Seattle Times

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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

NEW YORK — I filed this edition of Weekend Plug-in from my temporary, 38th-floor apartment in Midtown Manhattan. I’ve spent the week enjoying a mix of work and fun in Metropolis.

As I typed this, Pope Francis had just arrived in Mongolia, “becoming the first pope to visit the vast country with one of the world's smallest Catholic populations, nestled between Russia and China — two nations with complicated Vatican relationships,” as the National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White reports.

Francis has long expressed an interest in visiting Russia and China, but Mongolia might be as close as he gets, the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca explains.

As Mongolia Catholics welcome Francis, the nation’s evangelicals wrestle with growing pains, according to Christianity Today’s Angela Lu Fulton. Also, check out this Julia Duin background report at GetReligion.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. Our big story concerns the return of a Washington state high school football coach who won a school prayer case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

What To Know: The Big Story

God on the gridiron: “Joe Kennedy — also known as the “praying coach” — is back as an assistant coach for the first time since the Supreme Court ruled that the Bremerton School District in Kitsap County had violated his religious freedom.” That’s the synopsis from Duin, who goes in depth on Kennedy’s return for The Free Press.

Readers may recall that Jovan Tripkovic interviewed Kennedy for ReligionUnplugged.com after the coach’s SCOTUS victory in 2022.

Friday night lights: The Seattle Times’ Nine Shapiro sets the scene for Kennedy’s return:

This much we can say for sure: Bremerton High assistant football coach Joe Kennedy will pray after Friday night’s opening game of the season, as the U.S. Supreme Court said he could.

“I’ll just go over to mid-field, like I always do, face the scoreboard, take a knee, and thank God for being here,” the 54-year-old coach said, sitting in the grandstands after practice Wednesday, having returned to coaching the Knights in early August following an eight-year absence.


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Are lawyers 'ministers?' Unanswered questions plague Union Gospel Mission coverage

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Are lawyers 'ministers?' Unanswered questions plague Union Gospel Mission coverage

Last week, the Supreme Court turned down a very interesting case that has gotten comparatively little media coverage outside the Pacific Northwest, which is where it originated. It was Woods v. Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission (UGM) and it’s an important milestone in allowing gay employees to be employed at evangelical Christian organizations.

I wish the high court had taken the case, as it would have gone a long way toward explaining if all employees at religious organizations are counted as “ministers,” or only the ones with spiritual-sounding titles.

It’s a battle that’s going to keep on being fought and I’m guessing that leaders at evangelical and Catholic groups are not taking the Court’s silence on this case as good news.

The Seattle Times’ account of the Court’s rejection is below, although I would’ve liked to have seen a more balanced headline than: “U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission’s anti-LGBTQ+ hiring policies case.” The kind of gives you an idea of where the article is going, doesn’t it?

Assuming the Times reporters did read some of the arguments from UGM, they would have known the subject was not just some anti-gay organization, but that UGM also had problems with this employee’s lack of clear Christian commitment.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced … that it will not review a case involving Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, which was sued in 2017 over its anti-LGBTQ+ hiring policy after it declined to hire a bisexual lawyer who applied for a job.

Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the decision not to hear the case at this stage. But according to The Associated Press, they said that “the day may soon come” when the court needs to confront the issue the case presents.

The Seattle-based Christian organization filed a petition in August 2021, asking the Supreme Court to decide a case in which the Washington Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, attorney Matt Woods, in March 2021.

I covered this in December for Newsweek (of course it helps that I live driving distance from UGM’s headquarters), and believe me, UGM helps the folks who no one else wants to help.


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Zero objectivity: Seattle Times report on Franklin Graham-backed police dinner hits new low

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Seattle is in trouble.

People don't feel safe taking their kids into downtown Seattle, even the public parks (they support through taxes). The place is dirty. Mentally ill people wander about. Drug use and crime and widespread. And in the middle of it all are the demoralized Seattle police, who saw one of their precinct stations closed by rioters for three weeks last summer during the infamous CHOP occupation.

