Religion

At least one government watchdog is learning to bark again. USA Today’s Opinion section dedicated “Today’s Debate” to religious freedom – or the fight over Obamacare’s contraception mandate. In a January 13 piece entitled, “Obamacare Overreach Tramples Little Sisters of the Poor,” USA Today rebelled against its own (media) kind to call out the Obama administration for having “picked a fight…

This isn’t a new book, but now, finally released in soft cover, it’s every bit as important to Christians and pop-culture watchers it was in 2009. Because, as you might guess, the cultural atmosphere that produced Peter E. Dans’ “Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners” hasn’t changed much. Hollywood has turned its back on Christians in the movies – or rather – its decided…

A few hours ago, the folks at Twitchy.com caught the following headline at Reuters at a story about Pope Francis: "Pope, in nod to conservatives, calls abortion 'horrific.'" At roughly 11:45 Eastern Time, the headline at Philip Pullella's story carried at Yahoo News ventured even further into the unreal: "Pope, after conservatives' criticism, calls abortion "horrific.'" Phil, the Pope is…

Apparently to Time magazine and Reuters, using the term "martyr" to refer to a Christian slain for the sake of his or her faith -- often at the hands of "radical Islamists" -- is deserving of scare quotes. "Deaths of Christian 'Martyrs' Doubled in 2013," reads the top item in the "latest headlines" sidebar at Time.com. Clicking the link takes you to a story by Charlotte Alter at Time.com, who…

Appearing as a guest on Friday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, during a discussion of conservative Christians making plans to push their agenda, liberal guest Frank Schaeffer charged that Republicans have a "pathological hatred" of President Obama, asserted that the GOP's goal is to "Stop the first African-American President from succeeding at all costs," and then drew a parallel with racist…

Whatever are you to do when you're a journalist who favors Team Obama but the administration is going up against an underdog that you'd have to be a monster to hate: the Little Sisters of the Poor. Well, you simply call the Obama administration the "U.S. government" and you structure your story in such a way that it sounds like those silly sisters are making much ado about nothing against a "so…

CBS stood out as the only Big Three network to devote full coverage to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Tuesday night stay of the federal government's birth control/abortifacient mandate under ObamaCare. As of Thursday morning, CBS This Morning and CBS Evening News devoted three full reports and a news brief to the ruling against the controversial regulation. By contrast, NBC's…

Islamic terrorists were suspected in the terrorist bombings that just killed dozens in Russia.  But reporters at ABC, NBC and CBS went out of their way to avoid the obvious connection or even to call the suspects “terrorists,” preferring instead the squishy word “militant.” Friday, Sunday and Monday, three separate suicide bombings left at least 37 people dead in the Volgograd and Pyatigorsk…

On the day after Christmas, NPR’s All Things Considered offered a little gift to openly gay reporter Ari Shapiro: seven minutes of air time for a story with the online title “How 2013 Became The ‘Gayest Year Ever’.” As anchor Robert Siegel said NPR was looking at the “winners and losers of 2013...for gay rights groups, the last 12 months saw a huge string of victories, from state…

The first Christmas mass of Pope Francis drew positive attention from all three networks on Christmas Eve morning, but CBS took the cake in celebrating what it perceives as the liberal tilt of the new pontiff. Allen Pizzey openly declared Time magazine gives out honors for liberalism: the pope’s exhortation against the “absolute autonomy of the marketplace” and “comments like who am I to…

For decades, there has been a lot of discussion about a “cultural war,” primarily between people of traditional faith and those who see religion as something of little value. Whether war is quite the right metaphor to describe the phenomenon, there certainly is a lot of pressure on people who adhere to traditionalist opinions, as Phil Robertson of A&E’s Duck Dynasty can certainly attest.…

My nomination for the best comment of the week regarding the controversy surrounding Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson goes to syndicated columnist George Will. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Will marvelously said, "[T]he new biggest American entitlement is the entitlement to go through life without being offended" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary…

Today's Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, with Joy Reid guest-hosting, displayed a "Pope" poster of Pope Francis in the style of Shepard Fairey's "Hope" poster of Barack Obama made famous in 2008. The show featured a long segment analyzing the Pope's critique of capitalism.  What's the message of the poster and of MSNBC's decision to display it? That Pope Francis and Barack Obama share a…

On Thursday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC political analyst Goldie Taylor ludicrously saw "hypocrisy" in Republicans speaking out against A&E possibly firing Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson while opposing ObamaCare's contraception mandate as she failed to note that ObamaCare, as opposed to the Duck Dynasty controversy, is an issue of forcing employers by law to obey the government in spite of…