Category: politics

Christian Post blog removed over reaction to article on Mitt Romney; Can Romney get fair coverage from Christian media?

The following is an article I wrote on August 16 and posted on The Way I See It Blog hosted by the Christian Post. Within a few hours, the post was removed from the website and I was denied access to my blog. You can still get to my articles on Christian Post if you use their search engine. However, all of my blog posts on The Way I See It blog have been delisted from the blog page.

The reason given by Michelle Vu, managing editor, for removing my article, dropping me as a writer, and delisting all of my past blogs was that I had disrespected their news staff by writing about the August 15 article before they had a chance to address it. I did contact them prior to writing the article but the editors felt I had not given them adequate time to response. Since then, I have been in contact with the CP managing editors to resolve the situation but there has been no change.

This is distressing to me. I have written for Christian Post since near the beginning of the website. In 2004, I wrote a benediction for the initial print run of CP. Until recently, I was listed on their website as a senior editorial consultant.

I will acknowledge that the title of the piece was more inflammatory than necessary. However, the editors of CP did not disagree with my analysis or that the Romney campaign or a Romney supporter should have been allowed to comment.

Having read additional coverage of the campaign at CP since mid-August, I do wonder if CP leans toward Perry (or at least away from Romney). In a fairly balanced piece on Wednesday, CP Executive Editor Richard D. Land was quoted raising Romney’s Mormonism as a concern for voters to consider. The article did not disclose that Land is the Executive Editor of CP but cited instead his role with the Ethics and Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptists. And Perry’s Ponzi Scheme comments about Social Security were sympathetically analyzed in this piece. As far as I know, the piece attacking Romney on social issues has not been addressed.

I suspect many readers will see this as inside baseball. I decided to go with this because of a broader question: Will Mitt Romney be able to get fair coverage from Christian media? Some evangelicals support Romney (at this moment in time, myself included) but he is battling a considerable establishment that may include the sources from which many Christians get their information.

Some readers may disagree with my approach; I encourage you to speak your opinion. Here is the blog post in question. To evaluate this piece you will also need to read the original article:
……
Christian Post runs hit piece on Mitt Romney
(posted on CP August 16, 2011)

Yesterday, the Christian Post’s politics editor, Paul Stanley posted an article sharply critical of current GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney based on a book by Mass Resistance’s Amy Contrada. The book purports to uncover Mitt Romney’s positions on social issues which, according to Contrada, demonstrates that Romney is “not a constitutionalist nor is he a man of deeply rooted values.”

In my view, the article comes across as an attack on Mr. Romney and did a disservice to CP readers in several ways. First, the article presented Contrada’s book as a new release, when in fact the book was released in February of this year. Why is CP just now running an article on the charges Contrada makes, implying that these are new or newly discovered?

Second, CP does not provide any context to help readers assess the stance of the author or the actual positions held by Romney. Amy Contrada is a writer for Mass Resistance, a group that has been at odds with Romney politically for years and one that is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center due to their incendiary rhetoric towards gays as a class of people. Many conservatives dismiss the SPLC but nonetheless, in an objective news report, the fact would be noted. Romney would not be considered pro-gay by any gay activist, but because he is not sufficiently anti-gay for Mass Resistance, he has been a target of their ire.

An illustration will help. Contrada contends that Romney has not condemned same-sex marriage as immoral. Quoted by Stanley she says,

I examined every statement I could find that he [Romney] made about homosexuality and nowhere could I find where he condemned same-sex marriage. He will never call it immoral. Every Mormon I know personally … the rank and file Mormons … I know … are very clearly opposed to homosexuality and see it as a moral issue. The church on the other hand seems to be a bit wishy-washy on the issue. I think Romney is the same way and wants to please everybody by playing every issue down the middle.”

Contrada wants Romney to not only oppose same-sex marriage, she wants him to morally condemn gays who want to form unions. Romney spoke to this issue to the Associated Press several years ago, saying

“I don’t think that a person who’s running for a secular position as I am should talk about or engage in discussions of what they in their personal faith or their personal beliefs is immoral or not immoral,”

In the same interview, Romney repeated his opposition to gay marriage but believes that all should be treated with respect.

“I oppose discrimination against gay people,” Romney said. “I am not anti-gay. I know there are some Republicans, or some people in the country who are looking for someone who is anti-gay and that’s not me.”

He said he is opposed to gay marriage because it’s not in the best interest of children.

Shouldn’t CP readers have this context?

Romney’s position is similar to the stance that Ronald Reagan took as California governor and then later as President. In California, Reagan opposed the Briggs Amendment which would have allowed schools to fire or refuse to hire gay teachers. As President, Reagan was on record opposing job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Finally, the CP article does not bring in any contrasting view of Romney’s positions from any other observers, nor as far as I can tell, sought comment from the Romney campaign.