So, you’d think that an event honoring these same police would get some good press.

Not so fast. According to the Seattle Times:

The invitation to a free dinner at a four-star hotel in Bellevue starts out by thanking law enforcement officers for their bravery and service and goes on to promise an uplifting message, fellowship and practical wisdom from God’s word.

That invitation showed up in the inboxes of Seattle Police Department employees on Wednesday, according to a copy of the department wide email obtained by The Seattle Times. On Friday, police Chief Adrian Diaz revoked the email invitation because the dinner, billed as a law-enforcement appreciation event, is reportedly hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The invitation was signed by the association’s CEO, Franklin Graham, a conservative, second-generation Christian televangelist who has a history of opposing LGBTQ rights.

Some of you may remember that Graham got negative press treatment this time a year ago for setting up a tent in Central Park that had the temerity to treat COVID-19 patients. Largely ignored was the fact that a local health organization, Mount Sinai Health System, contracted with Graham to set up the tent. Most reports in the local media made it sound like it was as if Adolf Hitler had set up shop.

Despite his organization’s policy that only the caregivers, not the recipients of care, affirm centuries of Christian doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman, Graham was demonized as an anti-gay bigot. He couldn’t win; if he didn’t help out, he was neglecting the masses; if he did, he was imposing his beliefs on others.

I am curious if the Seattle Times reporter read this New York Times interview with Graham that said that New York City’s Commission on Human Rights found no evidence that Graham had discriminated against patients and included a link from the editor of a Jewish publication slamming local politicians for their own bigotry.

Now we’re moving the media-bias battle to Seattle. Back to the Times:

The email to SPD employees was sent by the department’s Wellness Unit after being approved by the unit’s lieutenant, according to the original email.

Diaz sent his own department-wide email just after 4:30 p.m. Friday and a message was posted on the department’s online blotter, stating that based on “Graham’s history and affiliations,” concerns had been raised that SPD does not fully support the community’s LGBTQ members.

The article then runs through the usual PR comments by various police officials, a withering quote by Seattle City Council President M. Lorena González (thanks to the council’s defund-the-police actions, a record number of 144 officers have left in the past year), an angry police officer (no doubt the source for the email being forwarded to the Times), an openly gay police officer and so on.

As someone who lives in the Seattle suburbs, the hypocrisy of it all stuns me. Here’s a city that’s overrun with homeless, whose tents are smack in the middle of major tourist attractions (like the city’s gorgeous waterfront), plus crime is surging and even Amazon is decamping for neighboring Bellevue and the media-friendly culture warriors are upset about this?

The police officers are telling local TV stations they are refusing to work for “this socialist city council” and when an outside organization tries to hold an appreciation dinner for the stoic officers who remain, the best the Seattle Times can do is a one-sided report?

Contrasted to the five sources that trashed Graham and his organization, the Times ran no balancing quotes from any local leaders who would offer an opposing point of view.

A sentence saying that Graham’s group didn’t answer an email sent the day before doesn’t cut it. The sponsoring Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is based in Charlotte, N.C., which is three time zones ahead of Seattle. The chances are good that the email arrived too late for anyone in charge to take a look.

Plus, when the reporter can’t find a quote from a prime source, she’s supposed to look for one from a secondary source. Evangelical organizations and churches do exist in Seattle and I can’t believe she couldn’t find a pastor in one of them who could have offered some kind of defense for Graham. Sadly, the Times did away with its religion beat years ago, so apparently the newsroom has no one with the local religious contacts.

Hint: There are plenty of evangelical organizations in town: (World Relief, Union Gospel Mission, Seattle Pacific University, Northwest University for starters) who’ve got talking heads. Start cultivating them.

To get right to the point: The Fellowship of Christian Peace Officers has a Seattle affiliate. I found a contact name and phone number in less than 30 seconds.

