If you're reading the tributes to Aretha Franklin, who died Thursday at age 76, then you know that religion is a vital part of her story.

It's impossible to write the Queen of Soul's obituary without giving prominent attention to her upbringing as the daughter of a Baptist preacher.

Her gospel roots, after all, influenced not just her musical career but her entire life.

Good news: Major news organizations are giving a whole lot of R-E-S-P-E-C-T to the faith angle.

For example, here is the opening of the Los Angeles Times' lengthy obit:

Aretha Franklin, the preacher’s daughter who became the “Queen of Soul” and forged the template of the larger-than-life pop diva with her exuberant, gospel-rooted singing, has died. She was 76.

Franklin died Thursday of advanced pancreatic cancer, according to her publicist Gwendolyn Quinn.

In a career she began as a teenager in the 1950s, Franklin went from singing in her father’s Detroit Baptist church to performing for presidents and royalty as she took soul music to its creative and commercial pinnacle.

Meanwhile, this big chunk of religious background (my apologies for the length of this blockquote) is included in The Associated Press' main obit: