women's roles

Washington Post reports: Bible says women are inferior to men and meant to gratify them

Oh. My. Word.

To the long list of 21st century expectations of journalists, the Washington Post apparently has piled on another: biblical exegesis by reporters.

Talk about the media version of a train wreck. This will be painful. I apologize in advance.

The story at issue involves a "mostly male" transgender refused service by a barber who says he doesn't cut women's hair.

The Post's lede sets the scene:

Kendall Oliver’s hair looked just like that of the man who was comfortably seated in the next chair over at the barbershop. Closely trimmed on the sides, a little longer on top — and ready for a trim.
Oliver asked for the same cut. Yet the owner of the barbershop turned Oliver away — telling Oliver, an Army veteran, that he won’t cut women’s hair because he believes the Bible forbids it.
Oliver is transgender. And with that, the Army reservist in the Los Angeles area became the latest citizen at the center of a recurring American debate: Where does freedom of religion end and discrimination begin?

Down a little deeper in the story, the Post attempts ("to make an effort at; try; undertake; seek") to explain the Bible.


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Do Mormon women lack standing in their own faith?

The issue of women’s roles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been bubbling for a while, and it’s back in the news this week. As Religion News Service reported, the Ordain Women advocacy group will be denied access to the Mormons’ all-male general priesthood session next month.

That latest news reminds me that we need to pull an important item out of our GetReligion guilt file — those stories that we want to cover but for whatever reason haven’t.

I’m referring to The New York Times’ 5,000-word, front-page Sunday story from a few weeks ago on the sea change brought by the Mormon church lowering its age requirement for female missionaries to 19 from 21:


Please respect our Commenting Policy