Plus, Graham himself recorded a video several months ago explaining why he wants to do these police appreciation dinners in places like Seattle, Portland and Kenosha, Wisc. Surely, a quote could have been lifted from that.

But no. Here we see “Kellerism,” a term created by a GetReligion reader after former New York Times editor Bill Keller implied in a speech there’s no need for balance or fairness when the reporting is about morality, culture, religion, etc. You can read the Keller quotes for yourself right here.

To find the other side of the story, I didn’t need to look much harder than this column by KTTH Radio show host Jason Rantz, who said that Gonzalez’ anti-cop views were at the base of it all. He said in part:

Gonzalez frames her concern over LGBTQ issues, calling out Graham’s religious views as anti-gay. But her concerns are contrived. This is about getting in the way of supporting police officers. In the process, she wins some plaudits from anti-police activists upset she hasn’t done enough to abolish the police.

The event is free for law enforcement officers. It offers appreciation for the work law enforcement does in a city where the Council and a loud activist community turn cop-hating into a sport. It’s also religious in nature, as the invite promises an “uplifting message, encouraging and practical wisdom from God’s Word, live music, and fellowship with other law enforcement officers.”

But because of its religious nature, and Graham’s religious objection to gay marriage, Gonzalez feigned outrage.

Now what the Times and the above column did add is that the event was sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, not by Franklin Graham’s organization Samaritan’s Purse. Yes, the younger Graham signed the invite, but that was his only involvement. But folks out here in western Washington are going to punish him if that’s the last thing they do. The dinner will occur in mid-May and The Stranger, a local lefty site, is encouraging folks to bring their cameras and take photos of whichever police officers decide to attend.

But hey, doxxing is OK when the group is related to Franklin Graham.

I get that journalists can’t help the craziness that reigns in the Emerald City at present. But when it comes to reporting on something like this, at least try — try to include an opposing point of view. Show some respect for people on both sides of public debates. It’s called “journalism.”

I know it’s a stretch. But it can be done. Trust me.


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Sex ed bill in Washington state gets lots of boos but where was the religious community?

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To think from all the photos of the embattled Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee earlier in March, one would think he was locked in a 24-hour battle for the life of his state’s 7.8 million residents. Inslee was seen everywhere as trying to abait a virus whose national epicenter – for about two weeks – was near Seattle.

But Inslee had other pots on the fire that almost no one was reporting on including a bill that mandates sex education for all public school students in Washington state.

Religious folks were very involved in opposing it, but you would have never known that fact by looking at the sparse news coverage.

A story on MyNorthwest.com, the print version of KIRO TV Ch. 7 in Seattle tells us the basics. It’s dated March 7.

A controversial sex education bill was passed by the Washington State Legislature Saturday afternoon.

Despite a passionate fight from Republicans — who at one point added over 200 amendments in the hopes of keeping the bill requiring comprehensive sex health education from coming up for a vote — the legislation cleared its final hurdle and passed in the Senate.

Now, I am not sure why the story doesn’t mention a floor debate that went on until 2 a.m. about the bill with Republicans talking about thousands of emails flooding their inboxes (like close to 5,000) against the bill.


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Another Salvation Army story: This time, Nordstrom's dumps its famous bellringer

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The Salvation Army is the world’s largest social services provider, serving 23 million individuals a year. It is a venerable organization here in Seattle, active for at least 50 years, with bell ringers all over the city and surrounding suburbs.

Lately, it’s been clashing with the department store empire Nordstroms; it too a Seattle institution that was founded in 1901.

The Army’s been having a bad month PR-wise after the fast food giant Chick-fil-A announced it would no longer donate to them, ostensibly because both organizations have gotten a bad rap from homosexual groups. The Army’s been denying left and right that it discriminates, but the knives are out and what better place than liberal Seattle to wield them?

