the menu for the reception (Tebow has a special diet when he is in training for baseball), etc., etc. Readers also need to know why Tebow has been so controversial, in the first place. Thus, the Daily News tossed in this passage late in the story:

Tebow’s personal life has been a hot topic over the years, including him stating in 2009 that he planned to practice abstinence until marriage due to his Christian faith. He proposed to Nel-Peters in January 2019 at his family’s farm near Jacksonville, Fla.

In addition to his baseball career, Tebow works as a college football analyst for ESPN’s SEC Network.

USA Today offered a kind of wink-wink passage high in its report, centering on Tebow’s expectations about this event:


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