When it comes to gay rights vs. religious liberty, framing is frequently an issue in mainstream news reports.
Too many journalists — unable to keep their personal worldviews to themselves — ditch impartiality for advocacy on this subject matter.
The funny thing is, unbiased reporting makes for much better reading. Right?
I mean, who doesn't enjoy a story with real-life nuance, conflict and intrigue? Enter The Wall Street Journal with a six-month update on the "Utah Compromise":
Every morning for about the past year, Angie Rice woke up to go to work as a special-education teacher at Roy Elementary School near Salt Lake City, sat on the edge of her bed, and wept.
She then layered four men’s shirts and put on baggy cargo pants to hide her changing shape—and arrived for work in her old identity as a man named Art.
But this fall, because of a new Utah law that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from being fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity, Ms. Rice, who over the past four years had transitioned from a man to a woman, felt comfortable going to school as herself for the first time.
“That law saved my life,” said Ms. Rice, 53 years old.
In the same county as Ms. Rice’s school, Ricky Hatch, a clerk who opposes same-sex marriage, has been able to continue in his job without performing weddings. A provision in a companion law passed on the same day as the antidiscrimination measure lets him appoint others to perform weddings as “clerk designees”; all have agreed to perform same-sex weddings.
“I don’t want to discriminate as an elected official, but I also don’t want to violate my religious conscience, and this law allows me to do that,” said Mr. Hatch, 48.
Six months after the “Utah Compromise” antidiscrimination law took effect, both gay-rights activists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say the law helps preserve the rights of religious believers who oppose same-sex marriage while protecting LGBT people from discrimination. At the same time, new church policies last week barring young children of gay couples from church membership, and requiring disciplinary action for Mormons in same-sex marriages, illuminate the church’s complicated path in its “fairness for all” approach that attempts to separate its teaching from its politics.