Human Rights Campaign

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Variations on old questions: What do U.S. churches believe on transgender issues?

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Variations on old questions: What do U.S. churches believe on transgender issues?

THE QUESTION:

What do U.S. churches believe on the transgender issue?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

As with American society at large, churches' consideration of the sensitive transgender issue emerged only recently and rather suddenly, compared with their decades-long-debate over whether to leave behind the Christian tradition against sexual activity in gay and lesbian relationships. The religious implications go well beyond political agitation over "bathroom bills," athletic competition or women's shelters.

Transgenderism is part of a broader gender-fluidity movement. A recent survey by the interfaith Religion News Service asked readers to identify themselves as either female, male, transgender, trans woman or MTF, trans man or FTM, intersex, questioning, non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid, agender or "other."

Among theologically flexible "Mainline" Protestants, a key breakthrough was the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's September installation of Megan Rohrer of California, its first transgender-identified bishop. Rohrer was barred from the clergy until a 2009 policy change, so was originally ordained by the independent Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, which works for full LGBT inclusion. (Oddly, that organization suspended Rohrer from membership in December over alleged and unspecified "racist words and actions.")

The United Methodist Church is expected to split this year over the older same-sex disagreement, exactly 50 years after the first floor debate at a governing General Conference. In October, religious media reported the gender transition of the formerly "cisgender" Methodist pastor married to Peggy Johnson, the just-retired bishop for eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and eastern Maryland. But last month Indiana Methodists removed Pastor Craig Duke from his congregation over drag queen shows and drag education to express solidarity with his daughter, who identifies as pansexual.


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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

I have been following the Equality Act coverage and, so far, a crucial piece in this puzzle has been missing.

Thus, here is a one-question pop test. That question: Name the piece of stunningly bipartisan legislation — vote was 97-3 in U.S. Senate — from the Bill Clinton era that will be gutted by passage of the Equality Act? Hint: It was introduced in the House by Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993, and in the Senate on the same day by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

We are, of course, talking about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In today’s advocacy-media age that would, of course, be the “Religious Freedom” Restoration Act, complete with “scare quotes.”

The key is the impact the Equality Act would have on religious parachurch groups, social ministries, hospitals and educational institutions, from preschools to universities.

Now, does everyone agree on how the Equality Act would impact the First Amendment rights of religious believers and their doctrine-defined ministries?

Of course not. There are strong, credible voices on both sides of that debate that deserve serious, accurate, informed coverage by the mainstream press. However, this process — let’s call it “journalism” — would require newsroom managers to admit that this issue exists.

That’s why Andrew Sullivan — one of the world’s best-known gay public intellectuals — called the introductory Washington Post Equality Act story a “press release” (think PR) for the Human Rights Campaign. Here is that story’s description of the legislation’s impact:

The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, to explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce, housing, education, credit, jury service and other areas of American life.

If passed, the legislation would provide the most comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights protections in U.S. history, advocates say, significantly altering the legal landscape in a country where more than half of states lack explicit legal protections on the basis of sexuality or gender identity. …


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New York Times offers update on India's gay prince: Yes, there are big religion ghosts

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Anyone who makes a list of nations in which religion plays a major role in public life would have to include India, land of a stunningly complex tapestry of faiths.

Visitors to India who seek answers to questions about the role of religion in modern India will find their heads spinning as they try to follow all the plots and subplots in the answers.

Hinduism is everywhere, of course, both in terms of religion and secular culture that remains haunted by Hindu traditions.

Right now, the “conservative” Bharatiya Janata Party offers a confusing mix of religion and politics that attempts to make Hinduism the crucial element of what it means to be a citizen in India. Then again, Islam is a powerful force that cannot be ignored and Pakistan looms in the background. In terms of history, it’s also impossible to forget the Church of England and generations of missionary work.

So, would you assume that religion would play some kind of role when the New York Times international desk covers a story with this double-decker headline?

In India, a Gay Prince’s Coming Out Earns Accolades, and Enemies

Prince Manvendra’s journey from an excruciatingly lonely child to a global L.G.B.T.Q. advocate included death threats and disinheritance

So let’s search this story for a few key words. How about “Hindu”? Nothing. Well, then Islam? No. So religion played no role in this man’s story or in the passions of those who wanted to kill him?

As it turns out, religion did play an important role at a crucial moment in his life. The Times team just isn’t interested in the details. That’s strange, when dealing with international coverage — where GetReligion often praise the Times. But, apparently, LGBTQ content trumps all other concerns.


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Don't give us those old time religions: New York Times asks what it means to be a Democrat

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Hey, news consumers: Does anyone remember that "Nones on the Rise" study from the Pew Research Center?

