In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell and new Bostock decisions favoring LGBTQ rights, America’s mainstream media face one of their most challenging tests.

Given ardent support for change among so many journalists, editors, business interests and cultural powers, can they manage fair coverage of  religious traditions that resist both same-sex relationships and gender identity as a replacement for DNA biology? 

This story will have legs in part because the Supreme Court rulings did not settle the clash between religious and LGBTQ rights. The media tend to leave Islam and Orthodox Judaism alone on these matters and are more tempted to aim incomprehension or outright hostility at Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism. 

A New York Times op-ed on July 4th provided an interesting example. The author, Jeff Chu, a married gay who is a part-time staff educator at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, told of his frustration over long-running denial of clergy ordination because his  Reformed Church in America (RCA) officially maintains traditional doctrines on sex and marriage. 

Remarkably for a daily newspaper, the op-ed editors did not require Chu to discuss the kinds of developments treated in our June 17 Guy Memo.  This denomination faces a policy showdown that was scheduled for last month and now postponed one year due to COVID-19. On June 30, an official panel that includes two New Yorkers issued the compromise plan that will come to the floor and could help Chu’s cause.

With that news peg, and considering that the faith has ministered in New York City for 392 years, the local daily might better have handled this as a hard news story, with Chu as a quotable case in point, or at least a feature centered on him. Under normal news canons, any article on this topic should include the last of the Five W’s and explain why the RCA has such a policy and why many believe it should be maintained, including some members at Central Reformed Church.

Too many journalistic accounts ignore this basic aspect of the story. 

Also, in dealing with the ongoing conflict, the news media  need to report on the important international aspect. Religious debates often know no national lines. On that, Pew Research, that ever-valuable media resource, issued a June 25 analysis of  data from 38,426 respondents in 34 nations from last year’s Global Attitudes Survey. 

One question was yes or no on whether homosexuality should be “accepted by society.” That was posed to the general populations, not religious groups as such, but clear patterns emerged. People in Muslim countries were heavily negative, and likewise in Russia and Ukraine with their Eastern Orthodox heritage, although those in Orthodox Greece were evenly split and, thus, more European. There were also close splits in Israel, a land of both religious and secular Jews, and in India, where Hinduism dominates.

Conservative impact from both Christians and Buddhists was evident in South Korea, which was 53 percent negative. Of particular relevance for the Protestant and Anglican debates, Kenya was 83 percent negative and Nigeria 91 percent, though South Africa broke from its neighbors on the continent with a 54 percent favorable majority. “Mainline” Protestant cultural influence was evident in liberal results from Britain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.

Results from Catholic nations showed important liberal trends although policy is set by the papacy and international hierarchy. Even in devout Poland, 47 percent were favorable vs. 42 percent negative. Elsewhere, positive majorities were seen in Spain (89 percent), Italy (75 percent), Philippines (73 percent), Argentina (76 percent), Brazil (67 percent) and Mexico (69 percent). The United States was closely divided as recently as 2003 (47 percent yes, 45 percent no) compared with today’s lopsided 72 percent favorable. 

Over-all societal acceptance of homosexuality was higher with women and when people were younger, better educated,  wealthier, politically liberal and not inclined to see religious faith as important in their daily lives.