GetReligion
Tuesday, April 08, 2025

scare quotes

Should some marriages be scare-quoted?

Many moons ago, when I was asking questions about why Religion News Service put “religious liberty” in quotes, defenders of the practice said it was just a way of signaling that while some people believe that a given issue deals with religious liberty, others do not. It’s a way to indicate that one is not taking sides on the matter. Astute readers noticed that if this were the policy, than we should see quotes around abortion “rights” and same-sex “marriage.”


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Is "marriage equality" our term, their's and everyone else's?

Back in May, I noticed a curious decision by some media outlets to scare quote the term “religious liberty.” Religion News Service defended the use of the scare quotes. Contributor Mark Silk had one defense and editor Kevin Eckstrom had another, writing:


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