So The Seattle Times ran this on Christmas Eve:

For 19 years, 85-year-old Dick Clarke has raised money for The Salvation Army during the holiday season — 18 of them ringing a bell beside a red kettle for donations outside Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle store. He loved the conversations and the feeling of giving back through the more than $100,000 he collected. He volunteered five days a week, six hours a day.

“The best thing I like about Thanksgiving is the next day I go to work,” said the retired teacher and principal.

Or that’s how he used to feel. This year, Nordstrom told The Salvation Army it would no longer allow solicitation in front of its doors.

Beyond stating that policy, Nordstrom spokeswoman Jennifer Tice Walker did not answer questions about the change. But Clarke said he was told in a meeting last week with head of stores Jamie Nordstrom that LGBTQ employees said The Salvation Army’s presence made them uncomfortable.

Apparently this decision was made several weeks ago.

Why the Times didn’t get around to printing this until now is a mystery. Maybe it just had “Christmas Story” written all over it. And how many uncomfortable Nordstrom’s employees are we talking about here? One? Five? Ten?


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San Francisco Chronicle's piece on RVs and the homeless is latest look at huge trend

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I never knew there was a hidden population of people in church parking lots across the country. Then I read a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about how some congregations were helping alleviate a crisis of homelessness on the West Coast.

It makes sense, actually. Most days a week, church parking lots are pretty much empty.

I thought the Chronicle’s story was unique until I did a search and found out that church parking lots-and-the-homeless have been covered quite a bit. KTVU, a local TV station, covered the same topic a month ago. Here's the Chronicle's piece:

Last year, Arnell Clark and his girlfriend, Mataele Robertson, moved their young family out of an East Palo Alto house because they could no longer afford the rent. The couple figured they’d get more room in a 34-foot recreational vehicle.

But the stigma hit hard. When they were renters, neighbors used to say hi. But in an RV on the street, “we’re invisible,” said 39-year-old Clark, a laid-off package handler. “It’s the unspoken that tells me how you feel.”

The solution: moving to a church parking lot. For months the couple have stationed their RV in the lots of local churches. They are currently on the East Palo Alto property of St. Samuel Church of God in Christ, an arrangement that Clark finds a blessing…

With no end in sight to soaring housing costs, several Bay Area faith organizations have become a sanctuary of sorts -- not just channeling donations and distributing food, but also offering a safe place for people living in cars or RVs. The arrangement has sometimes grated on neighbors, but for pastors, it’s simply an extension of their mission to serve humanity.

The newspaper offers a list of churches -– mainly in Silicon Valley -– that are letting either RVs or people sleeping in their cards take up space in their lots.

The "Safe Parking" sign that introduces this post is from Morgan Hill Bible Church that's well to the south of San Jose. Back to the feature itself:


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Clueless in Seattle: Gay lawyer's lawsuit prompts no serious questions for reporters

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Union Gospel Mission is probably Seattle’s most venerable charity. Starting with the Great Depression, it has an 85-year history with the Emerald City especially in terms of its help with the homeless and the addicted.

Also known as UGM, the mission has done the dirty week of patrolling the streets, helping clear homeless encampments and serving a city where homelessness grew by 7.3 percent last year. Seattle is third in the nation (behind New York and Los Angeles) in numbers of homeless even though it’s the 20th largest city in the country.

But no one seemed to figure out until recently that the “Gospel” in Union Gospel Mission meant the organization may have religious and moral standards for its employees. That is, until a gay lawyer tried to get a job there.

I’ll start with the Seattle Times account of what happened next, partly because it’s fairly long and it’s written by Christine Willmsen, who was one of the young reporters I oversaw as city editor of the Daily Times in Farmington, N.M. more than 20 years ago.

