The big news this past week was, of course, the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the furor over President Donald Trump’s intention to nominate a replacement before the election.
There were faith angles galore and — for added intrigue — questions over whether journalists applied different standards to the religion of Ginsburg, the liberal icon, and that of 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the justice’s possible conservative successor.
For example, Religion News Service extolled Ginsburg as “passionate about Judaism’s concern for justice,” while characterizing Barrett as a “controversial Catholic” — a designation questioned by Religion Unplugged’s own Clemente Lisi. (P.S. Don’t miss Lisi’s fact check on Barrett’s faith.)
“Yes RBG’s religion shaped her approach,” RNS’ Bob Smietana said on Twitter. “And yes if (Barrett) is nominee it will be controversial. We can report both things.”
A Reuters story about “a self-described charismatic Christian community” to which Barrett purportedly belongs also drew scrutiny. At the conservative National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out a series of edits to the wire service’s original report.
“We all know what this means, in terms of press coverage,” GetReligion’s Terry Mattingly argued in a post in which he singled out praise for a story by New York Times religion writer Elizabeth Dias and her colleague Adam Liptak. “Many of the same reporters who are perfectly comfortable calling Joe Biden a ‘devout’ Catholic — while his actions clash with church doctrines on marriage and sex — are going to spill oceans of digital ink warning readers about the dangerous dogmas that dwell loudly in the heart and mind of Barrett.”
However, the focus on religion in the battle over the Supreme Court concerns Ira Rifkin Of GetReligion.org, a former RNS national correspondent who has covered domestic and foreign religious issues since the 1980s.
“It should not be about Amy Coney Barrett’s traditional Catholicism any more than Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s key attribute was that she was an ultra-liberal Jew. Or Martin Luther King Jr.’s liberal liberation Protestantism,” Rifkin said on Facebook.
“It should not be about ‘bad’ religion vs ‘good’ religion,” he added. “This should only be about public policy and the politics of a pluralistic nation. Fighting over ‘religion’ plays into Trump’s right-wing rant that Biden wants to ‘hurt God.’ Moreover, it betrays a kind of unconscious liberal religious bigotry.”
Amid the barrage of stories about Ginsburg, Barrett and the vacancy’s potential impact on Roe v. Wade, some stand out. Here are a few of my favorites:
• ‘Blessed is God, the true judge’: Ginsburg memorialized in Hebrew in the halls of the Supreme Court (by Julie Zauzmer, Washington Post)
• 'May her memory be a revolution': Supporters say Rosh Hashanah brings special meaning to Ginsburg's death (Joel Shannon, USA Today)
• To conservatives, Barrett has ‘perfect combination’ of attributes for Supreme Court (by Elizabeth Dias and Adam Liptak, New York Times)
• Is this really the end for abortion? (by Emma Green, The Atlantic)
• A new conservative Supreme Court justice could boost religious rights at the cost of LGBTQ protections (by Samantha Schmidt and Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post)
• Democrats weigh how to handle Trump's potential Supreme Court pick after past flap over Barrett's faith (by Manu Raju, CNN)
• ‘I’m saving her for Ginsburg’: Who is Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's likely Supreme Court pick? (by Soo Youn, The Guardian)
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. ‘Don’t let the devil steal your joy’: This is not an inspiring story, but it’s an important one.
Dallas Morning News investigative reporters Miles Moffeit and Sue Ambrose dig deep into the case of a Texas pastor “who cast himself as a warrior battling Satan” but is accused of sexual or physical assault by five former congregants.
The reporters “reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including court testimony, and interviewed more than 50 people,” the newspaper notes. And it shows in the high quality of the journalism.
CONTINUE READING “Double Standard? Religion Figures Differently In News Of Ginsburg And Barrett,” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.