Of course you do. It was in all the newspapers, over and over. It even soaked into network and cable television news -- where stories about religion is rare.

The big news, of course, was the rapid rise in "Nones" -- the "religiously unaffiliated" -- in the American population, especially among the young. Does this sound familiar? One-fifth of all Americans -- a third of those under 30 -- are "Nones," to one degree or another.

Traditional forms of religious faith were holding their own, while lots of vaguely religious people in the mushy middle were being more candid about their lack of ties to organized religion. More than 70 percent of "Nones" called themselves "nothing in particular," as opposed to being either atheists or agnostics.

When the study came out, a key researcher -- John C. Green of the University of Akron -- said it was crucial to note the issues that united these semi-believers, as well as atheists, agnostics and faithful religious liberals, into a growing voter block on the cultural left. My "On Religion" column ended with this:

The unaffiliated overwhelmingly reject ancient doctrines on sexuality with 73 percent backing same-sex marriage and 72 percent saying abortion should be legal in all, or most, cases. Thus, the "Nones" skew heavily Democratic as voters. ... The unaffiliated are now a stronger presence in the Democratic Party than African-American Protestants, white mainline Protestants or white Catholics.
"It may very well be that in the future the unaffiliated vote will be as important to the Democrats as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party,” said Green. ... "If these trends continue, we are likely to see even sharper divisions between the political parties."

These sharp divisions are also being seen INSIDE the major political parties. If you want to see that process at work, check out the fascinating New York Times report that ran the other day under this headline: "As Primaries Begin, Divided Voters Weigh What It Means to Be a Democrat." It isn't hard to spot the religion "ghost" in this blunt overture:

PALOS HILLS, Ill. -- When Representative Daniel Lipinski, a conservative-leaning Democrat and scion of Chicago’s political machine, agreed to one joint appearance last month with his liberal primary challenger, the divide in the Democratic Party was evident in the audience that showed up.


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Brownback has critics and supporters: All these voices matter when covering religious freedom debates

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If you have followed news about the many, many clashes between the emerging doctrines of sexual liberty and the First Amendment's "free exercise" of religion clause, you know this isn't a tidy, simple story with two sides and that's that.

Coverage of Sam Brownback's nomination to a key global religious freedom post is the latest fight.

Yes, there are LGBTQ activists in these debates and there are cultural conservatives. But there are also economic and libertarian conservatives who embrace gay-rights arguments and old-style liberals (Andrew Sullivan leaps to mind) who back gay rights and the defense of religious liberty, free speech and the freedom of association. There are Catholics on both sides. There are self-identified evangelicals on both sides.

In the mainstream press, this conflict has put extra pressure on journalists, with some striving to accurately and fairly cover voices on all sides, while others have thrown in the editorial towel and embraced open advocacy in their coverage. BuzzFeed remains the most candid newsroom on this front, with its "News Standards and Ethics Guide" that states:

We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women's rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides.

Leaders at the New York Times have not been that candid, at least while in power. There was, of course, that 2011 talk by former editor Bill Keller (days after he retired) in which he said America's most powerful newsroom never slants its news coverage "aside from" issues -- such as gay rights -- that were part of the "liberal values, sort of social values thing" that went with the Times being a "tolerant, urban" institution.

Is this "Kellerism" ethic, or doctrine, still being used? Let's take a look at a key chunk of a recent Times news story that ran with this headline: "In One Day, Trump Administration Lands 3 Punches Against Gay Rights." The overture paints the big picture:

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration abruptly waded into the culture wars over gay rights this week, signaling in three separate actions that it will use the powers of the federal government to roll back civil rights for gay and transgender people.


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Washington Post Catholics vs. trans rights story summons up whopping sense of, yep, Deja Vu

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One of the benefits of having been among the first wave of Monty Python fans when the BBC comedy first hit these shores is that some of their skits, such as the one about Déjà Vu, hang around in the dim recesses of one's memory.

Then, a modern-day news article pops up to bring this to the forefront.

My thanks, then to the Washington Post for reminding me of a funny bit of comedic brilliance. Sad to say, brilliance is not the word that comes to mind when reading their recent report on a group of Roman Catholic business owners suing to block an Obama administration rule it claims would force Catholic doctors and hospitals to perform "gender reassignment" surgery in contravention of church teachings.

From the article:

Gay and transgender rights groups said the health rule offers critical protections for transgender people because they often struggle to receive appropriate care from physicians and hospitals.
“What the rule says is if you provide a particular service to anybody, you can’t refuse to provide it to anyone,” said Sarah Warbelow, the legal director for the Human Rights Campaign. That means a transgender person who shows up at an emergency room with something as basic as a twisted ankle cannot be denied care, as sometimes happens, Warbelow said. That also means if a doctor provides breast reconstruction surgery or hormone therapy, those services cannot be denied to transgender patients seeking them for gender dysphoria, she said.