A bisexual Christian man is suing Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission after it refused to hire him because of his sexual orientation.
Union Gospel Mission, which has provided addiction recovery, one-on-one counseling, emergency shelter and legal support services for homeless people in King County since 1932, says employees must live by a “Biblical moral code.”
When a staff attorney position opened in October 2016 for the nonprofit, religion-based organization, mission volunteer Matthew Woods was encouraged to apply, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in King County Superior Court.
But as he started the application process, he disclosed he was in a same-sex relationship. David Mace, Union Gospel Mission’s managing attorney, told Woods, “sorry you won’t be able to apply,” because the Employee Code of Conduct prohibits homosexuality, the lawsuit says.

But Woods didn’t give up, deciding that a state law prohibiting job discrimination because of sexual orientation was more than enough ground to base a lawsuit on. Seattlepi.com explained how Union Gospel’s requirements for the job automatically excluded him.


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Arlene's Flowers vs. Washington state: This religious liberty battle keeps on going

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Unfortunately, I missed quite the event in my back yard on Tuesday: A hearing before the Washington State Supreme Court on what’s known as the “Arlene’s Flowers case.” Seated in an auditorium about seven miles from where I live, legal teams in argued the crucial church-state case, Robert Ingersoll & Curt Freed v. Arlene's Flowers, Inc.

I’ve covered the saga of Baronelle Stutzman before in GetReligion, so please click on that link to refresh your memories about the mainstream press coverage of what led to the lawsuit as well as what certainly appears to be the animus that the local American Civil Liberties Union and State Attorney General Bob Ferguson have against this florist.

Outside the auditorium where the hearing was held, there were a lot of pro-Stutzman demonstrators clamoring for her; an unusual sight in this bluest of blue states. The Tri-City Herald, a daily in eastern Washington that’s Stutzman’s hometown newspaper had the best reporting on the hearing, so I’ll start with that: 

BELLEVUE  -- Hundreds packed a college theater Tuesday to hear arguments in the case of a Richland flower shop and the same-sex couple who say they were discriminated against when the owner refused to make arrangements for their wedding.
Barronelle Stutzman, who owns Arlene’s Flowers, cited her relationship with Jesus Christ when she turned down the request of longtime customer Robert Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed.
On Tuesday, after 3 1/2 years of legal wrangling, Stutzman, Ingersoll and Freed found themselves seated in the front row before the state Supreme Court.


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Transgender, God and grovel: The Seattle Times outs a popular chef

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Covering the transgender bathroom/showers debates has created a few conundrums for the folks here at GetReligion in that we tend to comment on pieces in which religion is a factor or there’s a “ghost;” where religion should be a factor but the reporter –- or editors –- have left it out.

A lot of folks involved in these debates do so for religious reasons, but those reasons aren't often spelled out and instead, as my colleague Bobby Ross has reported, the debate devolves into journalists simply labeling folks "anti-LBGT.".

One side of the debate does seem to get demonized. This case study concerns a Seattle Times food critic who outed a local chef who happens to be providing some of the stadium food available during Seattle Seahawks games.

The chef, known as the “steak king of Seattle,” apparently had a hidden weakness, in that he held unorthodox -- to the new normal -- beliefs on a controversial issue in the public square. Here’s what the Times reporter ran on Wednesday:

Seahawks stadium chef John Howie donated $1,000 to the Washington anti-transgender bathroom group Just Want Privacy in May, and Howie says he also signed a petition opposing transgender bathrooms.
This puts Howie on the opposite side of the issue from Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. On Monday, it was reported that Wilson and singer Ciara moved their wedding out of North Carolina due to that state’s anti-transgender bathroom law. Asked about the report today, Wilson said, “I just believe that Jesus loves all people. That’s honestly what I believe.”
Howie says he’s opposed to transgender bathrooms due to concerns about who could gain access to them. “I think that there’s a chance that the law could be abused by somebody,” he says. “I think somebody who is not transgender, a sex offender, could abuse the law -- somebody who is just out to put themselves into a women’s, or a boys’, bathroom, for that matter.


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