In short, this article, if published at all, should have been better placed in the Opinion section of CP. As it is, the piece probably hurts Romney with evangelical voters unaware of the context of his views and definitely hurts the perception of CP’s objective reporting with those who do. Through the campaign, I hope that CP will do a better job of providing balance in future articles.
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No change of status for Uganda's anti-gay bill

Yesterday, I cited reports that Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill had been postponed. Today, Parliamentary spokeswoman Helen Kawesa was unable to confirm that report. She cited a possible “mix-up of information” and said that she was unaware of any meeting to set an agenda for bills to be debated after the budget process is finished.
Noting that Speaker of the House and Business committee chair, Rebecca Kadaga was out of the country yesterday, Kawesa expressed doubts that the Business committee met to set any final agenda for upcoming debate. Kadaga returned this morning and was presiding over the budget discussions.
Ms. Kawesa said that she had no knowledge of a decision to require MP David Bahati to request permission from Parliament to reintroduce the anti-gay measure. As of now, she said, “the bill was tabled in the House and the committee report has not been presented.” The next step will be for the bill to be read a second time with amendments possible at that time. However, she added, “As far as I know, no agenda has been set for that bill.”
There were reports that a meeting had been set for yesterday to set an agenda. Apparently the postponement was the meeting and not specifically the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

More history for dominionism deniers

I posted a piece at Crosswalk this afternoon titled Dominionism? What Dominionism? Here is the intro:

Some in the Christian Right have a memory problem. If I was diagnosing it, I would call it amnesia or maybe denial. They have forgotten who they are and from whence they came.
Christian reconstructionist Gary North has no such amnesia. He has been a fellow traveler with the Christian Right since the early days. In 2007, North wrote:
As a swing vote, the Christian Right can sometimes affect the outcome of the well-orchestrated, thoroughly entertaining Punch and Judy show that Americans call national politics. Prior to 1976, when Jimmy Carter openly campaigned as a Christian — the first Presidential candidate to do so since William Jennings Bryan — the Christian Right did not exist. I say this as a minor player in the construction of the Christian Right.
“I was able to wheedle my way into the speaker’s line-up at the three-day public meeting at which the Christian Right came into existence, the National Affairs Briefing Conference, held in Dallas in late summer, 1980. The Establishment did not note its existence, and its historians still don’t, but that was where Ronald Reagan told 13,000 new converts to politics, “You can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.” Those words served as a kind of political baptismal formula — infant baptism, I might add: babes in the woods.”
Those current Christian Right pundits who say that dominionism (various forms of the belief that Christianity and biblical law should form the basis for civil laws which apply to everyone) doesn’t exist are either unaware of their heritage or have selective memory. Reconstructionists (they believe Old Testament law should be the law of the land for all) have been on board in various ways all along, especially as a part of the move toward Christian schools and home schooling.

It seems clear to me that reconstructionists have continued to seek their beliefs and have some organizations within the mainstream of the Christian Right now (e.g., American Vision, Vision Forum, and Exodus Mandate). I don’t think the death penalty for blasphemy is coming back anytime soon but I am concerned about restrictions of freedoms of minorities given the influence of Bryan Fischer and David Barton.
The other issue for me is the erosion of the ability to dialogue with people of various viewpoints. The dominionists see their position as dictated by God. Thus, in a policy discussion, the dominionist can’t give up ground since it is holy. Opponents are not just incorrect, they are evil or as I quote in my article, one of the “enemies of God.” Who makes political deals with an enemy of God?

Fate of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill is in doubt

How many times have I written a headline like that?
Reports are coming from Kampala that the bill has been postponed indefinitely. From Behind the Mask:

The Ugandan parliament’s debate on the issue of whether or not to re-introduce the internationally condemned Anti-Homosexuality Bill was on Wednesday September 7 postponed indefinitely.
According to sources in the House Business Committee, the Parliamentary body that was supposed to have met in Kampala on Wednesday the meeting had to be put off because the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga is out of the country.

Another report from African Activist declared:

Today Uganda’s Parliament Business Committee discussed topics to be brought before the Parliament in the next quarter. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 was not included. According to Frank Mugisha, Executive Director at Sexual Minorities Uganda, “information is that the bill can not be debated in a 2nd reading it has to be reintroduced and has to go through all the initial stages.”

There are two issues being discussed here. One relates to the current status of the bill – will it be on the Plenaries agenda? Another issue relates to the method necessary to get the bill to the Parliament for a vote.
Mugisha seems to be saying that David Bahati will have to ask permission of Parliament to re-introduce his bill. The competing theory is that his bill can be discussed by Parliament at the point where the bill was stalled in the last Parliamentary session.
I cannot confirm which of these scenarios is true at this time.
If Bahati must get permission again from Parliament to reintroduce the bill from scratch, then the earlier reports from MP Otto Odonga were either incorrect or the plan changed. Earlier, Odonga told me that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga planned to allow several bills to be considered without going through all new procedures.
If the reports of a postponement are accurate then the bill would remain with Parliament and could be brought back at any time. If the bill must be reintroduced then there can be no action until Bahati asks leave of Parliament to table it. At that point, the process would start again.
It seems clear that the bill has generated opponents and supporters within the Parliament which is playing out in a legislative battle.