To its credit, the Post doesn't introduce the pro-directive side until the fifth paragraph, but the HRC attorney gets to share their viewpoint before the Catholic side gets its spokesman heard.

Couple that with a photo of trans-rights protestors leading the online version, and it's not difficult to imagine a soupçon of "Kellerism" (click here for more on this GetReligion term) had jumped on the Amtrak Acela express train from the Manhattan quarters of The New York Times to drop in on the Post's offices.


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Based on Trump's win, it looks like religious liberty really is a thing -- with no scare quotes

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Time flies.

More than five years ago, I wrote a piece for Christianity Today that posed this question: "Should the Marriage Battleground Shift to Religious Freedom?"

Hang with me for just a bit here, and I'll make a point — an important one, I believe — about current media coverage. But first, some background might be helpful for most readers.

The main ideas of the 2011 story that I mentioned were:

1. States increasingly were passing same-sex marriage and civil union laws.

2. Given that trend, Christians advocating for traditional marriage might be better served by shifting their resources to fight for their religious freedom.

By the time U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage last year, conscience claims by religious people who view marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman already were making frequent national headlines. 

Of course, in most media reports on those claims — before and after the high court's 5-4 ruling — the word "conscience" never appeared. Rather, news organizations such as the Los Angeles Times framed the issue as a matter of Christians wanting to "deny service" or "refuse service." Often, news stories on the subject carried scare quotes around terms such as "religious liberty" and "religious freedom" — a journalistic eyebrow raising, if you will.

In many cases, news organizations didn't even bother quoting any religious people or attempting to understand their perspective. If you were a Christian baker who didn't want to make a cake for a same-sex wedding — or if you were a Christian photographer who had a problem taking pictures of a same-sex couple — you were a bigot until proven otherwise. And usually, not much opportunity was given for someone to prove otherwise. The media elite already had decided who was right and who was wrong.


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Devout Catholic™ Kaine breaks with his church on gay marriage, with media blessing

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Tim Kaine has officially joined the ranks of Devout Catholic™.

How do we know? Because he says he's Catholic, yet criticizes the Church.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee played weekend prophet and theologian when he told the Human Rights Campaign that the Catholic Church will eventually change its teachings against same-sex marriage. 

But that wasn't the cardinal sin of the day. The worst was the unthinking, habit-bound, codeword-laced coverage by mainstream media -- especially calling Kaine yet another Devout Catholic™.

Count the Chicago Tribune among the worst offenders:

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is predicting that the Roman Catholic Church may eventually change its opposition to gay marriage.
Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. He told the Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner Saturday in Washington that he had changed his mind about gay marriage and that his church may follow suit one day.
"I think it's going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, 'It is very good,'" Kaine said. He then recalled Pope Francis' remark that "who am I to judge?" in reference to gay priests.
"I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? I think we're supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it," Kaine said.

We've done a fair amount of dissection on media who toss around the Devout Catholic™ term too freely.  As I wrote two years ago, many reporters seem to use Devout Catholic™ in two ways: (1) “Doing more Catholic things than I do”; (2) “Claiming to be good Catholics while breaking with the Church over major doctrines.”


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Looking for other sources? Christian physicians join the emerging transgender debate

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Looking for other sources? Christian physicians join the emerging transgender debate

Suddenly transgender rights  is the hot “culture wars” topic. Religious folks with traditional convictions about such matters have been largely silent, or else many newswriters haven’t yet figured how to locate them in order to report the other side of this crucial debate.

Thus, there’s useful sourcing in the strongly-worded “Transgender Identification Ethics Statement” issued by the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

This group is made up of 16,000-plus professionals who affirm “the divine inspiration and final authority of the Bible as the Word of God.” CMDA had Big 10 origins at the University of Illinois and Northwestern and went national in 1941. It’s one of many such U.S. fellowships for vocational and academic specialists.  Most of these were launched by Evangelical-type Protestants but have long since welcomed Catholic and Orthodox participants.

The transgender statement,  approved at a CMDA conference April 21 but publicized only recently, urges doctors to treat these patients with understanding and grace. On the other hand, CMDA champions professionals’ right to freedom of conscience, asserting that it is not “unjust discrimination” if a physician in conscience declines treatment that is considered “harmful or is not medically indicated.”

On the religious aspect, CMDA contrasts the Old and New Testament belief that “God created humanity as male and female” with current “confusion of gender identity.” “Gender complementarity and fixity are both good and a part of the natural order,” it says. The “objective biological fact” is that sex “is determined genetically at conception” and is “not a social construct arbitrarily assigned at birth or changed at will.”


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